Why Canada Can't Create Anything Useful Anymore

Here’s how other countries build infrastructure:

“The United Arab Emirates had no nuclear engineers. No regulator. No nuclear history. In 2009, it decided to build four nuclear reactors anyway. By 2024, all four were operating. Delivered on time, on budget, and cleaner than almost anything else on the grid...5,600 MW of capacity. About 25% of national electricity…They built in sequence. Units 1 through 4 were staggered roughly a year apart. The same workforce moved from one unit to the next, carrying forward lessons in real time. By the fourth unit, construction and commissioning timelines had improved dramatically.”

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Up until a quarter century ago, Canadians could point with pride to areas where we punched above our weight. Those included:

• Atomic Energy of Canada’s CANDU reactor program that built and exported world-class, safe, and reliable heavy water reactors.

• MDA Space Ltd. (Canadarm) innovations in space robotics.

• Early satellite communications through the Anik geostationary systems.

• Leadership in grain storage, transport, and prairie farming systems and development of hardy wheat strains.

• Early leadership in universal healthcare policy and epidemiological and public health infrastructure.

• Advanced cold-weather engineering and logistics and large-scale hydroelectric development.

• Large-scale resource extraction in difficult environments.

• Sustainable forestry infrastructure.

• A highly regulated and stable banking sector that, for example, largely avoided the 2008 financial crisis.

The keys to those successes seem to include the realization that we can leverage local geographic and governance conditions to excel in specific niche sectors. We knew our place in the larger scheme of things and competed where it made sense.

Well how’s all that working out now?

• There’s little market room available for half-century-old nuclear technologies now that the world has shifted to light-water and Small Modular Reactors (SMRs)

• The Canadarm was cool but MDA Space Ltd. has done little to expand their reach (so to speak) or to stimulate a serious domestic space industry.

• SpaceX currently far outperforms 50 years of Anik Satellite functionality every couple of weeks.

• Recused institutional vision and a global consolidation of agri-tech firms mean that public agricultural research and innovation plateaued. Arguably, Canadian farms now survive only through government subsidies and anti-market regulation (like supply management).

• Healthcare efficiency and innovation? I don’t think so.

• Given competing political agendas and consultation requirements, resource extraction and large infrastructure projects are now nearly impossible to execute.

• Canadian banks are still stable, but there’s been growing domestic criticism that they’re not always serving the best interests of Canadians or of Canada.

The bottom line is that there’s now precious little that Canadians (in Canada) do that’s changing the world in positive ways. And there’s arguably even less we do that makes us measurably wealthier or more secure.

None of which is to say that we’re irredeemably and inescapably done. Sure, the number of truly powerful people in the world who listen when Canadian politicians nag them could probably fit inside a mid-sized SUV with plenty of room for luggage. And there’s no foreseeable future where Canada becomes an apex industrial predator confidently striding the planet.

But here are some areas where we could still make a difference:

• In a world struggling to build out energy transmission and storage capacity, grid management and storage integration are valuable skills. Assumes interprovincial politics and permitting delays don’t get in the way of innovative domestic roll outs.

• SMR projects recently announced by Ontario Power Generation could lead into competitive markets. Assumes they avoid cost overruns and long delays and aren’t held back by licensing hurdles.

• Institutional climate variability expertise in the agricultural sector could contribute valuable developments in drought-resistant crops, cold-climate farming systems, and precision agriculture for large-scale farms. Assumes access to commercialization and venture scaling - for which there’s currently little political will.

• Integrated, traceable, and reliable supply chains for sourcing critical minerals are among the most realistic paths to hard economic power. Assumes we can somehow overcome slow permitting and close infrastructure gaps in remote areas.

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