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A postindustrial society relies on service industries, knowledge production, and information technology to create wealth rather than heavy industrial manufacturing. Has Canada become a “postindustrial” society? We shall answer this question based on the characteristics of a postindustrial society.

Since the beginning of industrialization in Canada, the growth of the service sector has been remarkable. In 1891, the service sector accounted for only 31 percent of the Canadian labour force (Matthews 1985: 36). By 1951, almost half of all employed Canadians were working in the service industry (Picot 1987: 11). According to Statistics Canada, in 2005, 75 percent of all Canadian Employment is from the services-producing sector while only 14 percent is from the manufacturing sector.1 Although this does not imply that there has been a decrease in manufactured goods as many factories now use machines instead of a human workforce, it does show that Canadian workers have moved from goods-producing jobs to service-based jobs.

As argued by Daniel Bell (1993: 356-67), in a postindustrial society power would no longer merely reside in the ownership of property, but also in the ability to think and to solve problems and in access to knowledge. In 1996, roughly 48 percent of the Canadian workers (males and females combined) have earned a post-secondary degree or diploma, a much higher percentage than in 1975, when only 23 percent of the employed Canadians held a post-secondary degree or diploma.2 By looking at the acquisition of formal education, we can indisputably say that Canadians are becoming increasingly well educated, which leads to the increasing amount of knowledge-based or white-collar work. Furthermore, in 2005, there are more than 21 million internet users in Canada, which is 68 percent of the total Canadian population.3 Therefore Canadian people have become more powerful in access to knowledge.

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