News Releases
MONTREAL, February 28, 2011 – “Canadian productivity, which is about 75% lower than U.S. productivity, costs Canadians $300 billion a year in lost income, jobs, profits and taxes, including some $65 to $70 million for Quebec,” said L. Jacques M�nard, President of BMO Financial Group, Quebec, in a luncheon speech today before members of the Canadian Club of Montreal.
Addressing the issue of productivity from the viewpoint of Generation Y and with an eye to the challenges facing Quebec in the next two decades, Mr. M�nard stressed the importance of innovation, personal responsibility and education as the cornerstone of the Quebec of tomorrow. “It's education that has enabled us to reach our current position and it's education that will give us the second wind we need to enter the small circle of top leaders,” said the Concordia University chancellor and chair of the Action Group on Student Retention and Success in Quebec.
Mr. M�nard also encouraged Quebec businesses that have not taken advantage of the strong dollar to increase their productivity and spur innovation by upping their investment in information technology, equipment and machinery. He also proposed creating a productivity and innovation council whose mandate would be to collect, explain and disseminate, on a sectoral basis, the best practices in use around the globe that are accessible to SMEs and their executives.
On the social front, in view of the rapid aging of Quebec's population, Mr. M�nard called for innovation and a new approach to delivering services by focusing on the client or patient instead of limiting access to care or services in order to balance the budgets of the public bodies that provide the services. “We've got to make more room for the delivery of health care services by the private sector at lower cost and funded entirely by the government, as recommended by the Working Committee on the Sustainability of the Qu�bec Health Care and Social Services System, which I chaired in 2004–2005,” Mr. M�nard added.
Hailing the recent launch of Finance Montr�al, the president of BMO in Quebec also encouraged the creation of industrial clusters and better coordination of inter-related companies in these clusters, pointing to A�ro Montr�al's success in promoting innovation to the benefit of the entire aerospace sector.
“To increase our productivity, we have to change our habits as well as our ways of thinking and then take action by supporting the efforts of the new generation and its projects with promise for the future,” Mr. M�nard concluded.
- 30 -
Contact:
Ronald Monet, Montreal, ronald.monet@bmo.com, (514) 877-1873