From: sitomlin@descartes.uwaterloo.ca (Stephen I. Tomlinson)
Subject: Get Ready Canada For The Next Boom
Organization: University of Waterloo
Date: Sun, 5 Apr 1992 23:50:34 GMT

A rare event has occurred.  An article which accurately puts the
Canadian economy in perspective has appeared in Canada's largest 
newspaper, The Toronto Star.

Its headline is "Get Ready Canada For The Next Boom."
The article appeared in the Sunday April 5, 1992 edition.
It is written by economist Tom McCormack.

One major breakthrough is the acknowledgment that Canadians have, 
on average, the second highest incomes in the world. 
The data it uses is from 1988, but I have the 1989 data
and have included it at the end of this post.

A lot of people seem to think that Japan and Germany have
left North America far behind, but in fact America and
Canada are 1-2 in income per person, while Japan was 7th 
and Germany 9th (in 1989).

The article also mentions that "our productivity--measured
as real output per worker--is second best, too."

The article also says, "By reducing trade barriers over the
years, signing a trade agreement with the U.S., getting
inflation under control, starting to reduce interprovincial
barriers, removing the negative effects of the FST, setting
the stage for significant deficit reduction in the 90's 
and entering free trade negotiations with the U.S. and Mexico,
Canada is taking control of its economic environment."

The article does not mention that most of the policies mentioned
above are thanks to the Tories, and that most of them were opposed 
editorially by the Star, but it's a start.

It also writes: "Let's understand what restructuring the 
manufacturing sector really means.  It means Canada is 
abandoning the low-paying, low-productivity, low-skilled,
labor-intensive sectors to the newly emerging industrialized
nations. . . . We're concentrating on the higher-paying,
higher-skilled, capital-intensive sectors. . . . The upshot
of this restructuring is that our productivity and standard
of living increase.  The beauty is that the productivity and
standard of living of our competitors increase too."

The leader to this article says: "This country . . . is on
the threshold of an unprecedented expansion . . . but this 
golden age of prosperity could be jeopardized by Canadians'
pessimistic national mood."  Gee, I wonder whose fault that
could be.  :-)

Now what would really be astonishing is if the CBC were to
put Canada's economic situation in context too.  It would
certainly being doing the country a service by doing so.
Then again, maybe it already has--I haven't tuned in much since 
Canada vs Unified for the Gold.


Here's that table:

Gross Domestic Product/Person 
at Current Prices and Current Purchasing Power Parities
in U.S. Dollars.  1989.
  
(Note: "Current" means 1989 in this case,
so "Current Prices" means 1989 dollars were used.
A "Purchasing Power Parity" is the rate at which prices of the
same goods and services in different countries would be the same, 
which is similar to but *not* the same as an 'exchange rate'.)

    Country      GDP/Head  %ofUSA  1980  1970
    -------      --------  ------  ----  ----
 1. USA           20629     100      1     1
 2. Canada        19316      94      2     3
 3. Switzerland   17696      86      3     2
 4. Norway        16663              5
 5. Iceland       15767              4
 6. Sweden        15533              6     4
 7. Japan         15501      75     17    17
 8. Finland       15022
 9. W. Germany    14985
10. France        14565
11. Denmark       14392                    6
12. U.K.          14345      70
13. Australia     14304                    7
14. Italy         13902
15. Netherlands   13709                    5
16. Belgium       13587
17. Austria       13407
18. New Zealand   11507
19. Spain         10263
20. Ireland        8984
21. Portugal       7360
22. Greece         7253
23. Turkey         4484

Source: OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development)
(Note: I derived the rankings and %ofUSA column from the OECD info,
 which is why these columns are incomplete)
---------------------------------------------------------------------

Not all countries in the world are included in the OECD study.
For example, according to  _The_Economist_, Hong Kong and Taiwan 
would be in between New Zealand and Spain.  

I don't have the full 1990 figures, but Canada is still #2
and I believe Japan has moved to #5.

-Stephen
Newsgroups: soc.culture.canada