Ken Coates OpEd: Canada Lack’s Purpose

National Post | Ken Coates | Aug 6, 2022

The rules of national competitiveness keep changing. If the last few years were tough, the future looks even more confusing. Is Canada up to the challenges? The apparent answer is disquieting.

Canadians should be razor-focused on ensuring the country remains at the top, but worrying signs abound:

• Productivity lags well behind leading industrial nations. Investment has slowed, particularly in the natural resources sector.
• Canada’s aggressive climate change stance has stalled some infrastructure projects and mothballed others.
• Our education and training system is significantly disconnected from the labour force.
• Our record for environmental management is seriously deficient.
• Our government’s ability to manage basic services, like passports, is wanting.

See: Canada’s Competition Consultation Continues (thanks Senator Colin Deacon)

• The nation’s major airports — key international transit points — are global laughingstocks.
• Our sizeable national debt, already surging due to the government’s pre- and post-pandemic spending, is accelerating faster due to rapidly rising interest rates. And family income is seriously out of sync with ridiculous housing prices and growing inflation.
• Competitive environment is also shifting. Certain nations — Japan, South Korea, Norway, Germany, and others — continue to do well.  China also has a huge advantage in developing and implementing new technologies. While China innovates, Canada flounders in ethics reviews and approval processes.

Don’t expect help from our southern neighbour. The United States is on its own uncertain trajectory, with deep internal frictions and poisonous politics competing with its still remarkable entrepreneurial spirit. America’s divisions, driven by growing economic inequality and racial/regional tensions, are destabilizing an already fragile society. As this turmoil continues, so does protectionism and declining interest in continental solutions.

See:  Canada’s Competition Problem: 7 Reasons

Canada copes with these realities largely by ignoring them. Our political culture is focused on internal matters, targeting national inequities rather than standard of living.  Right now, Canada is standing on reputation, but the ladder is wobbly. Canada is a wonderful country, but the cracks are severe and only getting worse. We can’t pretend the problems are not real.

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