As part of our coverage of the federal election, Investment Executive profiles candidates who are working or who have worked in the financial services industry.

Here we look at John McCallum, Liberal candidate in the Ontario riding of Markham-Unionville.

Before running for office in the 2000 federal election, John McCallum was familiar to some Canadians as a frequent guest on television public affairs shows, presenting his views on the economy as chief economist for the Royal Bank of Canada.

But now, McCallum, the incumbent member of Parliament for Markham-Unionville, is also known for the several Cabinet posts he has held. He has served as minister of national defence, minister of veteran’s affairs and, most recently, as minister of national revenue.

He says he was first motivated to run for federal Parliament in 2000 when Canadian Alliance leader Stockwell Day had his eye on the prime minister’s job.

“I believe strongly in what the Liberal party stands for. I oppose social conservatism and devolving everything to provinces and I believe Stephen Harper is part of that same agenda. So I signed on,” he says.

His financial services background as an economics professor and as a bank economist also gives McCallum an acute sense of economic issues.

“Even the most patrician person would have to agree that the Canadian economy overall is doing very well right now,” he says. “Nobody would have believed five years ago that we’d have both an 85 cent dollar and the lowest unemployment rate in 30 yrs. We’re the only G-7 country to be paying down our debt for seven years and I think that’s important, especially with an aging population.”

Still, he sees challenges on the horizon. In the face of emerging economies such as China and India and the shrinking of the world through communication technology, trade and investment, he says we have to improve Canada’s productivity.

“We have to have a highly educated, innovative population because we’re not going to compete with these countries on wages. We’re going to compete on skills and education and innovation,” he says.

“So we’ve put billions into research. I think we’re the top country now in terms of public R&D relative to GDP, but we’re way down in terms of private R&D relative to GDP. We’ve put a lot of money into that and into universities, to foster more graduate students. All these are essential to our success on the education/innovation front.”

McCallum adds that Canada has a lower corporate tax rate than the United States. Further, the Liberals have proposed — and plan for more — income tax reductions.

He is extremely upbeat about the state of Canada’s financial services sector, calling it a “star performer.” He says Canadians receive a level of banking service that is far superior to that in the U.S. and he is also impressed with the success large insurance companies are finding in international markets, particularly China and India.

Not surprisingly, he supports the creation of a national securities regulator, but acknowledges the task will require support from the provinces. “If we are to compete, we don’t want 13 regulators. We’d rather have one. But it’s not something the federal government alone can do,” he says.

Although the official party position is that bank mergers are off the table until after the election, it’s McCallum’s personal opinion that they should be allowed.

“I think we have a framework there,” he says. “The component of the framework, that the banks are supposed to demonstrate that [merging] is in the overall interest of Canada in addition to agreements with [the regulators], should be a doable proposition. The problem has been largely that it’s never been the right time politically and it would have been a very difficult thing to do in a minority government setting.”