Up to now, Canada has been an appendage of the United States. Eighty percent of its exports have been tied to the U.S., and much of its other economic and trading activities is dependent on its southern neighbour. With the American economy probably ending up being a shadow of its former self, and the U.S. administration determined to indebt several future generations of Americans, it is highly unlikely that Canada will be able to live off its neighbour as comfortably as it has for its entire existence. Canada, therefore, has no choice but to locate new markets.
But finding new buyers for its usual goods and services is just one element in the problem to be solved. As O’Leary rightly observed, we cannot simply assume that countries like China, India or Brazil, for example, will be knocking down our door in pursuit of “hot commodities”. Canada may, indeed, have a lot of natural resources, but we are certainly not the only supplier in the world.
The Conservative government of Stephen Harper has already laid the groundwork for casting a wider net in the future, such as through negotiating a free-trade agreement with the EU, arranging or concluding similar agreements with various South-American countries and, recently, seeking closer ties with India. All of these efforts are absolutely necessary for the economic survival of Canada in coming years and decades. But so far, the focus has always been on supplying or trading the same old goods and services, rather than on opening up new markets and developing new products and services – currently, Canada adds very little extra value to whatever it exports.
Relying almost exclusively on commodities is a risky business. Demand is extremely volatile, with one type of commodity being very popular for a few years, only to drop to virtually zero once the b(l)oom is off. What the Canadian economy desperately lacks is more diversification as well as increased emphasis on the knowledge economy and society of the 21st century. However, becoming a major global player in the knowledge sector represents a substantial challenge for Canada right now, seeing how almost half of its population is functionally illiterate, according to various recent studies.
Canada’s schools, while much better than those in the United States, still produce graduates who are incapable of “making it big” in a global (knowledge) economy. As well, the annual intake of 250,000 immigrants, where two-thirds enter the country on the family reunification program and are therefore completely useless to Canada and the Canadian labour market given their age as well as lack of skills and knowledge of English and/or French, keeps worsening the country’s struggle with illiteracy.
Government, however, refuses to address these education challenges. I, and many others who know better, have argued for years that providing open and unfettered access to education at all levels is paramount to achieving a genuine knowledge society and economy. But Conservatives are reluctant to open up education in this way, because they believe that it should be every person’s own responsibility. Liberals and other left-wingers never do anything about it either, because they actually prefer an uneducated populace, which makes it easier to manipulate them into voting for their parties.
Conservatives should take note, though: I am not advocating for “government-provided education”, which is what Liberals would do, but “government-enabled access to education”. The former usually ends in becoming a brainwashing experiment, where students are indoctrinated in specific ideologies, while the latter simply provides the funding and infrastructure to allow every Canadian who so wishes to obtain the education or training he or she requires.
Looking at the right’s resistance to open-access education at all levels, it is really ironic when one considers the fact that students now pay for their courses, just as Conservatives like it, but hardly ever get their money’s worth. Most of Canada’s universities today inculcate students with left-wing (and even, in extreme cases, anti-Semitic) ideas, often spending more time on creating the future voters of the Liberal Party and the NDP than on making them fit for the global knowledge economy of the 21st century.
Before the world comes knocking on Canada’s door in search of professionals and experts across the board, from accountants to zoologists, we will have to remodel our universities from brainwashing factories to actual places of higher learning and then open up access to all schools, colleges and universities so as to ensure that everyone can get the education and skills they need – including “life-long learning” opportunities – to not only survive in the knowledge economy, but also to excel in it.
After all, the biggest commodity of them all is, and will be, knowledge. Any country that keeps its education restricted, and subject to ever-rising tuition fees, will lose.
Very nice write up. Easy to understand and straight to the point.
Posted by: TP | March 02, 2010 at 11:45 PM