The Ottawa Citizen
Wednesday 11 July 2001

UN list ranks Canada 8th in technology

UN list casts doubt on federal claim country soon to be 'most connected'
By Jen Ross
"It illustrates the gap between our current aspirations and our reality," said Lynda Leonard, spokeswoman for the Information Technology Association of Canada.
Most of the report focuses on the need for developing countries to make effective use of technology or risk falling behind in human development.

Canada's eighth-place ranking on a new UN technological achievement index released yesterday casts doubt on the federal government's claims that Canada will soon be the most connected country.

The 2001 Human Development Report is the first time the United Nations Development Program has measured technological achievement. It ranked 72 countries based on indicators such as technology exports, patent granting, Internet use per capita, and post-secondary enrolment in the sciences.

"Eighth standing is OK, but is it where we want to be? Probably not," said Lynda Leonard, spokeswoman for the Information Technology Association of Canada. "It illustrates the gap between our current aspirations and our reality."

This year, Canada slipped from its first-place ranking on the human development index for the first time in seven years. But its third-place human development ranking is unrelated to its score on technological innovation. Norway, for example, placed 12th in technology but bumped Canada out of first place in human development.

Industry Canada research manager Bev Mahony questioned the index's methodology and stressed that according to Conference Board of Canada figures, Canada is ranked second for connectedness, measured more broadly by Internet use, access and cost.

In the UN report, Finland beat the U.S. for top spot because it has more Internet hosts per capita and higher enrolment in science programs.

One category dragging Canada down was patents (31 per million residents, versus 994 for Japan). Many Canadians seek patents in the larger U.S. market. Canada also ranked 13th among the top 30 exporters of high-technology products.

Most of the report focuses on the need for developing countries to make effective use of technology or risk falling behind in human development. That focus was partly in reaction to protesters' cries at last year's G-8 summit in Okinawa that "we can't eat computers."