 Before we begin, I'd like to remind media on the phone that you may press star one at any time in order to ask a question. That's star one at any time to enter the queue. The question and answer portion will take place after today's remarks. I will now invite Minister Ravi Callon to speak. Minister, please go ahead. Good morning and thank you for joining us today. My name is Ravi Callon. I'm the Minister for Jobs, Economic Recovery and Innovation. And I'd like to take a moment to acknowledge that I'm speaking to you today from the traditional territory of the Musqueam, the Squamish and the Slay with Youth people. This pandemic has been very challenging for all British Columbians and certainly people around the world. It has brought out the best of us as British Columbians. But people from all walks of life, businesses of all sizes and communities in every corner of this province have worked together to address many of the challenges that we've been facing and we've done it well. But it's also this pandemic has shown a light on historic gaps as we see in our province. It showed us where we need to improve. The work we need to do to build the British Columbia that doesn't leave people behind. BC is well positioned to have a strong economic recovery. Despite the challenges we have faced, BC continues to lead Canada with a job recovery rate of 99%. However, we know that for many the pandemic is not over and we will continue to be there to support them. With better days around the corner, we are turning our minds and our hearts to the kind of stronger BC that we want to see for ourselves and for future generations. A more inclusive, resilient and innovative province. A place where people, businesses, organizations and communities work together to create opportunities and take care of each other. One thing the pandemic has shown us time and time again is that having a government that cares about the same things that people do matters. Our focus always will be on people. Here in BC, we have the people, the creativity, resources to build a strong, sustainable recovery. In the coming weeks, we will be reaching out to British Columbians, to business community leaders, Indigenous nations and others to hear your ideas and aspirations. With your help, we will build a stronger BC for years to come. And you know, the COVID-19 pandemic has shifted many of our global economy. It's caused people around the world to rethink even the simplest aspects of our lives. While there have been many examples of unwelcome changes such as being isolated from family and friends, this time has given us an opportunity to consider new ways to create positive change. Since the pandemic started, significant research has emerged indicating we need to redefine some of our traditional economic and financial ideas. We need to change how we think so we can transition to a more innovative, sustainable and inclusive economy. We're looking at how we can build the strengths of our economy while giving priority to the social, cultural and environmental values that people in this province care deeply about. Beyond the immediate economic recovery, we will identify clear missions and challenges to drive economic growth and create a vision for the province over the next 10 to 15 years. This direction will be set out in an economic plan that charts BC's path for a bright, bold and strong future. It will look beyond the economic recovery initiatives supported by stronger BC and their restart plan. It will support new and inclusive approach to economic growth. The challenges we face today require collaborative effort to build a renewed approach to BC's economy. The economic plan is about BC's future. The most important aspect of the plan is that it will be developed and be led by British Columbians. BC is home to amazing thought leaders. We're grateful to them and will apply what we learned from them. We want to include British Columbians in this process. I've begun engagement sessions to hear from a variety of provincial leaders, indigenous nations and experts about the perspectives and ideas on the way forward for BC. Also, contributing to this process is one of the world leading experts on building sustainable and inclusive economies. I'm honored to be joined today by Professor Mariana Mazzucato, who is with us from her home city in London, England. Mariana Mazzucato is a professor in the economics of innovation and public value at University College London, where she's the founding director of the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose. Her influence and expertise are recognized far and wide. She has already advised policymakers and governments around the world on innovation-led, inclusive and sustainable growth. From Sweden and Norway to South Africa, Italy, the Vatican, the UK and the United Nations. I'm thrilled to share that Professor Mariana Mazzucato has graciously agreed to help advise me as a special advisor and help guide our government as we focus on the future of BC's economy. It is now my privilege to introduce Professor Mariana Mazzucato. Thank you, Minister Callan. I wasn't sure if that was the cue for me to start. So, you know, can I just say it's a huge honor to work with you and your team and with British Columbia and all the different stakeholders, especially the citizens, to bring really a citizen-focused change in terms of what does it actually mean to build an economy, to direct the economy towards a particular direction of growth. We often talk too much about the rate of growth. And as you were just citing before, actually British Columbia is not doing bad in terms of the rate of growth, in terms of all the different kind of, you know, key economic indicators. But that's not enough. Even just before the financial crisis, if you just looked at those static indicators, it looked like many economies were doing just fine. But we know that actually building a more inclusive economy, a sustainable economy, an investment-driven innovation-led economy and where that innovation actually leads to a more capable state, a more capable private sector, and especially more dynamic public-private partnership that just really requires a new design. And so it's going to be a real thrill to work with you and your team through the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose. Maybe