The Bruce Report

In separate reports, the Conference Board of Canada and the David Suzuki Foundation issued failing grades to political and business leaders for their distinctly underwhelming performance in either protecting or advancing the qualities that have, until now, rendered the Great White North the developed world’s industrialized nirvana.

The Conference Board’s tenth annual Performance and Potential Review (2005-2006) found that while Canada remains a generally healthy and prosperous nation, it is slipping relative to the performance of 11 other member countries of the Paris-based Organization for Economic Development and Co-operation.

According to the Board’s president and chief executive officer, Anne Golden: “Canada lost ground in four areas this year: Economy, innovation, health and society. Slippage in the economy category is especially worrying. As recently as 2003, Canada was the third-place finisher. In 2004, we were sixth. This year: Twelfth.”

In other words: dead last.

“Our story is that we’re kind of snoozing,” Golden said in a recent interview. “In this world, snoozers are losers.”

So too, it seems, are environmental malingerers. From an ideological vantage as far removed from the Conference Board as Main Street is from Bay Street comes the Suzuki Foundation’s scathing assessment: “Canada is one of the worst environmental performers in the industrialized world.”

According to the group’s lead investigator, Thomas Gunton: “Our research found Canada’s environmental performance to be surprisingly low. . .lagging behind in almost every indicator.”

In fact, the country ranked 28 among 30 OECD member countries surveyed about such things as energy and water consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, air pollution and pesticide use. “The ability of other higher-income [nations], such as Sweden, to achieve much lower levels of pollution shows it can be done,” Gunton said in a news release. “There’s no excuse – all it requires is a strong commitment from Government.”

Oh, is that all? What a precious commodity that must be. But, before the bleating turns ballistic, let’s agree that strong social and economic commitments are useless (some are even malignant) without a responsible vision to guide them. And as both of last week’s reports amply demonstrate, “vision” is in short supply among our nation’s political and industrial leaders.

For more than a decade, Ottawa has “committed” itself to closing Canada’s so-called “productivity gap” by loosening its purse strings for private sector investment in technology, commercial innovation, skills, and trade. Not to be outdone, Canadian industry has loudly vowed to increase spending on the long-term improvements necessary to retain and enhance its competitive edge in global markets.

And yet, the Conference Board finds, productivity in this country is functionally moribund – running at less than a third of the 3.6 per cent annual rate recorded in the United States. That translates into an income gap of more than $8,500 per Canadian.

This matters for a variety of reasons – and not all of them strictly economic. Higher earned incomes are standard measures of the willingness, and wealth required, of both the public and private sectors to act in their (meaning our) best, long-term interests. Everything from health care and education, to innovation and trade, to environmental sustainability rides on making the necessary productivity investments sooner, not later.

All of which explains why Canada is not now, in Golden’s words, “living up to its brand as a wealthy, environmentally responsible, socially conscious, healthy society.”

And it won’t as long as governments and industries are content to turn crucial economic priorities into mere talking points.

Last week’s reports demand less talk, and more action from Canadian leaders. Without this, the next beating the nation takes will not just be to its collective self-esteem.

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