Canada once had an ‘at the time’ super-modern steel industry. Stelco and Dofasco were on the leading edge of steel making tech, using the most advanced for-the-time automated systems. But they fell behind European and Asian technology, became inefficient, and essentially closed up shop. If Canada us to be competitive, we need to completely rethink how we do things. For instance, here is an example of the newest steel making technology that is carbon-friendly, and Canada needs to take a serious look at it.
This is the type of investment needed in Canada.
https://interestingengineering.com/innovation/sweden-green-hydrogen-powered-steel
This discusses why we dont invest in productivity to stay competitive, at 32:30 he goes over whats happening.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOXgOLCm54A
Its also called Capital shallowing.
This is actually exactly what is happening in the US, where slave-wage states are substituting cheap labor for high-tech investment. They are opening up obsolete plants and running them on cheap labor. Provides abundant employment, but doesn’t provide a good living for the worker, nor long term security.
On the other hand China is doing the reverse - their labor wage rate is escalating because it is the national priority to move all workers into the middle income group, and companies have to comply or face the wrath of the government.
In China, they invested hundreds of millions in capital into coal fired electrical production, just to provide the energy to get the economy booming. Now they are investing in nuclear and solar, and they are closing down all the coal plants they just built to improve quality of life. They have so much capital available, they can afford to do this, and their government philosophy goes along with it, not only supporting it but demanding it.
We will see which philosophy wins.
The only way Canada can compete is to change our model.