Managing Director @CanShieldInst + co-author of The Big Fix. making sovereignty make sense.
Toronto
- Tweets 32,471
- Following 5,363
- Followers 10,166
- Likes 55,858
Pinned Tweet
And sign up for our weekly newsletter, The National Interest, where we make sovereignty make sense. canadianshieldinstitute.ca/n…
1
2
6
865
Canada’s government should implement a formal mandate for the country’s pension plans to invest 3% of their assets in high-growth companies at home, according to a think-tank report. bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
6
10
46
28,405
Canada’s pension plans made headlines with pledges to pour tens of billions of dollars into domestic assets. Calls are growing louder for the them to turn vague announcements into action. Read more in the Canada Daily newsletter. bloomberg.com/news/newslette…
7
8
48
28,961
Vass Bednar retweeted
Canada’s government should mandate the country’s pension plans to invest 3% of their assets in high-growth companies at home. Read on financialpost.com/news/econo…
5
7
15
2,827
file this under: things I wish I wrote.
Globe editorial: Breaking the spell of drone advertising
theglobeandmail.com/opinion/…
1
13
1,098
Damn.
One-fifth of MPs’ speeches in the House of Commons are written with AI help, analysis finds theglobeandmail.com/politics…
6
13
53
3,770
Vass Bednar retweeted
You’re not imagining it: shopping has become a game of predator and prey.
Thrilled to share the first excerpt from "Gouged" in @BostonGlobe. Yes, you’re being ripped off. Yes, you're being watched. Yes, there’s something we can do about it.
Read it: bostonglobe.com/2026/09/24/m…
1
35
75
4,250
Just going to note that this is a San Francisco-based company, and that the pension funds could do more to capitalize Canadian growth firms. 😉
Teachers’ pension plan invests $50-million in legal AI firm Harvey as competition heats up with LLM giants
theglobeandmail.com/business…
7
9
42
3,616
Vass Bednar retweeted
Is it too much to ask for Canada's biggest pension funds to invest 3 per cent of assets in real Canadian growth? We don't think so.
Today we're publishing a policy paper delving into how our biggest pension funds are actually investing our money.
canadianshieldinstitute.ca/r…
14
5
12
24,407
Vass Bednar retweeted
As AI shopping agents become more common, retailers are beginning to shift the risk of their mistakes onto customers.
That is a dangerous deal for consumers, who may end up paying for errors they neither made nor understood.
If an agent buys the wrong item, misses key terms, or triggers a fraud flag, the merchant can simply point to the fine print and deny responsibility.
That arrangement will discourage trust in automated shopping and encourage companies to use legal language to escape accountability.
AI agents may promise convenience, but they also create a new layer of confusion over who is liable when something goes wrong.
Consumers should not be left to absorb the cost of systems they did not choose and cannot fully control.
The latest from the Globe's business commentary, by Vass Bednar: theglobeandmail.com/business…
2
2
153
Vass Bednar retweeted
CPPIB made big announcements for the Canada Investment Summit. A new fund targeting Canada.
But the big picture here is that CPP’s investments in Canada have been falling for decades.
1
5
12
661
Vass Bednar retweeted
Canada consistently outranks peers in foreign investment. In 2025, Canada's inward FDI stock exceeded our GDP.
With a consistent increase in FDI, why is Canada not prospering? We need to consider how FDI can produce productive growth.
1
2
2
227
Vass Bednar retweeted
“The EU has done so much over the past few years on digital sovereignty, on reducing their dependency on Big Tech,” Canadian Shield Institute Managing Director
@vassb says. “I hope we can borrow from them.”
bloomberg.com/news/newslette…
2
6
13
576
Vass Bednar retweeted
Canada thought it had solved the problem of foreign-controlled enterprises. It hadn’t.
Writer @VassB reports on the pitfalls of measuring ownership while overlooking the infrastructure that determines who holds power in the digital economy: thewalrus.ca/canada-foreign-…
14
20
1,000
Vass Bednar retweeted
Foreign direct investment is transitioning away from greenfield and towards mergers and acquisitions (M&A).
M&A isn’t always bad, but can be an extractive tool of foreign investors to buy up Canadian companies to capture valuable IP or eliminate an up-and-coming competitor.
1
8
8
764
Vass Bednar retweeted
“Tech platforms aspire to sovereignty,” he said. “They seek to set the terms of access. They want to dictate regulatory rules — or even bypass them.”
“They want to control our data, spread disinformation and steal our children’s childhood,” he added.
nytimes.com/2026/09/17/world…
88
71
176
7,909
Vass Bednar retweeted
Trump Wanted Canada as the 51st State. He Ended Up Pushing It Toward the European Union. nytimes.com/2026/09/16/us/po… via @NYTimes
4
56
209
9,102
Vass Bednar retweeted
If Canada is seriously looking about how we can deepen ties with the European Union, maybe we should think about copying their homework on digital sovereignty.
canadianshieldinstitute.ca/u…
7
16
1,123
Vass Bednar retweeted
In the 1970s, Canada took measures to regain control of an economy increasingly dominated by foreign companies. Today, @VassB argues, that struggle has moved to “the cloud—infrastructure that manages to somehow be everywhere and nowhere at the same time.” thewalrus.ca/canada-foreign-…
2
11
17
986
Give it up for the word MEGA
Canada elected a famous superstar economist as prime minister and... surprise... he's taking a big swing on economic policy, in a room with asset managers who control US$70 trillion.
It's a big deal.
Read our analysis of the Productivity Mega Deduction: canadianshieldinstitute.ca/u…
1
18
1,106
I liked reading this. It's another example of digital public infrastructure that we could build and own here, and it would make life just a bit better. Low-hanging fruit.
Every year, as camping and hiking reservation windows open in parks nationwide, news outlets and social media fill with laments over crushed vacation plans. Why is it so difficult—and so expensive—for Canadians to enjoy our national and provincial parks? thewalrus.ca/the-ticketmaste…
1
10
45
5,173