There is a lot of talk on spending money to upgrade the infrastructure as a means of boosting the economy. I do believe that money should be spent on upgrading the infrastructure of our great nation, but this has to be done in spite of the economy. We surely do not need an excuse to fix things. The physical structures are deteriorating and have to be fixed. Long overdue.
The government does not need to spend money to improve the Canadian economy. We are in trouble because of our very close relationship with the U.S.. No amount of infrstructure spending will resolve that. But the government can use this opportunity to spend money restructuring our economy.
The manufacturing sector is in trouble. The sector that appears to be in trouble, is the one that competes directly with China, India, Mexico and other parts of the world where costs are a lot lower than ours can ever be. Every article I read points out that we are a service economy. Some also mention our activities in the Research & Development area with projetcs such as MarRS in Toronto.
So why don’t we spend money improving this sector of the economy? Improve the high speed networks to catch up to some contries that are boasting 20MB and higher speeds, improve electronic access, and security. Make sure some budget is left over to maintain and regularly update these systems. Change our taxation system to encourage these sectors.
This will ensure that we are less dependant on a single major customer. It will provide jobs for the many immigrants who come to this country PhD’s in hand. We have everything in place to make this a success, except govenrment participation.
