You can always find someone to get upset about the degree of foreign investment in a given industry or in the economy as a whole. Stephen Gordon explains why you shouldn’t worry so much about it:
If you’re the sort of person who is suspicious of foreigners’ controlling assets located in Canada, and if you equate ownership with control, then you can reach the conclusion that foreign ownership = foreign control = bad without much effort. And since net international investment positions are zero-sum, this sort of analysis would lead you to conclude that Canada is ‘losing’ this game of ‘control’.
Much as I enjoy stomping on the second part of that syllogism, this post is going to take a closer look at the first part: the link between ownership and control is not the same for all forms of foreign ownership. In the case of FDI, decisions are made by the head office in the home country. But FDI is only one mechanism by which foreigners can send their saving to Canada; they can also buy shares in Canadian-registered corporations, or buy bonds issued by Canadian firms or governments.
