In this episode, I’m in Calgary with one of the top economists and big picture thinkers in Canada, Jack Mintz, President’s Fellow of the School of Public Policy at the University of Calgary, Order of Canada recipient as well as recipient of the Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Medal in economics, and recently recognized by Who’s Who Legal as one of the top global experts on corporate taxation since 2016, and in this exclusive interview I catch up with my former Rotman economics prof and talk productivity, risk and opportunity to the Canadian economy, and what and how retailers should be thinking about the economy now and in the future.
Welcome to the The Voice of Retail , I’m your host Michael LeBlanc, and this podcast is brought to you in conjunction with Retail Council of Canada.
In this episode, I’m in Calgary with one of the top economists and big picture thinkers in Canada, Jack Mintz, President’s Fellow of the School of Public Policy at the University of Calgary, Order of Canada recipient as well as recipient of the Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Medal in economics, and recently recognized by Who’s Who Legal as one of the top global experts on corporate taxation since 2016, and in this exclusive interview I catch up with my former Rotman economics prof and talk productivity, risk and opportunity to the Canadian economy, and what and how retailers should be thinking about the economy now and in the future.
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Michael LeBlanc
Welcome to The Voice of Retail. I'm your host Michael LeBlanc. This podcast is brought to you in conjunction with Retail Council of Canada. In this episode, I'm in Calgary, with one of the top economists and big picture thinkers in Canada, Jack Mintz. Pesident's Fellow of the School of Public Policy at the University of Calgary, Order of Canada recipient as well as Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Medal. And in this exclusive interview, I catch up with my former Rotman economics Prof, and talk productivity, risk and opportunity in the Canadian economy, and what and how retailers should be thinking about the economy now and into the future.
Jack Mintz
If you look across all OECD countries and the what are called the BRIC countries, like Brazil, Russia, India and China. You look at all those countries, you see that Canada is one of four countries that from, since 2015 to 2019, this is before the pandemic hit, 2020 year actually had negative growth in investment. And that's, that's quite serious. We're going to be, that's, that's going to be that will have an important impact on our productivity, which also during, when you include 2020, that's the other thing I showed is that per capita GDP growth was actually negative.
Michael LeBlanc
Let's listen in now.
Jack, welcome to The Voice of Retail podcast. So nice to hear your voice.
Jack Mintz
Oh, thank you very much.
Michael LeBlanc
So not only are you an esteemed an economist, but you were my professor at University of Toronto. So as I said, it's so great to hear your voice, and many of my alumni that I keep in touch with, wanted me to say hello so. And thank you for being such a great Prof, they all think of you so well, and so again, a treat to have you on the podcast.
Jack Mintz
Well, it's my pleasure.
Michael LeBlanc
Well, we've jumped right in and tell us a little bit about yourself. Let's start there, your journey, your focus, what you do, and what you teach at University of Calgary now.
Jack Mintz
Well actually, I have a varied life these days. But I started off teaching at Queen's University in economics from 1978 to 89. And then I went to the University of Toronto and joined the, what is now called the Rotman School of Business, but I also had a joint appointment with economics, and I kept teaching my field, which is public economics, theory of government expenditure and taxation particularly. And then, I, at Rotman School, I had fun teaching classes like yours, micro-economics, and some other areas like tax, policy, which I do enjoy doing. And I was at University of Toronto until 1989, when, there from 89 to 2007, when University of Calgary asked me to come and start the new school of public policy, which I did.
But during that period I, before going there, I ran the C.D. Howe Institute for seven years from 1999 to 2006. I was also the Clifford Clark Visiting Economists. I did a major study in corporate tax reform for Paul Martin and David Dodge, who was then the Deputy Minister of Finance. Paul Martin was of course, was the Minister of Finance. And so I had that kind of experience. But I think when I went to run the C.D. Howe Institute to kind of a whole new world opened up for me because I not only did my academic job, they always kept my foot in academic life all through my life. But I also started being invited to join various corporate boards, including Brookfield Asset Management, CC Helicopter, Morneau Shepell, and I'm still on the board of Imperial Oil. And, I keep publishing, and in fact, one of the things I do these days is I write weekly for The Financial Post, my op eds.
