Closing the Productivity Gap
Canadian output per worker has slid for decades and now trails the US badly. The fix is vertical software and automation for the under-digitized businesses that make up the real economy.
Canada has a productivity emergency: output per hour has fallen so far behind the United States that the Bank of Canada called it an emergency out loud. The cause is mundane and fixable — most Canadian businesses, especially the small and mid-sized firms that employ the majority of workers, still run on paper, spreadsheets, and aging tools. The frontier is unglamorous and enormous: vertical software for industries no one has bothered to digitize, automation for the trades and the back office, and the AI tooling that lets a Canadian SME punch above its headcount. Constellation Software proved the model is worth tens of billions; the surface is barely scratched.
