Sixth Estate panel discusses the case of the missing $30B in Canadian chemistry

On the Sixth Estate’s Before the Bell panel discussion Thursday, March 21 CIAC President and CEO, Bob Masterson presented the case of the missing $30 billion in Canada’s economy due to missing out on chemistry sector investment opportunities – even though Canada has a lot of the fundamentals in place.

“The Canadian chemical sector has not seen the same level of global investment that the Americans have, even though Canada has a lot of the fundamentals in place. We have all the ingredients to succeed,” Mr. Masterson told host Catherine Clark. “They will benchmark Canada as their next investment, and then they sell that against other jurisdictions, and we always lose.”

Mr. Masterson noted that about $15 billion had been found through recently announced major investments in Alberta and Ontario, with the provinces doing the heavy lifting to attract new investment in the sector. Major investments of note were by Canada Kuwait Petrochemical Corporation, Inter Pipeline, NOVA Chemical and Nauticol Energy.

Mr. Masterson was joined by Ihor Korbabicz, executive director of Abacus Data, Goldy Hyder, president and CEO of the Business Council of Canada, Aniket Bhushan, adjunct professor at Carleton University, Ian McKay, CEO of Invest in Canada.