Michael LeBlanc
Well, they're great articles. And, and you know, as I think of you, my sense of you initially was, as you said, really based on on corporate tax and tax structure has been a narrow sense. But through your writing, and, and just watching your career progression. you've, you've really built that to the intersection of tax, the economy, and importantly, productivity. Tell us, tell us just how those things come together right now, and your general observations about the Canadian economy.
Jack Mintz
Well, actually, you know, my career was really based on public economics so, tax, corporate taxation was part of it. I think, I think the reason for that was my PhD thesis was actually a public, private mixed enterprises. These are companies that were partly owned by governments, and there was a state of mixed enterprises created back in the 1970s. It was very interesting, this whole issue has now come back, as we've seen with Chinese state-owned enterprises starting to sell off part of their shares to the market to like in Hong Kong and New York. Some of that done to discipline managers, but for you know, but for various reasons.
Michael LeBlanc
Is that what I would, is that what I would call a crown corporation? is that, is that the same thing?
Jack Mintz
Yeah, crown corporation, state owned enterprises. So, actually, my whole, I actually used to teach industrial organization at Queen's University, not just public economics. So, I always had a very strong interest in, in business and in, and in issues of productivity. Because productivity of courses is, doesn't depend just on taxation issues, but also regulation, and how good your workforce is, and how you deal with your customers and all sorts of other things. So it's, it's a very, it's a very good area to be involved in.
And because of that, because of that, interest of mine, of course, productivity was a natural thing. And naturally, part of the work that I did is, is to focus on one of the reasons that causes some countries to be more productive than others. Productive, if you measure it in terms of labor productivity, is simply the amount of output produced for every working hour. And, and so I got very interested particularly in international things. Because I used to do a lot of work for the World Bank and IMF and the OECD. So I traveled to a lot of countries, worked in a lot of different countries. And so the topic of productivity really struck me as an interesting one, because one wants to understand why is it that some countries are richer than other countries? And people seem to prosper more in some countries compared to other countries.
Michael LeBlanc
I mean, the average citizen would sit back and say, you know, Canada's a prosperous country, we lead a good life by many measures. But you have concerns about our productivity. And in my mind, productivity is also a benchmark for the future, and future lifestyle, and, and the way we live. So, would tell me about how you're thinking about productivity in Canada right now?
Jack Mintz
Well, you know, we've had historically, you know, we are a relatively rich country. We're not the richest. And we've had, we've always lagged the United States, are our most important trading partner, in terms of our incomes, per capita. You know, whatever measure you want, want to use, their standard of living has always been somewhat lower than the United States. But, but certainly, you know, nothing like third world countries that I worked in. You know, that, you know, certainly Canada has a lot to be proud of. But there are points where we end up start lagging behind the US even more. And it does create certain problems, for example, brain drain, like when our dollar falls, and people's salaries in Canada, as we measure them in US dollars are much lower. And so that tends to encourage people to move down to the US, our very best talent. And, and, and also, if we become uncompetitive in export markets, and, and imports can come in more cheaply then we start losing production, and people start losing jobs and things like that.
And, the 1990s, particularly was a very bad decade, in terms of productivity. We actually had one of the slowest growth periods during that period, compared to going back to the Second World War, actually. And in fact, we started slipping quite a bit behind the US. And we started getting brain drain going on. And of course, people were getting quite concerned about that (inaudible) policy, and tariffs. And so that's why this productivity question is really important when I'm worried now. And that's what I've been writing about is that we're once again starting to go starting to slip. We did, we did have a very good decade after 2000. And actually, did quite well, really up to 2015. But the numbers that I show that since 2016, including 2020, is the first time we had a five-year period of negative per capita growth.
Michael LeBlanc
And what are the drivers to that? Like, what's the difference between, you know, is it public policy? Is it exchange rate? Is it taxation? It's complex, but can you highlight a couple of drivers that make us more or less productive over that period of time?
Jack Mintz
Well, this, there's several important drivers. So, first of all, productivity depends on your human capital or the talent that you have. So, the more talent you have, you know, the more entrepreneurial people are and things like that, the better productivity one's going to have. So obviously, education is critical to that.
Then it also depends on capital and capital investment. If you don't invest in capital, you're not buying the latest vintages of capital, the latest technologies, so you are not also moving ahead in terms of innovation. Not just creating ideas, but, but adopting ideas. And so, you start lagging in that way. And, and so capital is pretty important in that sense.
