Sunday was a beautiful day and the boys took a football out to the park to play catch.  The sun was irresistible, so I walked out to the park to join them.  As I turned the corner to the park, I heard one of them say, “Hey there’s Dad, now we can play a game of 2 on 2″.

I had expected to play some catch, nothing too strenuous, but now I was in a competition; four for the field.  My middle son and I would play against my other two sons.  We kicked to them and I missed tagging the receiver but my teammate caught him.  We managed to hold them off for four downs.  Now our turn at the offense.  Although my son can throw twice as far as I can, I wasn’t too keen on too much running, so I took the quarterback position.  Three passes incomplete – last down – the snap – my youngest son starts to count, “One steamboat, two steamboat, ” then looks over his shoulder to see where the other two are.

So I run for it. I’m running carefully as the field is still a bit soft.  I glance over my shoulder to see my 12 year old son gaining on me.  I could still outrun him last year, but he’s grown at least 3 inches since then.  My brain tells me that I’m still 6 inches taller and that I can still out run him – just push myself a bit.  My legs haven’t done this for several months and don’t respond, so I go down rolling into the grass to a chorus of laughter.  I lost my balance trying to run faster and my legs gave out, it was so funny, I couldn’t help but laugh at myself.  Then I heard a comment in the distance, “That’s going to hurt tomorrow!”

Thanks to the soft grass, that incident nor another tumble I took a few minutes later hurt but I knew that I would feel it the next day.  Not so much for the fall, but for pushing my physical limits as I had not done for a long time.

I have been reading articles and blog posts on Canada’s innovation gap with the US.  Our productivity lags that of the US and that gap has been widening for many years.  One of the causes that has been identified for this gap is that Canadian enterprises consistently under invest in IT technologies relative to their US rivals.  We are not competitive with our largest trading partner and we are also not competitive on a global scale either.  One report placed Canada 13th for innovation.

Walking home from the park, I began comparing this situation to my experience playing football with the boys.  They are stronger and faster and even my 12 year old can outrun me now.  One of the boys asked me if I would start working out again. I said that I knew I should, but other matters were more pressing for now.  If I exercise, I should be able to play ball with the boys for many more years; if I don’t, they’re going to run circles around me and I’m going to hurt myself.

As Canadians, we take a bit of pride that in this awful recession we do not seem to have fallen as badly as our neighbours to the south.  We even appear to be pulling out of the recession a little earlier that many other nations.  But we shouldn’t fool ourselves; as a nation we have a lot of wealth, but if we fail to correct our competitive deficits relative to other developed nations, our standard of living will certainly erode and that’s not funny.  Canada needs to be the home of more wealth generating products and services.  Our businesses, small and large, need to be more competitive.

We learned from the Vancouver Olympics that we can be competitive on a global scale if we choose to be, and if we invest in ourselves.  We need an “Own the Podium” mindset for Canadian business.  Industry Canada is expected to open up public consultation on its Digital Economy Strategy some time in the next few weeks.  This is an opportunity for Canadians to share their ideas on how to make Canada’s economy more competitive.  Now is the time to act to make Canada a stronger economic power.

Although Canada’s fall in this recession has been softer than for many nations, “It’s going to hurt tomorrow!” if we do not take action to be more competitive.  It’s not a laughing matter, if we fail to close the productivity gap with the US and other innovative nations, our children as a whole will have a lower standard of living than we had.