KAREN HOWLETT
From Thursday's Globe and Mail
February 5, 2009 at 5:35 AM EST
TORONTO — The once-in-a-lifetime economic crisis should spur governments to look beyond stimulus schemes to save industrial jobs and toward ways to nurture the occupations that can build future prosperity, says urban thinker Richard Florida.
"These kind of crises - 1873, 1929, 2008 - they don't come around that often, and they force people to think in a new way," he said in an interview yesterday. "Now, you've got to say, 'what are we going to do?' "
In a report to be released today, Dr. Florida and co-author Roger Martin, dean of the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management, have laid out their blueprint for the future, one in which virtually every worker, from dry cleaners to biomedical engineers, and every nook and cranny of Canada reaps the benefits of a creative economy.
The report focuses exclusively on Ontario; it was commissioned by Premier Dalton McGuinty. But its findings apply all across Canada as every province makes the transformation from an industrial society to a creative one.
The authors say the boundaries separating old industrial cities, Canada's North and rural regions from the burgeoning hotbeds of creative, knowledge-driven activity must be torn down. The creative economy must give rise to a new geographic structure consisting of a series of cities and suburbs linked together by rapid-transit systems and communications networks, the report says.
"In the past, you could have your own island economy," Dr. Florida said. "Now we have to connect mega-regions."
Canada's future prosperity hinges on its ability to nurture and develop the creative skills of its workers. Ontario is on the front lines of making the transition as its manufacturing heartland undergoes wrenching change.
The province is an interesting case study, because its economy consists of industrial auto plants and factories, remote rural regions and three distinct creative clusters in the Toronto, Ottawa and Kitchener-Waterloo areas, Dr. Florida said.
Ontario has lost thousands of manufacturing jobs in recent years. Many of these jobs have vanished forever as manufacturing plants shut down, reduce their work force or pull up stakes altogether. The province's road to prosperity hinges on making the transition from an economy based on physical labour to one based on the brainpower of its workers.
Ontario has a long way to go, the report says.
For starters, the province does not place a high enough premium on knowledge workers. This not only prevents the province from attracting the best and the brightest from around the world, it also likely accounts for the brain drain of talented professionals leaving Ontario for greener pastures, Dr. Florida said.
Wages for creative workers are lower in Ontario than in 14 other jurisdictions examined by the authors. These include British Columbia, Alberta and Quebec as well as Arizona, Illinois, Michigan, New York and Ohio.
The province values physical labour more than analytical and social skills, the report says. While that may have worked well in the industrial age, it will slow down its transition from an economy based on physical brawn to one based on human creativity, it adds.
"We have not rewarded our cognitive skills," Dr. Florida said, adding that this is not a function of the mix of jobs.
Much of the report has a utopian feel to it, because the authors' vision for the future is dramatically at odds with current reality. The authors acknowledge as much, by outlining a number of other steps the province must take.
Ontario should be viewed as the world's most talented jurisdiction, with enough highly skilled workers to fill the 70 per cent of new jobs that will call for a college or university education. Ontario should also have the social safety nets that would provide basic goods for those in need and greater opportunity for every person to fulfill his or her creative talents, including early childhood development programs.
"This is the highest payoff investment we can make in our long-run prosperity," the report says. "As we have seen, early childhood development is key to the full development of human capabilities and talent."