And that's the other thing that I just showed in an article last week, was based on some work, a major paper that we're doing right now. But, if you look across all OECD countries and the what are called the BRIC countries like Brazil, Russia, India and China, look at all those countries, you see that Canada is one of four countries that, from since 2015 to 2019, this is before the pandemic hit 2020 year, had actually had negative growth in investment. And that's, that's quite serious. We're going to be, that's, that's going to be, that will have an important impact on our productivity. Which also during when you include 2020, that's the other thing I showed is that per capita, GDP growth was actually negative for five years. And so our pure our performances in the economy since 2016, 2016 and on has been really quite serious, seriously poor. And, and in fact, we're not getting investment. We're not, we're not adopting new innovations. We're slipping behind United States again, and that's going to show up in (inaudible) down the road.
And that's why I've been kind of trying to sound the horn that we have to wake up and particularly address this huge issue of the lack of business investment. Because our education system is pretty good. We have good talent in this country. Maybe we could have more entrepreneurial talent, because entrepreneurs look for things they do to find things. Like from a province like Alberta that has a great entrepreneurial climate. But, but it's, Canada probably we could do a bit better on that score.
But our big problem right now is a lack of business investment. And, that can continue. And it's not just the oil and gas sector that some people argue about. We've looked at it across all industries, and, and it's been a weak investment performance, except for a couple of industries, transportation and warehousing, quite interestingly, like Amazon would be warehousing.
Michael LeBlanc
And, and other retailers. I mean, Walmart just announced $500 million investments. So retail has been picking up its share, and you know. I know Metro just built a big warehouse. Sobeys did this huge deal with Ocado where they built the state of the art, warehouse. So I think retail's pulling up, it's a, a bit of its share at least from coast to coast,
Jack Mintz
Well, actually, but retail open has actually gone down. But the warehousing and transportation has gone up. Which is, which is signifying the shift from in store purchasing to, to digital purchasing. So, I think, you know, and I think that trend, will we'll probably talk about this later, but that trend will disappear. But the main, and that's fine. But the main point is that we've also had, you know, we've had some growth in professional services and communications, this is all before 2020 hit us. But those two sectors did, did fine in terms of investment. But even manufacturing until 2019, manufacturing was, investments have declined, retail trades down, agriculture is down, you know, quite a few sectors have been down since 2015. So,
Michael LeBlanc
When I think of that period, in terms of attracting talent, I think about, you know, the US was not the most attractive place to go if you were somewhere else in the world, and Canada seemed to be having a good run at it. Is that your perspective as well? I mean, we seem to have an immigration policy over the past that period you're describing that was favorable to innovation, what, what are your thoughts on that?
Jack Mintz
Well, immigration has been good. and Canada has actually had, has had a better immigration policy than, than many countries like compared to Europe and the United States as an example. Because we've tended to, you know, tried to make sure we bring in skilled, skilled workers. But immigrants actually take time to develop themselves when they come to a country. In fact, many studies show that could be a decade before they start hitting their, their potential income so, so it's, so you don't necessarily get a bang right away, but I think it is important. We've been a country of immigrants anyway. And most people will have great-great-great grandfather or grandmother immigrants or, or even later generations, are immigrants, like, my grandparents were immigrants. So, so, you know, there's, there's all you know, there's certainly, you know, it's been a very beneficial thing to the country as a whole on a longer term basis.
But we have to remember that, you know, in a sense, immigration is like an investment. You bring people in, but it might take, take time to support them and to make sure they get into, get to the level that they can get. Which could take some years, it's not something that's done immediately. So, you know, so we, so we've done, we've done well on that.
But our education system has also been very good. I mean, most people get similar type of education up to university. You know, there are some differences, of course, people might face, but across provinces or across neighborhoods and things like that. But our education system, at least, has done relatively well. Although, even then we're starting to slip recently. The OECD Pisa tests, where we're not doing as well in mathematics and in some of the literary skills as we used to do. And, so we have to be careful enough not to start losing what I think a lot of businesses will say are that Canadians are well trained. And, that's not, you know, there's not a big criticism of Canada, when it comes to our education led workforce. It's, you know, we have good human capital in Canada, on the whole.
Where we're weakest is on the, you know, is on the investment side. And so that's why we have to start looking at the various levers that governments have, or whether the things that governments are doing that, that are undermining investment, and therefore, must make a change in their own policies.
