“Imagine if we had allowed foreign entities to control the railroad,” says Benjamin Bergen. “It ultimately wouldn’t allow us to be a sovereign nation.”
For Bergen, president of the Canadian Council of Innovators (CCI), the analogy isn’t hypothetical.
In conversation with Digital Journal at Inventures 2025, he argued that in today’s economy, innovation is foundational to national sovereignty. As Canada’s productivity declines and global power dynamics shift, Bergen is calling for a more coordinated, strategic, and domestic-first innovation policy.
How does one of Canada’s key industry advocates see the future of competitiveness? According to Bergen, if the True North wants to shape its own future, it must own the technologies that define it.
[Watch the interview in full in the video below]
Reframing innovation as sovereignty
In May, the CCI released a new policy framework called Mandate to Innovate, offering 43 recommendations aimed at federal and provincial governments. The initiative connects the dots between innovation policy and long-term national security, giving “innovator-informed” proposals for specific portfolios, including defense, immigration, and health.
Canada is struggling across core economic indicators, Bergen explains, including declining GDP per capita and a shrinking number of global headquarters. He warns this decline will worsen unless Canada builds globally competitive firms that are also domestically rooted.
“Our premise is that we have to have a few areas where we’re world leaders and we really can participate in the economy that’s going on,” he says. “Otherwise we’ll find ourselves in a much more difficult situation.”
He points to the Netherlands, whose leadership in semiconductor manufacturing equipment gives it geopolitical leverage.
“That’s the kind of space that we as Canadians need to get ourselves into,” says Bergen. “Where we have forms of technology and expertise that are so vital that fundamentally, it gives us a real edge to participate in global conversations.”
[Watch the interview in full in the video below]
Building an economy that backs its own
Bergen draws a line between Canada’s stated innovation ambitions and the realities of its policies. He sees a mismatch between where taxpayer dollars go and which companies actually benefit.
In particular, he highlights procurement and government funding as areas in need of reform.
“Procurement is the biggest economic driver that we can actually use,” he says. “Ask any company or CEO. They would much rather a purchase order than a grant or a subsidy.”
Specifically, Bergen is critical of large subsidies awarded to multinational firms, noting that Canadian taxpayers often end up supporting foreign-owned technologies.
“All that’s essentially being hired for is labour,” he says. “No Canadians own any of those actual technologies that are being deployed.”
Bergen says he believes governments should be using public dollars to help domestic firms scale, and procurement reform would have immediate commercial impact.
He also noted that for many Canadian firms, securing a domestic government contract opens doors to global markets.
“A purchase order builds a business, you can take it to the bank,” he says. “If our own government isn’t going to buy their solution, why should another government around the world?”
[Watch the interview in full in the video below]
Talent, capital, and the future of productivity
Bergen also addressed Canada’s ongoing talent exodus, citing taxes, limited access to capital, and policy uncertainty pushing entrepreneurs and skilled workers elsewhere.
“The cap gains issue that happened last year…really hurt the ecosystem in a big way,” he says. “It was becoming too difficult to raise capital. It was becoming too difficult to find highly skilled workers.”
He argues that policy choices must support not just values but outcomes.
Pointing to the Strategic Innovation Fund as a missed opportunity, he says that a significant portion of its funding has gone to foreign multinationals operating in Canada instead of supporting domestic firms.
“The value structure is there,” he says. “The question is, now, can we build the economic framework to match it?”
That includes clear roadmaps for technology adoption. Bergen called for a whole-of-government approach to artificial intelligence, stressing that productivity gains from AI depend on domestic uptake.
“If you don’t even have a roadmap of how you’re going to be able to use data from a commercialization perspective, and what that roadmap looks like over a period of time,” he says. “It becomes really hard to make decisions about where you want to sort of spend your time and energy as a company.”
[Watch the interview in full in the video below]
A message to governments and innovators alike
When asked what one message he’d deliver to government leaders, Bergen didn’t hesitate.
“Have a relationships with innovators,” he said, arguing that strong ecosystems are built through constant collaboration between policymakers and the private sector.
“That sounds real simple,” he continues. “But figuring out how you relate to the folks that are actually building companies…is how all successful jurisdictions do it.”
To Canadian entrepreneurs who are tired of waiting, his advice was equally direct. He urged them to stay involved in shaping policy, pointing to global tech giants like Amazon that engage deeply with government.
“For me, democracy is a verb… it’s something that you do,” says Bergen, adding that ecosystems are created. “They’re actually built through regulations and public policy that are influenced by those that show up.”
His broader message to Canadians is that these issues affect everyone.
Bergen links innovation and household prosperity, warning that Canada’s economic position is slipping relative to peers.
“You might not think this impacts you, but it impacts you,” he says. “You’re getting poorer because we’re not figuring out how to do things more efficiently and more effectively.”
That’s why, for Bergen and the CCI, innovation is about more than startups or new tech. It’s about sovereignty, resilience, and what kind of country Canada wants to be in the decades to come.
Watch the interview:
