Last week, Nicholson wrote a stem-winder of a piece for IRPP. You should read it in full, but let me give you the Coles notes version: Canada is not very good at innovation (defined here as: “new or better ways of creating value”). One result of this is that Canadian productivity growth has been below the OECD average for most of the last 20 years. Canadians do not often realize this because our economic performance overall has been better than the OECD average. How is that possible? Because our employment growth has been solid (resource economies get to coast that way). Unfortunately, with a now-declining labour force, that avenue for growth is now over and we must rely more and more on productivity and innovation for growth.