Michael LeBlanc
Well, from diagnosis to solution, I was interested to read your latest article on Ireland. As it happens Ireland, the Government of Ireland is a client of mine, the Enterprise Ireland Group, which is the biggest, one of the biggest VC firms in the world. So, I know a lot about Ireland. And, it seems that that's a model that, that worked for that small nation, and are there are there some lessons there for Canada?
Jack Mintz
Oh, absolutely. I mean, the Irish is a, it's a great story about Ireland. I mean, this was the poor cousin of Europe for centuries. I mean, you know, everyone looked at Ireland as, and the British looked down at the Irish themselves. And, you know, Ireland was, you know, used to have am out migration, people moved to Britain, or they moved to United States, Canada, because they couldn't, you know, couldn't do well in Ireland. So they lost their best people. You know, this is historic, that I've seen many countries that I've worked in, that are poor. You know, the, you lose your very best people, they go elsewhere, because you can't provide them the opportunities they would like to have. You know, they went through famines, the Irish and things like that.
And back in, probably the kind of late 60s, the Irish started developing the set of policies, which I would call, supply side policies and demand side for workers. And what I mean by that is, many Irish didn't even get secondary education completed. So, they really made a big effort for people to get their full education up to the end of, of secondary school. And then they made tuition free at post-secondary education institutions in order to upgrade skills as much as, and as quickly as, as possible.
They, but they, but then they also understood that you couldn't just create more workers and create, you don't create more jobs just by educating people because you can educate people, and then they leave the country.
Michael LeBlanc
Then they leave, right.
Jack Mintz
Yes, so that's not very successful,
Michael LeBlanc
Not productive,
Jack Mintz
No it won't succeed at all. So, they created, they had a number of what I would call demand side type policies, of which, you know, there were several them, but one of them is spending money in infrastructure and others were joining the European Union, which gave them access to the European markets, it was very good trade perspective. But I think probably one of the biggest things they did, which really was quite unique, was moving to a very low corporate income tax rate.
It first started off at 10% for manufacturing, financial services, and then over 30% for everyone else, but then they decided to get rid of the differential rates, and just went to 12.5% right across the board. And that actually was one of the big drivers because a lot of international firms looked at Ireland as a very good place to invest.
Michael LeBlanc
Right. Oh yeah, when I drive around, I'm in Dublin, or I used to be in Dublin since the beginning of the pandemic, but you drive around and the names on the buildings are impressive, right. I mean, I don't know if you're on LinkedIn, but my invoice comes from Ireland. I mean, it's it's impressive the amount of work. And, I guess they had the foresight, or luck, something of between, to see Brexit. I think Brexit is, has even put even more topspin on this strategy. What do you think?
Jack Mintz
You don't know, I think, I think the Irish are in very good shape. Now. Of course, they, they messed up the regulatory system for banks and everything. And so, the 2008 financial crisis was very hard in Ireland. In fact, they had several years of very bad growth after that. But they've come back. They're doing, again, they're the fastest growing country in Europe, and they're the fastest growing the OECD. So, and what's amazing in 2020, here, you've had the pandemic here, and everyone talks about China having positive growth, but I was quite surprised when I was reading about Ireland, actually, Ireland have even better GDP growth than China in 2020.
Michael LeBlanc
Wow,
Jack Mintz
Which is remarkable. So, so this country is has done well. And, there are lessons for Canada. And, I think that's what I've been trying to argue for years actually, is that, we have to look at all our policies to try to improve productivity. And it's a combination of things that create more demand for workers, you know, like improving our regulatory system, or corporate and personal tax policies. But then, and we do have good immigration education policies. So, we can always do better, but, but you know, I think those are strengths that we have. But then, but then we have to also look to see if we can make them stronger internal trade market in Canada. We have a lot of provincial barriers to trade. We have, you know, we've done things to try to improve our access to the US, but I think now, that's a more challenging issue going forward.
Michael LeBlanc
And, let's talk about, you and I were talking off mic before the interview about our own personal kind of saving versus spending in the COVID Era. And we've seen this global shock to the economy, I've described it as both a sledgehammer and a shockwave. You know, depending on where you are, as a retailer, depending on what you sold, or where you were, and we see supply chain challenges. Now, governments have taken on a tremendous amount of debt around the world, pretty much. And, it seems like in many industries, and maybe this is the case, from a policy perspective, this is a time for kind of like a clean slate, be adventurous, do new things. So, two-part question, are you concerned about the amount of debt that we've taken on versus the, the savings rate that could lead to future economic prosperity? You know, people aren't spending, they're saving more that creates more open to buy, so that's question one. And then question two, you know, if policies, is this the time? Right, if not now, when, that we leave some policies behind and take on some new initiatives? Give me your thoughts on those two things?
