Province lags behind in productivity.

Ontario is not an economic leader in North America.

Despite being "richer than the richest jurisdictions in the world," the province lags behind in productivity among a selected peer group of American states, says the chairman of a provincial task force on competitiveness.

Though Ontario remains an economic driver in Canada, it is just "one of the pack" in North America, says Roger Martin, dean of the University of Toronto's Joseph Rotman school of management, and his provincially mandated Task Force on Competitiveness, Productivity and Economic Progress wants to figure out why.

Martin was at Sudbury's College Boreal July 25 presenting his group's findings to business people, educators and government bureaucrats for a consultation session on how Ontario, and Sudbury in particular, compares with the most prosperous states and provinces in North America.

According to his group's working paper, a snapshot of Ontario's industry clusters, the province exhibits great strengths and diversity in many industry sectors, but is not deriving the productivity and income levels that it should.

In terms of labour productivity for provinces and states of more than six million productivity, Ontario ranks 14th out of 16 jurisdictions.

Though Ontarians work one hour longer and are more productive than the rest of Canada, Ontario is just an average player when benchmarked against New York, New Jersey, Illinois, California and Pennsylvania.

"Ontario's performance is both encouraging and mystifying," says Martin.

States such as Illinois, which Martin says, almost mirrors Ontario, have a $6,000 higher per capita standard of living. Why?

"If that's the picture, what are we satisfied with in Ontario?

"Are we happy to be 14th of 16th?"

His task force wants community stakeholders to share their thoughts in the coming weeks and months to identify best practices, strengths and areas of growth potential in various industry cluster developments.

Those comments will be included in a final report to be presented to the premier this fall as recommendations on what actions government and individuals can take.

Some attendees in the crowd questioned the relevancy of comparing the relatively urbanized states of Massachusetts and Illinois to Ontario in the task force's preliminary report, saying the characteristics and diversity of the north region are more unique than any other jurisdiction.

"Everybody says that, no matter what cluster you go to," says Martin, "and it is the least helpful in my estimation.

"The reaction that we're different is understandable. A more helpful attitude for Sudbury is how does this impact us in our uniqueness?

Martin says Ontarians need to ask these sort of questions when considering their position in the modern global economy to deter mine what economic development strategies to pursue in mapping out regional clusters of innovation.

"Having done work of this sort in many jurisdictions and consulting work in numerous industries, they all tell you we're different. "I don't mean to mock it, but it's human nature and it's important to get past that first reaction to say "Even though we're different, how does this apply to us and what I take away from this that is most applicable.""

Martin hopes his task force's working paper will get community, business and government groups thinking about spurring local efforts towards strengthening individual cluster developments on a regional, national and international scale.

www.competeprosper.ca