Technological Progress And Competitiveness In The Canadian Forest Products Industry

This report synthesizes current information and expert opinions pertaining to technological innovation & competitiveness and assesses the technological performance of the Canadian forest products sector. The opening chapter examines the process of technological innovation and technology's role in and impact on society. The next chapter assesses the technological capacity of the forest sector and describes some approaches for evaluating the adequacy of research and development funding. Chapter four identifies and discusses features and characteristics of the Canadian forest products sector and market that affect the industry's technological capacity and rate of innovation. The last chapter examines the changing competitive circumstances of the industry and how these conditions are expected to circumscribe the industry's future technological requirements. It also reviews and summarizes findings from previous chapters and reorganizes them into issues and considerations for positioning the forest sector in a knowledge-based global market. The appendix contains an overview of organizations involved in forestry and forest products research and development in Canada.

Explaining the natural limits on the carrying capacity of forest ecosystems to natural and human-induced disturbances underpinned the goal of this study. Hypothesised mutually reinforcing beneficial effects of sustainable forest ecosystem management (SFEM) practices and total factor productivity growth (TFPG) in regionally segmented Canadian logging industries were examined. Two complementary methodologies were applied: (1) A normative bioeconomic analysis of SFEM, and (2) an analysis of TFPG, which is a commonly accepted indicator of technological progress. Sluggish, but upward trends in TFPG appeared to support the hypothesised outcomes that logging operations were technically efficient, that firms in each regional industry had comparative cost advantages in the marketplace, and that the unavoidable adverse effects of logging operations on integrity of forest ecosystems were tolerable, given the economic fact that logging sustains the forest sectors significant role in the overall performance of the national economy. However, low TFPG implied a need for strategic policy that would boost investments in research and development to promote technological progress, so as to ensure environmental quality, sustainable timber supply, and competitiveness in the Canadian forest sector. Society derives multiple benefits from TFPG that include: (i) A synergetic combination of factor accumulation and TFPG, which is one of the engines of economic growth; (ii) a minimisation of the natural capital stock, timber, and depletion; (iii) the mitigation of the wasteful use of scarce-productive resources; (iv) the mitigation of adverse impacts of inflation on economic growth; (v) the maximisation of profits due to economic savings made in production processes; (vi) the reallocation of freed productive resources to the production of other goods and services, leading to technical and economic efficiency; and (vii) the improvements in the competitive position of the Canadian forest sector. Accordingly, this book concluded with a list of policy recommendations.

The forest-products industries are Canada's largest industrial sector andaccount for one job in every seven. This statement is issued to stimulateaction toward an innovation strategy for the forest-product industriesbuilding on a background study of R & D and technological innovation in theseindustries and discussions with a number of industry leaders.

The breadth of this work will allow the reader to acquire a comprehensive and panoramic picture of the nature of innovation within a single handbook.

The impact of climate change is becoming increasingly obvious around the world but different levels of the Canadian government are failing to respond cohesively. For example, the Harper government immediately cut several liberal-era environmental research programs and admitted that Canada has been moving away from Kyoto Protocol targets and that the Kyoto Protocol is not central to its idea of either good environmental or good energy policy. Meanwhile, a Quebec liberal government announced that it would introduce a carbon tax to reduce CO2 emissions by 10 million tons by 2012 while Canada's mayors introduced their own climate change initiatives, linking them to local infrastructure development. This second volume in the ISE series examines the reshaping of ISE policy in the context of multi-level governance and policy. Contributors examine climate change policy, innovation in the natural resources sector, the internet pharmacy trade, biotechnology policy and governance, provincial government renewable energy policies, the psychological and human nature connection with sustainable development policies, procurement policy and innovation, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, and the commercialization of Canada's universities.