Jack Mintz
Okay, well, first of all, on the debt issue, I mean the governments around the world, right, governments around the world have taken on a lot of new debt. And they did that back in 2008, 9, with the financial crisis. So, this is really the second big turndown we've had in 12, 13 years. So, I think we have to remember that we've gone through some pretty serious recessions. Now, often, when governments take on debt, in the case of the financial crisis, a lot of people also faced debt problems, because of the way financial markets ceased up. The pandemic is a very different story. It's, it's one where people were told to stay home and not work, or not go into work.
Michael LeBlanc
Not got to work, yeah, yeah.
Jack Mintz
You know, and so they had to develop other ways of working. But, but it was a, it was a very different sort of story, it was what I would call a supply shock, unlike the financial crisis that caused the demand shock to the economy. And, so with a supply shock, you know, we're, we're going to come out of it. And I think, I think, I think in terms of, you know, kind of what's left over, one of the big items, of course, is this, is a huge pile of debt that governments have taken on. And, so the question is, how does one deal with this very large debt burden, which may not be too serious of a problem if interest rates keep low. But on the other hand, on the other hand, you know, we could have another crisis down the road, in, within 10 years. So, then you're back into, you know, another ratcheting up of this government debt.
Michael LeBlanc
COVID, COVID 23, or something, you know, who knows what, right.
Jack Mintz
Well, you know, it's, it's, well, we can have another recession for other reasons, too. But, you know, the, the point is, is that we've spent now in Canada, we, you know, we got into very serious financial problems back in the, by the late 1990s, because we ran very large deficits, not even getting enough revenue coming in to cover our program spending, never mind trying to pay off charges on debt, from 1975, to about 1987. And then recessions hit and things like that.
And so, by the time we hit 1990, 93, the bond markets internationally got very nervous over Canadian, Canadian debt, because we are highly indebted to the rest of the world. And so then our interest rates started going up and, and governments were starting to have trouble even selling their bonds, which means you can't, if you can't sell it, and finally, how are you going to pay your people and they're nothing else? And, and that just doesn't affect the government it also affects the private sector. And so we ended up in almost going to the IMF for a hand out, which is exceptional for a G7 country to do that. And, so I think what we did from 1995 on, then started with, you know, Paul Martin at the federal level, but also a lot of the provinces too, really took the bull by the horns and got ourselves into a much better position. So, by 2007, we had a great balance sheet as a country. You know, we got our government debt down our carpet debt wasn't too bad. Household debt was, you know, okay. And so when the financial crisis hit, Canada was okay, because we, we were in a good position then.
Michael LeBlanc
Okay, so Paul, Paul Martin, best Finance Minister ever? Thanks to a few advisors. But that's how I think of them. And you worked with him. And he really, my mind that government and particularly, his leadership, really turned our economic condition around, right.
Jack Mintz
Yeah, well I think that also Chretien deserves a lot of credit too. But, both of them definitely. I mean, Paul Martin was an excellent Minister of Finance.
But, but going on to, you know, the financial crisis did have an impact. We had to increase our debt at that point, but it wasn't too bad. But now we've really going into this pandemic here, we have really spent a lot of money. In fact, government spending is twice more than the revenues that are coming in.
Michael LeBlanc
And we don't have that oil and gas export economy to kind of buttress, right?
Jack Mintz
Yeah, no, no. And the resource sector plays a very important role. Bu, but my main point is that we've really spent her great firepower that we have built up from 1995, to, you know, to, up to the financial crisis. But even after the financial crisis, we, you know, we held the line on spending. We got back to a balanced budget by 2015 at the federal level. Some of the provinces are still having difficulty. But now, now that we're kind of like, I'm really worried that we're going to be repeating those 1970s with a lot of government spending, and very high debt. So, and eventually, if that becomes a problem, it's going to start showing up and kind of being viewed as a credit risk. And so, that's why we have to be mindful of the future.
