{"id":69002,"date":"2016-01-14T23:14:56","date_gmt":"2016-01-15T04:14:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=69002"},"modified":"2016-01-14T23:14:56","modified_gmt":"2016-01-15T04:14:56","slug":"diversification-key-to-success-of-canadian-economy-pm-trudeau-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2016\/01\/14\/diversification-key-to-success-of-canadian-economy-pm-trudeau-says\/","title":{"rendered":"Diversification key to success of Canadian economy, PM Trudeau says"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Prime<\/a>
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau
(Photo courtesy of PM Trudeau’s official Facebook page<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

KITCHENER, Ont.\u2014Shifting away from reliance on oil and other commodities is key to Canada’s economic recovery and future growth, an upbeat Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Thursday.<\/p>\n

Speaking at the opening of Google’s new Canadian headquarters, Trudeau acknowledged the pain many people are feeling amid an unprecedented slump in oil prices.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe recent troublesome news coming out of Alberta and elsewhere is, unfortunately, not a surprise\u2014we saw the trend lines coming,\u201d Trudeau said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is why we put forward an ambitious agenda to invest in Canada, to count on Canadians to be able to bounce back from low commodity prices by diversifying.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite the \u201cdifficult times,\u201d Trudeau said he was optimistic about the country’s prospects, saying the opening of Google’s 17,000-square-metre facility was an example of the \u201cpositive news\u201d in the economy.<\/p>\n

Canadians, he added, have much to offer the world in terms of innovation and forward thinking.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are tremendous bright spots,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Trudeau spoke of the increasing importance of the high-tech sector to the country’s economic future, with computers and how to program them critical to the sector’s success in a world undergoing \u201cextraordinary changes.\u201d<\/p>\n

During his tour of Google, Trudeau chatted with children taking part in a computer coding workshop. Education that includes such training, he said, is vital.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot only am I a former teacher but I also, when I was studying engineering, got half-way decent as a coder in C++,\u201d he said later.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to do a lot better job of understanding what coding is and how it’s important, how to program, how to problem solve.\u201d<\/p>\n

Google first located to the Kitchener-Waterloo region of southwestern Ontario\u2014which also sports BlackBerry’s headquarters\u2014in 2005. Over the past decade, the region has become an IT hub, with hundreds of tech start-ups calling the area home.<\/p>\n

The new headquarters, which will house Google’s national development team, features themed floors, a barista bar, food no more than 50 metres from any employee, a huddle space and rock-climbing wall.<\/p>\n

Trudeau, who made optimism a central tenet of his election campaign last fall, recalled visiting Google’s offices in Montreal a few years ago, where he said he played on a climbing wall and unicycle.<\/p>\n

That kind of photo-op activity is out of the question now, Trudeau said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are limits as to how much people are happy with a geek prime minister and I know I’m pushing those limits.\u201d<\/p>\n

Earlier in the day, the Liberal prime minister visited BlackBerry’s HQ, and stopped by at the University of Waterloo\u2014which supplies many of Google’s engineers\u2014to announce $12 million for research into clean-water technologies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KITCHENER, Ont.\u2014Shifting away from reliance on oil and other commodities is key to Canada’s economic recovery and future growth, an …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":69005,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,18,16],"tags":[35],"class_list":["post-69002","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","category-news-ca","category-news","tag-original","mauthors-colin-perkel","mauthors-the-canadian-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69002","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69002"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69002\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69005"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}