When the federal election campaign gets more serious after Labour Day, the Council of Canadian Innovators wants to see detailed proposals from the parties on how to make Canadian tech companies into world-beating powerhouses, says its executive director Benjamin Bergen.

The CCI released an open letter Tuesday morning signed by more than 175 corporate leaders, calling for “plans to drive sustainable economic growth and ensure that Canadians reap the benefits of our innovation.”

The group sprawls across the country, including Carl Hansen of AbCellera in Vancouver; Ash Esmaeili of Aimsio in Calgary; Yvan Boisjoli of Bold Commerce in Winnipeg; Adam Belsher of Magnet Forensics in Waterloo; Sachin Aggarwal of Think Research, David Ossip of Ceridian, and Debbie Gamble of Interac, all in Toronto; Joe Cummins of Cybernetiq in Ottawa; Dax Dasilva and JP Chauvet of Lightspeed and Frederic Lalonde of Hopper in Montreal; and Jody Glidden of Introhive in Fredericton.

Repairing the damage the COVID-19 pandemic has done to the economy, reinforcing the health-care system, addressing climate change and updating the federal government’s treatment of digital assets are critical, Bergen wrote in an accompanying essay.

At least since the 1950s, Canadian nationalists have worried about the country’s “branch-plant economy,” dominated by factories owned by foreigners, usually Americans, making goods for Canadians to buy. Then more recently, federal and provincial governments started touting foreign direct investment as an indicator of Canada’s appeal.

“It’s been a long struggle to begin to shift the ‘ecosystem’ mindset that the only people that can do innovation in this country are Google, Facebook and Amazon,” Bergen said in an interview with The Logic. “And that’s just really not the case.”

But there’s a lot to do.

Party leaders Justin Trudeau, Erin O’Toole and Jagmeet Singh have spent much of the election campaign flinging mud. Monday alone, Singh accused Trudeau of hypocrisy on health care and climate change and O’Toole of only pretending to support workers; the Tories accused Trudeau of hiding “expensive, unproven and risky” plans and of threatening jobs in Nova Scotia; and Trudeau accused Singh of “a troubling pattern of misleading Canadians” (over health funding, specifically) and threatening green jobs.

“We’re really in the dog days of summer,” Bergen said.

A week ago, the Conservatives released their full campaign platform and included several things the CCI has called for, from generous tax treatment of Canadian-patented inventions to overhauling the incentives for scientific research. The New Democrats have talked about taxing foreign digital multinationals doing business in Canada, which Bergen said would be a step toward fairness.

“We’re still waiting for the Liberals,” said Bergen (who once worked for Liberal Chrystia Freeland, before she was finance minister). “So it’s too early for us to, let’s say, give a letter grade or lay out the differences between the three main parties.”

The leaders’ debates, scheduled for Sept. 8 and 9, should be when the parties’ positions crystallize, he said, with serious proposals to address serious challenges.