Canada needs a tech leader in Parliament.

Good candidates are hard to find. I think I found one.

You may have noticed this newsletter stopped publishing.

If I have an excuse, it is an adorable 1-year-old boy who my wife and I welcomed into the world. He’s now walking and getting into all sorts of trouble, which makes the ‘I have a new baby excuse’ a bit thin. So that said, I have a post coming up on the history of Quebec’s more recent past in tech.

On a slightly personal note, having a child has given me a perspective and empathy I didn’t know I lacked. While I always wanted the world to be a better place, I now believe I have to engage more to make that happen. To that end, I spent the past year making myself more available on multiple initiatives.

So I’ll be getting a bit political here.

I think we would all agree that Canada faces an unprecedented moment in today's changing world, with the global economy in flux and technological advancements transforming our lives. Many of our current elected government ministers lack real-world experience and are reacting to events instead of anticipating them.

Thanks, James Beheshti From Unsplash

It has led me to believe that Canada, and by extension, all of us in the tech space, need what could be best described as an experienced knowledgeable leader, someone with the vision and background to navigate these turbulent times and help guide our government toward a prosperous and resilient future.

As you read this, Conservatives are choosing their local candidates in numerous ridings throughout Canada. Now is a chance for them to pick someone offering a fresh and innovative perspective to tackle the challenges in front of us.

What would my ideal candidate resume look like?

They would have to:

1. Have an acute awareness and experience within the overall Canadian economy;

2. Understand the Venture community and what that means to the future growth of the Canadian economy;

3. Understand the tech / knowledge economy and what it means to Canada's future economic growth;

4. A strong track record helping small and medium-sized businesses – the companies that will employ many future workers and who can relate to aspiring entrepreneurs. Preferably they can relate to them because they were one;

5. Someone who did not come from generational wealth, so they understand what the middle-class needs;

6. Spent time doing business with our biggest trading partner and who understands how to really "talk to the Americans" in a way that will help us grow as a nation;

7. Understand how the public and private sectors can collaborate and even partner. Have a proven track record of overseeing such initiatives;

8. They have made a meaningful contribution, preferably by giving back to their community. Maybe by serving on one but preferably two Crown agency/Corporation Boards;

9. Lastly, they have a proven, demonstratable success in their work and career but are grounded despite it.

Fortunately, I know of such a person and want to be the catalyst to draft him.

His name is Mark McQueen.

Let me tell you why Mark is my ideal candidate. People like him are rare.

Borrowed from Globe and Mail - turns out all my pictures of Mark are at Pearl Jam concerts.

But it's those rare people that we should be encouraging to be more than leaders in our ecosystem - they should be leaders in our government.

Canada needs an entrepreneur of the highest integrity to represent us. A voice with that experience has been missing in Parliament for too long. So I'm asking Mark McQueen, and those who know Mark, to encourage him to run for office.

Let me share his best-known accomplishments for those who don't know him.

Mark founded Wellington Financial after the events I described earlier with just a tiny $7M book. By the time CIBC acquired his firm, he was managing over $500M. Wellington was well-known for supporting Canadian entrepreneurs and startups through some of the most challenging times in Canadian Tech.

To give some context, in 2000, venture investment in Canadian tech companies hit an all-time high of CAD 5.8B. By 2009, it was just $1 billion. In US dollars, our industry was a rounding error (the CAD/USD exchange was, on average, just 0.87). It took 19 years to beat that high-water mark of the year 2000 number. (6.2B in 2019).

At this low ebb, one Canadian VC declared in the Wall Street Journal that Venture Capital and Tech were dead in Canada. Mark was one of the leaders who disagreed and publicly defended the industry and Canada's place in the tech world. It was because of him and other leaders that we have the Canadian Tech industry today.

During '08, when the financial crisis threatened to slaughter what was left of our tech businesses, people like Mark and his team at Wellington stood ready to help.

I distinctly remember a portfolio company that had to make payroll and owed a portion of its loan to Wellington. The company discussed it on a phone line with its investors and creditors.

"What should we do?" they asked after a long preamble. The VCs couldn't call capital, and the angels were watching their wealth collapse.

