The Globe and Mail scores another meaningless scoop

A worrisome trend at the national paper of record: first this, and now yet another pointless article  congratulating itself for making use of the Access to Information Act to get information that was already well-known, but apparently not well-understood:

Ottawa urged to push foreign takeovers; Outside investment has a 'net benefit,' internal files suggest:
Federal officials have told Industry Minister Maxime Bernier that Ottawa should encourage more foreign takeovers and other investment from abroad, despite public concern that corporate Canada is being gutted by a flurry of acquisitions.

Internal government documents, prepared earlier this year for the Harper government, say takeovers and other foreign investment provide "net benefit" to Canada and that the government should consider further reducing restrictions.

Foreign-based multinational corporations are on average more innovative, invested in new technology and focused on cross-border trade, say the documents, obtained through federal access-to-information legislation...

One internal document, which was marked "secret" and written on Jan. 11, 2006, a couple of weeks before the Conservative election win, said Canada has "lagged behind" in reducing foreign investment restrictions.

Some parts of the documents were blacked out by government officials before they were released, but the Jan. 11 document concludes that Canada needs more multinational corporations, whether they're foreign-owned or not.One document cites a recent OECD study that found that Canada has the second-highest level of foreign ownership restrictions among the group's countries, after Iceland.

[emphasis added]

The article then reports some he-said-she-said commentary. Don Drummond of the TD Bank opines that the report is quite sensible, and they found someone willing to say the sort of argument that never seems to die, no matter how many times we drive a stake through its heart:

But economist Armine Yalnizyan, also the director of research at the Community Social Planning Council of Toronto, said there are legitimate social reasons why there are restrictions on foreigners controlling sensitive sectors, even though foreign investment does spur economic growth.

"All citizens need access to basic services."

[If there are citizens who don't have access to what society deems to be basic services, the simplest and most efficient solution is to give them money so that they can buy it.]

Faithful readers of this blog will of course recognise that the article is old news; there are any number of publicly-available studies that say the same thing as this Top Secret^TM document. But I'm guessing that an article with the headline "Cabinet Minister Given Sensible Advice by Competent Professionals" wouldn't interest the Globe.

If the Globe - or any other media outlet, for that matter - wants to be taken seriously, it should spend some time trying to understand the analyses that are already public, and less time putting breathless spin on Top Secret^TM documents that say the exact same thing.