Canada Declines in International ICT Ranking

A few weeks ago Simon Fodden wrote about the “Ontario in the Creative Age” report that basically says we need to turn more to creative work to be successful economically. That builds on the creative class theory that says communities with a higher % of the creative class tend to do better economically.

Especially in light of that, its dissapointing to see that an ITU report that measures the use of information and communications technologies in more than 150 countries dropped Canada from 9th in 2002 to 19th in 2007.

Michael Geist comments that:

No country in the top 50 declined as rapidly as Canada as we were passed by the U.S., Australia, New Zealand, many Asian countries (Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong), and European nations (UK, Luxembourg, Germany, Ireland).

The decline in a sub-index on ICT use is even more dramatic. The sub-index measures Internet user penetration, fixed broadband penetration, and mobile broadband penetration. Canada ranked 4th worldwide in 2002. By 2007, we dropped to 21st worldwide. While the survey also includes data suggesting that Canada has relatively inexpensive fixed broadband (2nd worldwide), the declining numbers are consistent with other studies that indicate that any advantages that Canada had in the late 1990s have long since disappeared.

Canada used to be a world leader in communications technology. The evidence confirms our anecdotal frustrations at, for example, new smartphone technology arriving in Canada long after other countries.

Somehow we need to reverse this trend.