If we held an financial Olympic Games, how would Team Canada do?

At the 1980 Winter Olympics, the U.S. males’s hockey workforce beat the Soviets. The Americans referred to as it The Miracle on Ice, and it was. It was as unbelievable as frozen faucet water being was merlot.

Back then, the world’s hockey powers had been the Soviet Union and Canada. (We had been all the time prevented from sending our professionals to the Olympics, however that’s one other story.) The United States was barely on the hockey map. The NHL’s top 50 scorers that yr included simply two “Americans” – Canadian-born and raised Peter McNab, and Mark Howe, the U.S.-born son of Gordie Howe.

If that 1980 workforce of American amateurs had performed the Big Red Machine 10 extra occasions, the Soviets would have gained all 10.

Today, the U.S. is a hockey powerhouse. More than a quarter of the NHL’s players are American. It’s a reminder that, over time, issues can change, if folks work to vary them. Nothing is written in stone. Progress is feasible; so is decline. Tomorrow gained’t essentially appear like at this time – for hockey groups or nations.

Can Canada’s financial system ignite in 2026? These 14 charts illustrate our funding dilemmas

In 1960, South Korea was one of many world’s least-developed nations. The Maddison Project database of long-run financial efficiency estimates that Canada’s gross home product per capita was 9 occasions larger. Lebanon’s GDP per capita was 4 occasions larger. Mexico’s was 3 times larger. The nation was poorer than Haiti.

Today, Canada is negotiating to purchase South Korean submarines, and attempting to entice South Korea’s automakers to arrange store right here. From the vantage level of 1960, it’s much more unbelievable than the Americans profitable one hockey sport at Lake Placid.

In 1960, Korea’s manufacturing sector barely existed. And its car trade? There was none.

Canada, in distinction, was one of many world’s industrial leaders. During the Second World War, our factories constructed extra vehicles than Germany. We made tanks for the Soviet Union. An enormous manufacturing facility in Toronto’s Liberty Village exported hundreds of machine weapons to a rustic that lacked such superior manufacturing: China.

By the late Nineteen Fifties, Canada was additionally one of many few locations in a position to construct modern plane, from American-designed CF-86s and CF-104s constructed by Canadair of Montreal to Avro Canada’s homegrown Arrow, a airplane that solely 5 different nations would have been able to growing and manufacturing.

But being on the highest of the rostrum doesn’t imply you’ll all the time be there. Others are chasing, watching, studying, innovating.

An instance of an athletic innovator is Norwegian cross-country skier Johannes Hoesflot Klaebo. His nation is likely one of the dominant powers in that sport, however pre-eminence shouldn’t be automated. Other nations have snow. Other nations have skis.

On Sunday, Mr. Klaebo turned the primary winter Olympian to win 9 gold medals. (He might add extra later this week.) He did it via skill and coaching, but additionally innovation. His novel approach for snowboarding up hills leaves opponents trying like they’re standing nonetheless.

Like the Fosbury Flop – invented by American excessive jumper Dick Fosbury, and which he used to win gold on the 1968 Olympics – others will emulate Mr. Klaebo’s approach, and enhance on it. And some day, different new concepts might surpass it.

Since 1960, Canada has managed to stay among the many world’s wealthiest nations, and among the many most profitable in different respects – democracy, free speech, rule of regulation, lengthy life expectancy, academic achievement, protected streets. Some nations that had been as soon as far behind have caught up, and that’s principally not a foul factor. Unlike the Olympic podium, human improvement isn’t a zero-sum sport.

If individuals who as soon as lived beneath dictatorships – Eastern Europeans, South Koreans, Taiwanese – now take pleasure in private liberties corresponding to ours, that hardly makes us worse off.

And that previously impoverished nations like South Korea can now supply their folks Canadian-level residing requirements doesn’t make us poorer. We’d be far worse off if the remainder of the world couldn’t afford to purchase our exports.

At the identical time, nonetheless, our quest for the best doable way of life, with good jobs for many Canadians, relies on our skill to get plenty of issues proper in Canadian society and coverage, yr after yr. That consists of staying on the forefront in agriculture, mining and oil and gasoline, but additionally manufacturing, companies and knowledge know-how. We don’t must be on the rostrum in each occasion, however we now have to arrange our firms and our folks to be medal contenders in fairly just a few.

As I wrote again in 2023, Argentina was once Canada. Its story is a dystopian model of South Korea’s.

A century in the past, Argentina was Canada’s twin. Their economies had been comparable, and residing requirements had been the identical. But Argentina has spent many years affected by catastrophically unhealthy governments that made horrible selections, placing it on a path of regular decline.

Argentina has additionally by no means gained a medal on the Winter Olympics, even supposing, like Norway and Canada, the nation has snow-covered mountains and wonderful snowboarding.

And if financial and social improvement had been Olympic sports activities? Team Argentina wouldn’t even be on the ice. They wouldn’t have certified for the Games for the reason that mid-Twentieth century.

Canada’s financial document is healthier. But it may very well be higher nonetheless.