There was a silent pause, and the voice on the other end of the conference call was Mark's.

"I think that choice is obvious."

The team made payroll, and the company survived and eventually thrived.

Throughout his time at Wellington and then CIBC, Mark built a strong team and a book of business. They were widely viewed as Canada's answer to a merchant banking market that had abandoned the tech industry. But it was the companies they supported that would have a lasting impact on our economy. That impact continues to this day.

But Mark is more than just a successful entrepreneur and operator. Mark has shown a gift for taking difficult situations in the public interest and making them work.

Take, for example, his time at the Toronto Port Authority.

When he joined the board, Mark was appointed chairman of an organization that had been losing money for years. The TPA is not an easy organization, and the chairmanship is not fun. It intersects with and has representation on its board from all three levels of government. And those members are often of different political views with conflicting priorities. It is a microcosm of the challenges of the Canadian Confederation in one boardroom. And so, for decades, that difficulty of multiple levels of government holding sway marred the TPA's ability to get things done for all of us, the citizens. Under Mark's stewardship, it balanced its budget and provided much-needed upgraded services for the Toronto waterfront and the Billy Bishop Airport.

An example is the $80M Tunnel at the island airport we all use. It was paid for from revenues the Toronto Port Authority made as it grew the airport's usage. The government paid nothing and enabled the city of Toronto to save money. Multiple times, people declared in the press that the tunnel would not happen. It was a good bet the tunnel was on the drawing board for decades, but it got started and completed under Mark's leadership.

The federal government of the time was so impressed that they upped the ante and appointed Mark as the inaugural Chair of the Windsor Detroit Bridge Authority, whose job it would be to oversee the construction of a bridge - the Gordie Howe Bridge, at Canada's most critical trade crossing. Not content with Mark's ability to navigate the challenges of three levels of government, they decided to add US federal and state government into the mix.

But that we need from our elected leaders. Someone who not only acknowledges the challenges but relishes solving them and can do so.

When I heard of an opening for a conservative riding to run in, I couldn't think of anyone else who would better represent Canadians.

I've been a conservative for many years now. I grew up in Ottawa surrounded by politicians and their staffers - I have many friends of all stripes on the hill. But if the Conservative party is going to form a new government, it should look at its bench strength on what talent is at hand and what is lacking. I do that regularly for my startups, and I can also do it for the conservative caucus.

In all fairness to the current team, I do not see anyone with Mark's senior background in finance, success in entrepreneurship, or deep insights on innovation on the conservative team today. We have a strong opposition, but we need to recruit for taking the reins of government with people who will know the files and get things done. It's a huge missing piece that is also missing from the Liberal government, and the results show.

No non-partisan observers would call the current government's innovation policies for the past eight years a success. What has been implemented has been confusing, unfocused, and unsuccessful. I've sat on multiple calls with bureaucrats and political staffers to discuss innovation policy papers and initiatives that never see the light of day, nor should they. They don't make sense, and when ministers drop hints of the proposals at news conferences, you can hear industry experts scratching their heads.

Meanwhile, I watch other tech industry leaders get told to watch for a pertinent announcement in a budget, only for nothing to be there. From open banking to semiconductors, from university research grants to R&D incentives, there has been a lacklustre and confused response to each issue, as if it can be solved with a new agency or 'review.' I just do not believe our current government is serious about solving the problems I see in front of them, even when we agree that there is a problem. From where I sit, there is a constant lack of leadership at the federal level.

And this is in my small corner of the economy. When I hear the same concerns on multiple other fronts in our economy, I worry that this lack of leadership or initiative is not confined to our sector.

And here we have available Mark McQueen, an exceptional leader who has demonstrated a high level of character, honesty, and maturity throughout his career and public service work.

Mark has been a successful entrepreneur and operator, and he has shown a gift for taking difficult situations that are in the public interest and making them work. He gets things done and is deeply knowledgeable about finance, entrepreneurship, and innovation. I believe Mark would make an excellent representative for us in Canada's Parliament, and I'd like to encourage him to run for office.