Canada's failure to innovate is spilling over into the economy, environmental protection, health care, education, and poverty eradication - turning the country into a land of stifling mediocrity, according to a harsh new report card from the Conference Board of Canada.
"This country is doing dismally in the critically important area of innovation," writes the board's president, Anne Golden. "And the implications of that failure ... show up in the absence of creative policy and investment decisions across all the other domains."
The report card, to be released today, compares Canada's performance in six domains to that of 16 other industrialized countries. The only area in which Canada receives an A is education, mainly because the country is good at pumping large quantities of students through to postsecondary institutions.
But even in education, Canada falters when it comes to producing highly educated professionals who spawn creativity, the report says.
At the other end of the spectrum, Canada's low levels of literacy are "shocking," and prevent workers from functioning efficiently and competently in the labour force, the report says. As well, employer investment in training is falling.
In the economy, health and society domains, Canada gets a B - although lack of innovation is impeding progress. Source...
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