And we have to be careful. And of course, that means that there's really only three ways of dealing with that debt. One is to inflate the economy. So that debt in nominal terms divided, when you're dividing it by the GDP, that's how you measure the debt burden. Well, if you have inflation, then that will bring down the, the debt, debt burden, because, you know, because debt doesn't grow with prices, but GDP does. So, that makes it easy with the debt burden. And that's what countries used to do in the past. But, they inflate themselves, so that the debt burden but,
Michael LeBlanc
They use a monetary policy to get them out of a tough spot.
Jack Mintz
We didn't do that in 2008, 9. But, but we, but it has been done in years ago. The other is to, is to raise taxes. And of course, that actually didn't happen as much after 2008, 9 across OECD countries. I showed in a in a piece that I did that published in Bloomberg News, a couple months ago, but we had calculated the weighted average tax GDP ratio across all OECD countries. It was kind of interesting that after 2008, 9, there was a drop because of the, you know, because of the recessions that took place, and it took time for taxes to come back. But by the time you hit 2015, the tax GDP ratio was about equal to what it was in 2007, 2006. So, in other words, governments didn't increase taxes as a share of GDP that much. In fact, the way they got their other their fiscal picture in better control was to actually hold down spending, not going too, too, too far long in spending.
So, we're in that period right now, getting into 2021, where governments are going to have three choices. They can try to inflate out of their debt problem. They can raise taxes, which doesn't help recovery very much, in getting people back to work. Or they can, or they can, or they can try to hold the line on government spending and let the economy catch up in a sense. And, so it'll be interesting to see what's going to happen over the next while.
You know, should you do, you know, do things better? I mean, you should always do things better. I mean, first of all, I think people want to get back to one, where they were right. You know, because there are a lot of good things we were doing before it doesn't mean you throw everything out.
But, I think, I think we have to recognize it's going to be some fundamental changes. And this is where its, what's really quite relevant to retail trade. We do think you're, the two things that are going to happen is that people have gotten used to using digital life a lot more. And I think we're gonna see much more penetration of that. And, so I think many, many people in the retail sector are gonna have to think about that. Because, I think that's where things have gone. And we're gonna have to accept that.
But the other change, I think that's occurred is that, although I think it gets exaggerated, but I do expect that there's going to be a certain portion of the workforce, more of it, that's going to be working at home, or at least part of the time, or, or, if not, the whole time, but more part of the time, there'll be more flexible working arrangements. This will have a big impact, in large cities like Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver, where people are going to go less downtown. And of course, that's going to be not good for the retailers. And we're already seeing people wanting to move to the larger spaces, they could work at home. And so, they're moving to suburbs. So, the core part of cities, I think, are going to be affected. And I think that will have an impact on retailers in the core parts of cities.
Michael LeBlanc
Well, they're already thinking about it. And they're thinking about it in two ways. We know from experience and from watching over the past year that work from home means more e-commerce, because people are at home more. So that's, that's one plus one equals two. And the upside, I mean, there's, the what, some part is, is transformation, the other part is upside is that more local retail, you know, more local, more main street more, you know, shopping more where you live, because you live work and play in the same place. So, for retailers are kind of sanguine about that. And in other words, you know, okay, so I'm going to close a couple of stores downtown, but I'll open the stores in the suburbs, you know, I'll just go where the people are. And
Jack Mintz
Yeah, no, I think that's exactly the way you should think, in fact, I think malls could end up changing to a certain degree, they're going to provide a lot more services than just simply selling goods.
Michael LeBlanc
Yeah, well, you know, the biggest, the biggest opportunity for malls as we think about it in the retail trade, there's a bunch of them. But taking returns, as something as simple as returns, you know, as e-commerce goes up, returns goes up, that's a natural and natural thing. And, but returns is a pain point for consumers. And convenient returns are a beautiful thing. And,
Jack Mintz
Yeah, I'm even thinking of also, you know, if I want to go to my doctor, I want to go to my dentist, I want to go to my gym, I want to, I'll probably want to go to a neighborhood place. You know, because I won't be going downtown to work that much. I want to be, I want to go somewhere close by. And that's where I think models could end up being like small community centers for many parts of large cities.
Michael LeBlanc
Well, and, and already, you know, this trend in the before time was malls that were going to become live, workplace, shop, you saw, you know, massive housing developments on an in around malls, and then you had their food courts transforming into food districts. So, these things are already happening. And then who knows, it could, it could put more topspin on that.
