Jim Stanford, in his article "A Cure for Dutch Disease: Active Sector Strategies for Canada's Economy,"" discusses how Canada's economy has been changing. Canada has been depending on exporting unprocessed natural resources for its economic, political, and even environmental development. In the first decade, after World War II, Canada was considered industrialized country and its firms and technology was recognized around the world, because a number of pro-active policy makers tried to change the trend of the Canadian economy from depending on exporting natural resources to exporting value-added products such as automotive, aerospace, and telecommunications equipment.
The trend was reversed, since petroleum was discovered in Alberta, which led to Canada's increasing natural resource-dependency. According to some economists this shift in Canada's economy is called "Dutch Disease " which profoundly remade Canada's economy and its role in the world. To describe "Dutch Disease ", it is a concept named after a similar economic situation occurred in Netherlands following the discovery and exploitation of that country's North Sea petroleum resources in 1960s and 1970s. The author then provided evidence of key economic indicators which testifies his conclusion that Canada's economy is heading in a different direction. .
He proposes in his article that Canadian should think about the costs and benefits of this shift in the national economic direction and do their best to find a cure for "Dutch Disease ". He then suggest that in order to avoid Dutch disease, maximize the benefit of resource development and minimizes their costs, Canadians need to develop a set of pro-active policies which supports investment, employment, innovation and exports in targeted high-value sectors of the economy. .
The author's argument is that the effect of "Dutch Disease " and the structural make-up of the Canadian policies have shifted the Canadian economy's direction from industrialized country to more depended on exports of unprocessed resources.
