The Conference Board of Canada says the federal government needs to get out of the way of Chinese investment in the oil sands.
In a new report, the Board says Chinese investments would be good for the country, but the current review process for foreign investment is too vague and complicated, and scares off investors.
It suggests modeling Canada’s system after Australia, which gets three times the Chinese investment as Canada.
It says Canada’s share of foreign investment globally has fallen from 16 percent in 1970 to just 3 percent recently.
It says to get more Chinese money into sectors like the oil sands, the government should simplify the rules and just require that any investment be in the national interest, and not a security risk.
Published July 6, 2012
