Less spending on education and training could endanger standard of living: report

Macleans.ca staff | May 23, 2007 | 7:24 pm EST

Weak investment in higher education was one reason cited by the Certified General Accountants Association of Canada for a decline in Canada’s global competitiveness, according to a report released Wednesday. CGA argues that declining productivity could endanger the country’s standard of living.

The CGA-Canada report notes that Canada’s place on a global competitiveness index has fallen from ninth to 16th in only four years.

Rock Lefebvre, CGA-Canada’s vice-president of research, said, "Canada’s dwindling productivity growth can be attributed to low rates of capital investment, weak investment in higher education, poor quality of math and science education at the secondary level, a reduction in employer-supported job training, barriers to private-public partnerships, restrictive government policies inhibiting the market openness of Canadian businesses, and the cost of complying with excessive regulations by small and medium-sized enterprises.”

The report also notes that federal funding to provinces for post-secondary education has fallen from 0.56 per cent of the total GDP in 1983-1984 to 0.19 per cent in 2004-2005 while provincial spending fell from 1.54 per cent of the provincial GDP to 1.05 per cent between 1992-1993 and 2004-2005.

The report found that employers are also spending less on training and that 28 per cent of all employees reported that they had unmet training needs.

Lefebvre calls for investment in human capital by focusing on post-secondary education, tax credits for employer-sponsored training, and high-school mathematics and science skills.