THE TECHNOLOGY RACE. - CAN WE CATCH UP? 

Forty-five years ago Canada was the world's third largest industrial nation. Our products, along with those from the United States, commanded a world-wide reputation for quality workmanship and advanced design.

Canadian engineers were building roads, bridges and laying railroad tracks around the world. Our country, companies and workers were just starting to benefit from the wealth this increased status provided. Some, when our dollar was worth 10 percent more than the U.S. dollar, were starting to buy haciendas in Mexico and condos on the Costa del Sol. Our next door neighbor, the United States, had the world's highest per capita income, the largest national market and we shared the highest productivity rate and overwhelming lead in finance and technology. Our banks were among the largest in the world.

Forty-five years later we are buying Japanese products and they are buying our condos -- and more. Our bridges are being built by Koreans while we purchase their VCRs. What we once saw as the tiny British colony of Hong Kong has since produced more millionaires per 1,000 acres than in any province in Canada.

Their banks now buy ours. Our productivity doesn't even show up on most modern charts. We are becoming technological barbarians. It took Canada 10 years longer than the U.S. to get FM radio. That was in the good years. The CRTC hasn't even seen the new small flat satellite dishes, made in Japan and capable of sitting on your kitchen table, looking through the window and delivering HDTV (High Definition TV) which I described in the Sunday News more than a year ago!

What went wrong?

Considering Canada has only half of one percent of the world's population, we started thinking we were more important then we are in the overall scheme of things. Both Canadians and Americans spent so much time at the top of the mountain we forgot what was happening in the valleys. Hundreds of millions of people have been studying and working harder then we were, saving far more of their income and putting more of that hard earned wealth into research and development. The valley people have been climbing up, and fast!

Technological superiority no longer comes with the territory. What we had considered a God-given right -- our know-how, information and holder of all the world's marbles -- suddenly changed. Even those green marbles we still held didn't command the same attention as the new purple marbles produced with internal illumination.

We had the best of both worlds. Our nearby neighbor even as late as the 1980s owned the world's largest corporations, stock market and banks. Half of that famous sign on the Hollywood hills, is spelled, by some, in Japanese. Leading corporations, stock markets and banks are now all flying the flag of the Rising Sun. NTT (Nippon Telephone & Telecommunications) is now twice the size of IBM, General Motors and AT&T (American Telephone & Telegraph) combined!

In research & design even the United States is no match. Americans invest but three percent of their gross national product in new factories and equipment. The Japanese invest more than double on that score, investing more than twice as much as we do per worker per year. Invention patents in Japan rose 350 percent in the last 20 years. America has dropped 20 percent. Here you can't even find upto-date statistics.

Why are we only competitive when we devalue our currency? We are still selling low-value products -- our usual wood, grain mineral ore and fish. We buy high value-added TVs, VCRs, cellular phones and fax machines. How long can this go on without a drastic repositioning of our standard of living?

The latest economic analysis report, from DB Capital Markets (Asia) Ltd., states that "the Japanese economy will grow by 40 to 45 percent in yen terms, over the next decade". In yen terms it might reach 75 percent as their currency reaches new heights. If even the lowest growth rate continues, "the income of the average North American will be only two-thirds that of the average Japanese".

We better wake up and get cracking !

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