Instead of FIRA: Autonomy for Canadian Subsidiaries?

Kenneth M. Glazier was Chief Librarian Emeritus at the University of Calgary, Alberta.

On the day this book arrived for review, the Report on Business in the Globe and Mail had as its lead article “Replacing FIRA may not attract investors.” This is a different story from what the Mulroney government told us when they changed the name to Investment Canada. The name has changed but not the essential game. How can Canada maintain some control over foreign investment and thus preserve a corporate structure that will have the interests of Canadians first?

That is why this treatise by Samuel Wex is so pertinent; his background as an international lawyer and as adjunct professor of international law and international affairs makes him eminently qualified to write it. The support of the Institute for Research on Public Policy indicates the standard of the research. The primary concern is the relationship between foreign parents and their Canadian subsidiaries. It is expected that if the suggestions made in this publication were adopted, Canadian subsidiaries would be better able to restore Canadian competitiveness in the international market for manufactured goods. One of the reasons that the competitiveness has been slipping is that the Canadian manufacturing component of a parent U.S. or other multinational corporation is not permitted the freedom to make decisions about research and development, about product lines, and about exporting on the world market.

Robert Blair, President of Nova, wrote recently in considering some of the benefits of FIRA that “the United States has the biggest and best FIRA in the world, called the Congress.” This book will provide its readers with some of the reasons why Canadians need a similar entity to protect Canadians from any further loss of their economic independence.