I can just say something briefly about what it means to bring a mission-oriented, purpose-oriented approach to economic growth and specifically also industrial strategy and also something very specific that we hope to be working with you on, which is also rethinking finance and building a new type of financial institution. And too often in the kind of your mainstream economic thinking, the role of policy and the state is there just to fix market failures. So you are literally kind of positioned in a way that will mean that you're kind of too little, too late, waiting for failures to happen or to worry for those failures to happen. And what I've heard from you and our discussions that we've had and also with your premier is you really are more interested in a proactive approach. And it doesn't mean kind of the state down, directing everything, but it does mean an approach that's about co-creation and co-shaping of markets, co-shaping of the economy to meet the actual goals that we're interested in versus just kind of filling the gap of something that's not there or just fixing market failures as economists like to speak about. And so what that means, for example, with industrial strategy is that instead of making a list of kind of key sectors and of course your own sectors that are really important or oil and gas, mining, agriculture, also digital technologies, instead of looking at those sectors as a static list of kind of top competitive sectors to finance, it's really the reverse. The question is, what are the problems? What are the problems around climate change? What are the problems around inequality? What are the problems around gender parity? And how can we actually get all the different sectors whether we're talking about transport, construction, minerals and some natural resources like mining, but also the role of AI to together collaborate to solve the problems of our time? Secondly, what does it mean to actually have a stakeholder driven approach? You talked about the indigenous communities but you also have all sorts of different businesses. It means nothing just to say business, right? There are small, medium enterprises. There's different types of sectors that actually face different types of challenges. What does it mean to actually be in listening mode kind of empathy mode and bring these different stakeholders also different types of citizens to the table to co-create missions, right? So starting with the big challenges around inclusive and sustainable growth, turning them into targets that are as ambitious as we were 51 years ago when we got a man, yes, at the time that there were only men on the moon and back. And what missions do, this kind of mission setting that we're really excited to be working with the province on is missions are more specific than challenges, right? Challenges are things like climate change and inequality. Missions allow us actually to form concrete targets where you can say yes or no, did you achieve it or have you just been, as my kids say, waffling, kind of babbling about these kind of important sustainable development goals but not doing anything about them? So working with British Columbia and setting really concrete targets that bring together lots of different sectors and also then redesigning the instruments, right? Procurement, grants, loans to really galvanize and crowd in bottom-up experimentation by multiple sectors and actors in the economy. And in thinking also about a really important innovation that your region is thinking about which is a new innovation fund, that's not enough. It's not enough to have a public fund providing patient finance as important as that is unless it also is a mission-oriented public fund so that we're providing patient long-term finance to those actors and sectors in the economy that are willing to work with the government on actually achieving these goals. So that means, again, designing a fund that is actually geared to actually caring about the problems out there and getting as many different sectors and types of actors involved in providing that patient long-term finance. So let me just finish by saying that we couldn't be more excited to be working with you and it's going to be hard. I often say anyone who thinks that working in a mission kind of purpose-oriented way is going to be easy and cozy and something just fun to talk about doesn't get just how difficult it is to really change the kind of status quo of how we have currently designed our finance, our corporate governance systems, but also the governance of our public institutions which sometimes end up just kind of handing out money with no real kind of clear goal. So what does it mean to transform and to direct the economy to achieve these goals? This is the really difficult but exciting project that we are embarking with you. So thank you so much. Thank you so much, Mariana. And I'm looking forward to working with you over the coming weeks and months as we develop a future vision for BC, your theories and approaches to economic development aligned with those of our government, namely long-term growth that is innovative, sustainable and includes everyone who lives and works here. With the engagement process now underway, we are one step closer to building a stronger BC and economy that works for all British Columbians. The economic plan will reflect the priorities and strengths and values of the people of BC in every region of this incredible and diverse province. We're looking forward to working with all British Columbians as we build back BC better together. And now I'm happy to take any questions. Thank you, Minister. As a reminder to reporters on the phone, please press star one to enter the queue. That's star one to ask a question. You will be limited to one question and one follow-up. Please also remember to take your phone off mute. You will not be audible until your name is called. Our first question today is from Richard Sussman, Global News. Please go ahead, Richard. This is for both Minister Callan and Dr. Mazicato. And I just want to get a sense first from you, Minister, on we still don't have a clear timeline yet on the reopening with the U.S.