The Globe and Mail reports in its Thursday edition that the trade war with the United States has drawn Canadians' attention to the need to strengthen our economy and make it less reliant on others. Guest columnists Stephen Pincus and Brad Ross write that this cannot be done without fixing our broken capital markets. During the past 20 years, the number of operating companies listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange has dropped by more than 35 per cent. Over that period, initial public offerings has dropped from 40 to less than two per year, and the average amount raised on those IPOs has dropped from $3.5-billion to less than $1-billion a year. This is a major problem for Canada's businesses and our economy as a whole. It directly harms Canadian families and retirees. The weakness of Canada's capital markets and resulting reliance on foreign sources of capital threatens the country's economic sovereignty. The government needs to reverse this by using fiscal and tax policy to encourage businesses to list and stay listed on Canadian stock exchanges, and to incentivize Canadians to invest in them. So long as our capital markets are unattractive to companies and investors, the Canadian economy will remain vulnerable to attack.