So, listen we have a great conversation. Last couple of quick questions for you. So, I can't have you on the mic without asking you a brief conversation about this current events, you know, the Bitcoin is, is that a legitimate currency? It seems more and more every day. These NFT's that just seems like Dutch bulbs all over again to me but, I don't know, is it a trip to Vegas? Or is it, is it financial economic innovation?
Jack Mintz
I think we'll have to see here, you know whether cryptocurrency is going to become a store of value. I mean, right now with the sharp changes in the value that mean people are going to be very cautious about trying to use that compared to something like money.
Michael LeBlanc
Buy your next Tesla, I guess.
Jack Mintz
Yeah, well,
Michael LeBlanc
Hit the right day, right.
Jack Mintz
I read an article that Tesla buyers are finding that all of a sudden, they can, you know, they, because of the shifts in the value that you know that they could be stuck with it the big cost in addition to the cost of the car,
Michael LeBlanc
Imagine, suddenly, your car, suddenly your cart costs twice as much money the next day that you thought.
Jack Mintz
Yeah, exactly, so, that's why I don't think right now, cryptocurrencies are not going to be a store of value unless, unless somehow one can come up with one that could be fairly stable price and trustworthy. But, it doesn't mean that, you know, people may want to look at potential uses of it, you know, for purchasing things, or whatever. But, I think it's as a stored of value, it's going to have a difficult time doing that.
On the other hand, I think financial innovations are going to come in like open banking and things like that. Canada's gonna be very slow in that regard. And that's because we have a financial system that's dominated by five banks. And they control the payment system. And they also control the ability for us to move it open banking. And that's why you're seeing open banking open, moving much faster in other countries than Canada because it's, it's very hard to get around the dominance of the five banks in Canada. In, when it comes to financial markets.
Michael LeBlanc
Well let's, we'll see. Maybe we'll check in when the Bank of Canada announces a digital loonie or something, maybe that'll be the currency that, digital currency that takes it over the top and Canada.
But listen, where can listeners go to, you mentioned you, you write a weekly article in the National Post so they can find more about your writings there. Anywhere else they should go to, to keep track of what you're thinking on any given day.
Jack Mintz
Well, I, you know, I do write a lot, but, you know, you'll find my longer papers I have in the School of Public Policy, University of Calgary research paper series. I also have papers to come out through, recently, one lthis past year at C.D. Howe Institute, another one coming out soon. And also Macdonald-Laurier Institute on Distinguished Fellow there as well as Senior Fellow with the C.D. Howe Institute.
So, and I recently put out a paper with a couple of people on the clean fuel regulation and why was redundant to the carbon tax, and why are we trying to set up this very elaborate, costly system on top of a carbon tax. It just does, doesn't make a lot of sense. And so, you know, so you'll find this various things I've been reading on them. And those are three places where you may find some longer pieces that I write. Because (inaudible) are just 900 words. So you can't really develop them in the way that you know, I would like to normally But,
Michael LeBlanc
Well, I let's, let's talk about the other direction. Is there a book coming Jack?
Jack Mintz
Well, we did have a, I did edit a book on, called, 'Moment of Truth' with Tom Flanagan and Ted Morton on Alberta's future. It's available from South, Sutherland House. And, I do have an idea for another book I want to write, not on Alberta, but on something else that I probably will get to in the next year or two.
Michael LeBlanc
All right, well, we'll get you back on the podcast for the big launch. Look forward it.
Jack Mintz
It may be a while anyway.
Michael LeBlanc
Well, listen, Jack, so great to have you on the podcast. Great to hear your voice again as such great respect and fond memories of our, of our time when you taught me and, at Rotman. And again, thanks for spending, spending some time with me on The Voice of Retail podcast.
Jack Mintz
My pleasure. Thank you.
Michael LeBlanc
Thanks for tuning into today's episode of The Voice of Retail. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast so you don't miss out on the latest episodes, industry news and insights. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a rating and review as it really helps us grow so that we continue to get amazing guests onto the show. I'm your host Michael LeBlanc, President of M.E. LeBlanc Company Inc. And if you're looking for more content or want to chat, follow me on LinkedIn. Visit my website at meleblanc.co. Until next time, stay safe and have a great week.