Innovation – defined as new and better ways of doing valued things – is likely to be heavily stressed in this week’s federal budget. It is the key to improving the performance of Canada’s economy.
And what are the valued things that Canada needs to find new and better ways of doing? They include:
- The productive performance of businesses, especially in international markets;
- The cost-effective provision of essential services, especially health care;
- The responsible operation of the senior institutions of Canadian democracy – our Parliament and legislatures.
The need for innovation to restore faith in our democratic institutions has been highlighted by the recent debate over whether an often dysfunctional minority Parliament should have been prorogued.
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Innovation is the responsibility of each individual business. It’s not the responsibility of the taxpayer. Cut the umbilical cord to the our treasury and let these businesses sink or swim based on their own ability to innovate. They’ll learn to innovate quickly enough.
“The need for innovation in government services has been highlighted by Canada’s becoming the second-highest per capita health-care spender in the world among countries that offer universal health care, while our performance with respect to everything from access to doctors and MRIs to the reduction of deaths due to illness is inferior to that of most other OECD countries.”
Preston, you are answering your own questions about: what should the government do about innovation? Whenever the government gets over involved in our lives and our economy we don’t perform as well as we should. So get the government out of the way and off the backs of business. In short , watch Obama and do the opposite.
When a society is wrapped in the comfy fur of the nannny state there is no need for innovation. In fact innovation becomes an anathema to all involved. If I develop a new product or method of production it induces changes that are often deleterious to others in the society. If, for example, I own a car factory and develop a new way of tightening bolts that requires only half the workers I’m not going to be very popular in the bolt tightener union. Their reaction will likely be a strike which takes all the profits out of coming up with a better way to tighten bolts. It would be better for me to just keep tightening bolts the old fashioned way, after all its not like some other car company is likely to change. The same can be said of health care or government services and don’t get me started on social services and their never ending ineffectiveness. The lack of innovation is not for lack of ideas its for lack of will.
Innovation requires failure. Nothing can be learned otherwise. The government will likely not be innovative because they have a bottomless pit of resources through taxation and self-appointed credit extensions. The only way there will be innovation is for the government to auction off certain services to the private sector. Those bidders will have to come up with internal innovations to win the auction (provided it’s a fair auction)
I think innovation requires competition.
Very nicely said Cy.
And as potato says the more competition the more probability of success that can happen because a failure doesn’t mean the whole thing collapses, just one entity or only a part of it and only for the moment. Then when success hits, everyone soon copies the success and all the competition moves on to the next level with more trial and error. That’s why capitalism works and central plans don’t.
The opposite of this trial and error process takes place in a unionized government monopoly. With no competition to be a catalyst for change, no one takes a risk because they fear error more than they enjoy success; thus the status quo prevails and there is a perceived “bottomless pit of resources through taxation”.
I agree whole heartily with competition but some large corporations like the Oil Patch, in my humble opinion, there is very little if any competition.
This has been caused in part by the big companies buying up the little guys and closing refineries like here in Ontario with Petro Canada closing their Oakville one and Shell recently announcing closing one of theirs in Montreal.
So bend over at the pumps customers and get yours, particularly just before a holiday weekend.
UV: You and I have a different concept of the ‘Oil Patch’. When I think of the ‘patch’ I think of the guys on the rigs, the guys doing the exploration, the guys doing the collecting of raw product and in that patch I can’t think of a more innovative mindset. There is money to be made and if you can come up with a better way of exploring, extracting or collecting you are likely going to get some of that money. The downstream refineries are a completely different kettle of fish and the problem most of them face is the opposition to building one in one’s neighbourhood or doing the needed upgrades to meet environmental standards.
“So bend over at the pumps customers…”
At least when you are bending over at the pumps you’re doing so voluntarily. The government is forcing us to bend over half our working lives. And while the oil companies are at least giving us the service that we’re bending over for all we get from governments is the shaft.
# 8 –Yes, I was using the ‘oil patch’ in general terms, referring mostly to the lack of competition certainly at the retail level and the number of refinery closures.
Retail gasoline pricing seems to make no sense at all. At one time when oil prices went down, so did retail prices but not any more.
Countries and their citizens are at the mercy of big gasoline/oil Corporations who dont seem to care about their customers or the economy in which they work.
Oil closed to day above the $80 U.S. per barrel price and this high price could negatively affect Canada’s financial recovery as its affects almost everything we buy..
That and the high flying Canadian dollar are not good news for Canada’s recovery..
UV, what we need is more politicians like Liberal MP Dan McTeague , who gets paid 6 figures plus a massive pension, to go on the radio every night and explain to us that oil is no longer $30 a barrel and the price at the pump is going up …otherwise we would not know why.
What Danny boy really needs to tell us is why, if the these oil companies are ripping us off , that the S &P oil and gas index has only moved from 350 to 400 over the last 5 years..a lousy return in shareholder investment. Maybe that’s something we should suggest Presto look into because there seems to be a lot of wasted , valuable,
un-prorogued, MP time on it. I’m sure a young MBA intern in the Manning Centre could set us straight.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but didnt Stephen Harper when in opposition say that when the price of gasoline hits .85 cents per litre that something should be done about it? http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Comment/2008/02/29/4884716.php?comments_page=10
And to make retail gasoline prices worse, come this July, the HST (Harper/McGuiinty Sales Tax) will be added to the retail price here in Ontario. A tax on a tax, perhaps?
I live in a town of about 3,000 people in the GTA and our last gas station just closed. As a child living in the same town with a population of just 300 people in the 1950′s — we had five gas stations. Strange!
“with a population of just 300 people in the 1950’s — we had five gas stations. Strange!”
Very strange!
Plus they would clean your windshield and check your oil levels while THEY fueled your vehicle. Now their more interested in selling you a coffee and something to eat at their drive-thru.
Is there such a small fuel mark-up for gas station operators that they must now sell other things on the side to survive? Many of them no longer even repair vehicles.