Recently I saw a comment on another thread, to the effect that Canadians are among the world's leaders when it comes to inventions and patents.
Actually, Canada's record in that area is abysmal. Just counting patents is not a measure of a nation's inventiveness - Canada gets more patents than Albania, but that doesn't mean anything. The correct measure is to compare the number of patents granted to a country's inventors per year with the number of people graduating from the country's universities per year. Japan is first, USA second, Canada is the bottom, repeat bottom, country in the world, on this measure.
Of course, it's not so much a flaw in our national character as a quirk of the economy. Most inventions are made at the large engineering research centres of major companies, and Canada's problem is that so many of the companies doing business inside Canada have their research centres outside.
What to do about it? If only we were a nation of inventors, we might be able to think of something.
Actually, Canada's record in that area is abysmal. Just counting patents is not a measure of a nation's inventiveness - Canada gets more patents than Albania, but that doesn't mean anything. The correct measure is to compare the number of patents granted to a country's inventors per year with the number of people graduating from the country's universities per year. Japan is first, USA second, Canada is the bottom, repeat bottom, country in the world, on this measure.
Of course, it's not so much a flaw in our national character as a quirk of the economy. Most inventions are made at the large engineering research centres of major companies, and Canada's problem is that so many of the companies doing business inside Canada have their research centres outside.
What to do about it? If only we were a nation of inventors, we might be able to think of something.