-Canada border. We don't know when we're going to reopen internationally. How crucial are these pieces for our tourism sector both short-term and longer-term when it comes to planning events, conventions, concerts? Are we falling behind without clear guidelines here? And to that regard, for Dr. Mazicato, how important is tourism, do you believe, in revival for economies, especially here in British Columbia where it's a crucial piece along with many of the other elements that you mentioned in your comment? Thanks, Richard. So first off, as you know, many of the plans, the parts of stronger BC as well as the restart plan have been focused on both ensuring that people and businesses have the supports they need to get through this pandemic. And with the restart plan, it's to gradually start to open up the economy in a safe way so that we can get our businesses back and operating and running. And certainly our hope is that the federal government soon will be able to give us the same way we build metrics with our restart plan, similar metrics on when they expect things to start opening up when it comes to the border and certainly with tourism. Of course, we want it done in a safe way, but we need to ensure that there's certainty for people and businesses in the province. Tourism has always played an important part of British Columbia's economy and it will continue to do so. I was going to just send Professor Mazicato a photo of how beautiful it is in Vancouver today. People want to come here. It's a desirable place to be. But, you know, in the supports we put in place for the tourism sector have been substantial and we're going to continue to work with them through these challenging times. And Professor Mazicato may want to jump in on some thoughts as well. Sure, I received an honorary doctorate actually from Simon Fraser University during the lockdown. So it was absolute tragedy that I couldn't visit your absolute beautiful part of the world. So, I mean, tourism is obviously very important for any place that is as beautiful as yours. I come from Italy. Tourism is very important for Italy, but if you don't invest in areas like digitalization or like greening our economy, then we're actually missing out on a trick of using tourism actually as again, this kind of cross-sectoral opportunity to transform sectors, right? So instead of looking at tourism as a sector, it's cross-sectoral actually, right? It can actually help transform all sorts of different areas and, you know, just think of digitalization, how important it can be as what economists call a general purpose technology that can transform how we produce, how we distribute, how we consume. But that requires actually innovating and investing in that area, especially around services, digital services, whether they be around tourism or again, greening our economy. But that requires a strategy. And so I think tourism is absolutely essential and it can become a catalyst for transformation and structural change, but not if we just look at it as a sector. Thank you. Richard, did you have a follow-up? Yeah, and quickly for the minister, you mentioned the importance of including British Columbians all this and this and consultation. We've also now hired an advisor from outside of British Columbia with clearly some very, very impressive international credentials. Can you explain that decision to us in terms of, you know, finding someone from outside of the province to help apply a lens to what's going on within BC? Yeah, well, as I highlighted in my opening remarks, the recovery plan for BC will be built by BC for BC. But it's important to note that we are competing with the world. My time in sport has certainly taught me that when you're competing against the world, you want to learn from other people's experiences, other jurisdictions' experiences. And that's what we're doing with Professor Mazikato here. I know Professor Mazikato comes with a wealth of experience working with other jurisdictions all over the world. But what I like a lot of Professor Mazikato is that she also is always trying to learn. And so my hope is along the way that our thought leaders here in BC can also share some learnings with Professor Mazikato and her team. And so we are really wanting to position our economic recovery plan with insight from British Columbians but also knowing that we are preparing to compete with other jurisdictions. And this is the way I think that British Columbians would want us to move forward on as well. I'm not sure if Professor Mazikato is... I think we... Maybe I'll just say something quickly because I think the question's a great one. Thank you for asking that question. I would ask the same question. Who is this woman? One of the things we do in the Institute that I set up at UCL is by bringing kind of purpose and public value at the center is really to help different regions in the world also rethink what's gone wrong. It's not enough to say, oh, this is a great thing to do. Well, where's the bottleneck been in the past? Why have things actually not worked? And admitting just like you can't learn how to ride a bike without falling down, really being willing actually to experiment and work through new ideas including, for example, how to set up a new public innovation fund and to admit the messiness and to do what we call an institute, practice-based theorizing. So when you're actually practicing and putting kind of implementing new ideas, you learn that it's much, much harder than these academics that just go blabbing about it, conferences pretend that it is. So bringing that learning, that experimentation, that willingness to risk within the civil service also back to the theory is something that often civil servants aren't allowed to do because as soon as they make a mistake they're in the front page of the UK would be the Daily Mail. I'm sure you've got your own version of that. So I think that's going to be really important for us to kind of do that kind of policy sandboxing and experimenting with you. Our next question today is from Lisa Cordasco, Vancouver Sun. Lisa, please go ahead. Good morning. I'd like to ask how would you apply the concepts you're talking about to the forestry sector in British Columbia, for example, or to the LNG sector, which constitutes billions of taxpayer dollars in subsidies and tax and loyalty rates? Well, I'll start with that. The amount of innovation happening in our resource sector is