What is the State of Canada’s Tech, Really?
August 15th, 2010 | by James Burchill |A study by the World Economic Forum, released in March, put Canada in the number 7 slot out of 133 countries in regards to technology and usage. The report ranked countries based on 68 categories related to tech, including educational level, governmental use of technology, and mobile phone prices.
The study may need to be taken with a healthy grain of salt, however. So before Canadians get all giddy about their new tech-savvy status, let’s consider the study and its source.
To start with, the study put Canada at a higher rank than normally high-ranking tech-savvy cultures such as South Korea (now 15th) and Japan (now 21st). Why would they do that when cellular, emerging tech, and other things are more open and accessible there than they are in the Great White North?
=== The study’s authors are a clue.
The study was authored by the World Economic Forum, based in Geneva. These are not technologically-oriented people, they are economists working in a political forum. The WEF’s mission is to engage “leaders in partnerships to shape global, regional and industry agendas.” These partnerships are centred on economics, which right now are very politicized as a world-wide recession and recovery are underway.
That’s important to understand because it brings to light a good reason why Canada has moved up in the rankings while other, traditionally tech-savvy countries have fallen.
=== The world economy
Canada currently enjoys a strong reputation on the world stage thanks to the nation’s weathering the recession with few difficulties as compared to others. This makes Canada a sort of economic darling for many. This, of course, is good news for Canada ~ tech standings notwithstanding.
Canada does well in the survey’s sections on electricity production, fixed phone service prices, personal computer usage, and the like. Canada did not fare so well on mobile subscription rates (our rates are higher than even those in the U.S., on average), taxation, and other socio-economic tech indicators.
=== What economists are saying about the report
This is telling, as most are in agreement that the report is less than scientific and probably indicative more of political goodwill than of anything else. Several points in the report indicate this, including the “competitive index,” which ranks countries for the competition in markets ~ which Canada is sorely lacking in mobile providers, but still gained top marks in.
The good news is that much in the realm of economics is hinged on public perception. So the report may be correct in gauging the perception of Canada (on the world stage) as higher than that of Japan. This, overall, is a good indicator for Canada and means more than whether Canadians really are more tech-savvy than others.
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