by Keith Cowan, President, Yorktown Technologies Inc

Ted Byfield, when lamenting the University of Alberta decision to close the Faculty of Dentistry, correctly observes that this is because such sciences are expensive to teach. He goes on to predict that the current and continuing financial squeeze will inevitably lead us to have only "amorphous arts faculties" left rather than the applied sciences on which "the technology and economic future of the country depends".

As an applied science graduate, I can sympathize with the intent of the article, but I must ask whether Alberta is suffering a serious shortage of dentists? It seems that the dental technology has progressed to the stage that we have too many dentists chasing too few teeth! Maybe it's time our public institutions start directing their efforts at our current and future needs and not those of the past.

If the inevitable result of the financial crisis is only "soft" courses as Ted predicts, should we not try to discover how to capitalize on our increasingly soft-skilled population? If it is inevitable that we have already and will continue to produce a predominantly soft-skilled populace when compared to other jurisdictions, we had better learn to gain international leverage and not let this transient advantage dribble away on us!

For example, if Sony has enough hard skills and manufacturing efficiency to build all the hardware (such as eight millimeter camcorders), while North America has all the creative soft skills to produce the "software" that led to the success of Hollywood, maybe we should be more concerned about the purchase by Sony of CBS Columbia and try to get back control of our motion picture and sound software. (I am referring to all content as software in anticipation of what it will be like after the audiovisual technology revolution is complete.)

My basic point is that the soft-skilled industries appear to be where North America has developed a source of sustainable competitive advantage internationally. There are fundamental cultural underpinnings that make the soft skills likely to be our area of strength for the foreseeable future.

By all means, let's get the universities to focus on what society needs, including relevant sciences, but let's not wait for the decade required to rebuild our capacity in the sciences and technology when we can capitalize on the soft-skilled competitive advantage that we have already developed.

(The preceeding was published in The Financial Post and is reproduced here as a "teaser" for the more extensive comparison provided in North American Competitive Position vs.. Japan.)

Copyright the authors and/or Keith Cowan