phenomenal. I think it's a story that doesn't get told enough. Our resource sector is one of the cleanest in the world. But of course we need to find ways to continue to improve. One of my old coaches used to say if you're not getting better, you're getting worse. And that's the attitude we're taking with everything in this province. And I've had a chance to engage with many leaders in the national resource sector. And all of them are looking to innovation to reduce GHG emissions, to reduce the imprints of their operations on the landscape of British Columbia. They themselves see huge opportunities in an economic recovery plan to not only become more green in the way that we operate, but also to sell our products overseas. We do produce the cleanest products in the world. We do also pay well. Our workers are paid well. And we respect the land. Again, we're going to continue to make that process better. But at the same time, they acknowledge that we can do more. And that's what this vision is about. Did you have a follow-up? A lot of people would argue that, no, we are in the resource sector is not sustained role and it's not particularly green. So is it going to be the same old same old or how we tie what you're looking at in the future, whether it be subsidies or tax breaks or not collecting royalties? How will things change? Well, thanks again for your question. And the forced intentions paper that just came out recently shared with the public our vision for a reformed forest sector. It's being well embraced by everyone. Communities, the business community, First Nations. And so that process is going to be critically important as we move forward. And you mentioned royalty credits and certainly the ministry of mines and energy is looking at that question as part of a mandate letter commitment that the Premier had laid out for the minister. But I do think that there's an opportunity here through economic recovery to look at how we can continuously improve our resource sector but at the same time how we can help market the wonderful work that companies are doing all over the world. Our last question. Oh, sorry. Is that okay? Because I think the question is really, really important which is how can we make sure that all this talk of a challenge oriented purpose driven mission oriented approach isn't just like a slogan and we end up with the same old and that's really important in all sorts of different countries. And one of the observations I've made of Canada is that there's been an over reliance in the past at least on for example tax incentives and we know that tax incentives unless they're actually accompanied with kind of more active proactive public investments which transform landscapes which actually then excite business to actually want to invest in an area. If they're not accompanied by that all they do is increase profits and the goal of public policies is not to increase profits. It's actually to make sure that those profits get reinvested right into innovation in a particular direction of innovation. So greening our economy and you know, every sector should be part of that. So bringing conditionalities at the center of public policies to make sure that public policy isn't just kind of hand out subsidies and guarantees to stay into place but conditions for transformation I think will be key to answer your question and we're very keen to work with specific solutions for that. Thank you. And our last question today is from Rob Buffum CTV. Please go ahead. Oh, hi. My question is for the minister and it relates to the border. We still don't have a plan. I know it's the federal government's jurisdiction but it is obviously impacting a lot of tourist businesses in BC. We don't have a plan for when the border is going to reopen and we know the earliest possible day would be July 21st which is going to be you know, very difficult for the industry. Is there any new thoughts and providing subsidies or help for the tourism industry in light of this shifting bordered situation? Yeah, thanks Rob. As you're aware already there are significant supports available for those in tourism industry. We've got the small and medium-sized recovery grant programs that are available and there's additional supports that the Ministry of Tourism Arts and Culture is looking at to support the tourism industry specifically on. What I will say that we know we have been urging our colleagues at the federal government to give as best they can some certainty, some metrics on how their decisions will be made as as the borders open up and we're able to have more tourism here here in British Columbia. I think that certainty will help people and businesses to plan as we move forward. I know that they're alive to this and certainly we're hoping we can hear some information real soon. Rob, did you have a follow-up? Yeah, thank you. I'm just wondering if both minister and or professor could weigh in on. I know that this is about engaging the public on their ideas but is there any industry that you could identify at this point looking forward for 10 or 15 years that may at the moment be underutilized in BC or something that would make sense to build on whether it's I don't know the film industry or something of note that would be a good thing to focus on enhancing? Well, I'll just say that we have immense opportunities. I've been in roundtables where we've discussed great opportunities when it comes to digitization of our economy. Huge opportunities with clean tech. Our life science sector continues to grow faster than any sector in other life science sector across the country. Our natural resource sector is positioned well to continue to find ways to reduce their footprints and become greener. But again, some of the cleanest products are produced here in British Columbia. And so I think the opportunities are endless but the consultation has just started and professor Mazicato's team has just joined us now and so we're going to continue to spend the summer engaging with leaders whether they're first nations business community environmental movement, labor and hear from them about what they think and what their priorities are before we jump into one specific sector on this press conference. That's all the questions we have for today. Thank you everyone for joining. Thank you. Thank you.