Kodak Pictures Future With Creo--Offers $1.2 Billion For Vancouver Firm Dissiden

That is somewhat of a sad story. I knew many people that worked there. People that purchased into the stock plan will do very well. Employees were strongly encouraged to do so and many will be more than fine.

This is not the first time that this happens in the Vancouver area. I will recall that MDI purchased by Motorola in 1989 did also translate in the Sierra Wireless and MDSI success canadian stories. MDI were the people that started enterprise packet radio with Fedex way back. MDSI extended this into public utility fleet. But then Motorola Vancouver also ended up moving to China two years ago. Glenayre purchased by American interests in the mid-nineties did not generate much spinoff. MDA was purchased by Washington DC based Orbital around the same period and ownership ended up returning to Canada not all that long after. The gaming industry (eg. Electronics Arts, Radical and many others) remain our most healthy one.

I am not sure what is the solution to this, or perhaps exactly what is the problem. It is clear that the tech sector has moved to cheaper locales and that Canada education system somehow needs to adapt to the changing landscape. There should be some interesting spinoff to Creo and I would rather focus on those rather than trying to regulate foreign ownership. I don't think the problem is that "Canada is not for sales" but that Canadians don't mind selling the assets they have worked hard at building.

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"We are all in this together somehow, some more than others somehow"

I didn't even know the company existed.


I do agree that our business people are colonia gold-diggers, but without protectionism, they are forced to compete with bigger companies that dump things on their market. In this case, it was simply selling out.

As fir your solution, I don't think it will work gaulois without forcing them to sell it to a Canadian only, or no one at all.

America and Europe simply don't allow selling out to the extent we do, (5-15% vs. 40+%) and they absolutely wouldn't allow near;y 100% foreign ownership in key sectors like technology, oil and gas, defence industries and auto industries.

Forced protectionism or nationalization is the only way IMO. Perhaps if people were forced their mentality would change.....as James Laxer said, the Canadian business class is the only business class that actually believes in a borderless world.

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The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter --

Winston Churchill

"Forced protectionism or nationalization is the only way IMO. "

Called me a gaulcon if you want, but you need to grow up and go see how business and governments actually work. Although I am against NAFTA with a bully, I would not trust a regulator one bit without a major overhaul (of the order of a slash and burn) of our democratic political system. The lesser evil for now is most unfortunately tainted with neocons shades. I don't like that either.

BTW, Creo controls the imaging/workflow technology by which all these big media glossy magazines that Canadians love to read (e.g. Sports Illustrated) can print out their issues in a record time. The technology originated from major federal R&D investment way back in MDA west coast high tech of remote sensing technology. MDA are the same one that got Spar spacearm robotics technology and have worked on the development of the space station. Their last bid to upgrade the spacearm to fix Hubble looks like it will fall through. I am not aware of any MDA involvement on the BMD work.


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"We are all in this together somehow, some more than others somehow"

Europe is protectionist. America is protectionist.

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The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter --

Winston Churchill