Mini Book Expo: The Way Ahead

Tom Brzustowski is so highly regarded that it seems impossible to contradict anything he has written. Accordingly, I will not write about my first impressions of his book “The Way Ahead: Meeting Canada’s Productivity Challenge”. Just let me state that the author claims this is written “for members of the general public”, but keep in mind that the general public the author seems most familiar with are fellow academics and a large smattering of those in politics. It reads like a university text, complete with jargon and diagrams that are designed for powerpoint presentations. It is not a text for a business manager who wishes to find something about productivity for his business.
The theme, broadly speaking, is that Canada must move from a commodity economy to a knowledge-based, value-added economy. Starting off with a look at Canada’s place in the world, using a few familiar parameters (age, population) with an added focus on science & engineering, we don’t seem to be any worse off than other countries (in spite of the author’s complaint that we do not earn enough advanced degrees). One finds all the standard charts and data, all to say government should expand its role beyond supporting research and sharing risk on some industrial R&D to helping Canadian companies bring new products to world markets. Apparently we have known this since the Porter Admonition of 2002. However hard I looked, I found Canada’s productivity challenge is no different than for any other country, insofar as this book is concerned. What we must do is what any country must do to keep abreast internationally and it appears that we are doing ok. Even where the author claims there is a problem, it seems to evaporate. Take this example, following on from the above quote:
“…substantial differences arise only when we look at the ways in which university research is connected with wealth creation” and so we do, and we find “the Canadian record for commercializing inventions resulting from basic research is good” (p107). So, in fact, what we are dealing with is not a problem, but a desire to increase what we are already doing. It is high-level, stating Canada needs more of what it already does in areas such as R&D and “the government must do something about this”. I am sure the author did not mean to leave that impression, but that statement concerned me, because we hear that all too often, and it is not a statement that inspires action. It is expecting someone else to do something, and you know, that is a productivity problem right there.