Peter Munk’s recent call for tighter restrictions on foreign ownership of natural resources resonates with the business panel. The CEOs and business leaders on the Financial Post/COMPAS panel are strongly committed to tighter restrictions on foreign ownership in the sector, more so than in any other sector.

One key consideration for some is a concern about foreign governments’ acquiring stakes in Canadian mining and other resources, especially the authoritarian Chinese government.

Airlines and financial institutions are two sectors in which the panel is most favourable to loosening restrictions on foreign ownership.

Other noteworthy findings are that

• The panel is somewhat neutral as to whether the present high rate of acquisition of Canadian corporate assets by foreign entities is on balance positive or negative,
  
  
• The key to reducing the rate of foreign takeovers is to lower corporate income and capital gains taxes,
  
  
• The main downside of the foreign acquisition of Canadian companies is the loss of career opportunities at Canadian head offices, and
  
  
• The main upside of the foreign acquisition of Canadian companies is that Canadian entrepreneurs are able to extract gains from their old successes and reinvest the proceeds in new, inchoate successes.
  

These are the principal findings from the weekly business web-survey conducted by COMPAS for the Financial Post under sponsorship of BDO Dunwoody LLP.

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