Ambitious Canada Part 2: The Current Ideas are Boring

Over the years, I’ve been invited to the rooms where Canada’s future is discussed. The conversation is usually the same. We talk about what Canada can do to secure it’s future in innovation, venture funding, competitiveness, and (now) AI.

Suggestions are made, policy documents are written.

Then, five years later, we get together and have the exact same conversation.

Because nothing has fundamentally changed. The needle hasn’t moved.

Today, a new group of leaders has the microphone, proposing their own solutions. I’ve listened to the pitches, and I have to be blunt: the ideas are boring.

The “Will It Save The Country?” Test

I like to judge every new proposal with one simple question: “Will this fundamentally change our country’s trajectory?”

• Will tweaking a tax 8% one way or another save us?
• Will telling people to “be more ambitious” do anything?
• Will removing this or that niche regulation alter our path?

The answer is no. We can do all of those things people are proposing, and in five years, we’ll be back in the same room, wondering why we’re still falling behind.

This is the trap of incrementalism. When you’re facing a huge problem, a minor tune-up is a waste of time. If you agree that the problem is fundamental, we need to alter the fundamentals.

Where Are the Audacious Ideas?

Ok so we need inspirational, revolutionary ideas. So why aren’t we hearing any?

I can only guess:

• Have our leaders become too successful on the status quo? When you have a lot to lose, you stop making big bets and start protecting what you have.
• Are we asking the wrong people? Maybe the people who propose initiatives under the title of “builders” are mostly business people who have built their fortunes on monetizing the work of builders.
• Are they afraid? Maybe they have bold ideas but are too scared to say them out loud, fearing they’ll be called radical or unserious.
• Are we too fragmented?" As society becomes more polarized, we start joining teams and start believing that solutions come from pointing the finger at “the other side”.
• Maybe the interesting people weren’t invited? People become uninteresting when they live in a bubble, out of touch. Who knows? Maybe the system rewards rooms filled with boring people with boring ideas?

Whatever the reason, the result is a massive ambition gap. We lack the kind of inspiring, world-changing ideas that capture the public’s imagination and motivate a new generation.

Timid proposals will not work. To build a future where Canada leads, our ideas can’t be safe. They can’t just be interesting to our niche inside group of peers. They need to be audacious. They need to feel almost impossible – almost crazy.

Anything less is a plan to fail slowly.

Let’s be crazy together.

But whatever we do, please, please… at least let’s not be boring.