The Globe and Mail reports in its Tuesday edition last week, The Globe carried two headlines that speak volumes about the future of Canadian prosperity. Guest columnist Jim Balsillie writes one headline was about British Columbia's Ballard Technologies, whose deal with Volkswagen sent shares soaring. The other headline read, "Oil firms cut jobs, budgets as crude drop hits earnings." This is a tale of two economies: high margins driven by valuable patent licensing versus the adverse effects of plummeting oil prices. If we want to maintain Canadians' quality of life, we need more headlines about Canadian companies driving profits and job creation. Mr. Balsillie says he is bullish on Canada's prospects for the future -- strong fundamentals, low corporate taxes, generous granting programs and the highest per capita government research-and-development spending among OECD countries. Yet in the past 32 years, growth in Canada's commercialization of our ideas, often measured by "multifactor productivity," has been virtually zero, while at the same time, U.S. multifactor productivity has soared. There is a commercialization gap in Canada, and it needs to be fixed before Canada is left standing beside the highway.