Hmmm. Try applying that analysis elsewhere: Scandinavian countries, for example, and tell me what you find. Are they doomed too?
Firstly, Canada has a huge branch-plant economy in agriculture, manufacturing and services, which has grown over the past 70 years. Ownership != economic output. It does change the pattern of investment, of course -- less disruptive entrepreneurs and more incremental improvements.
Secondly, the world is not made of software alone. Facebook is utterly irrelevant to the world economy. The world is still sadly not made of electrons, it is made of stuff, and that stuff powered (mostly) by hydro or carbon, and run by humans that need fresh water. Those industries you discount are massively important and only getting more so globally. IF Canada doesn't provide a large chunk of the world's natural resources, others will, until we devolve into a Mad Max type future fighting over fuel or fix our renewable energy problem economically (whichever comes first). Thus, Alberta is likely the new global oil powerhouse for the next century. Saskatchewan has the largest deposit of Potash fertilizer on Earth (4+ trillion tonnes).
None of this precludes Canada from investing in tech entrepreneurship, but it does mean the incentives need to be higher than usual.
Will Canadian knowledge workers experience economic growth as individuals in the long term because of the natural resource industries? Will that growth be comparable to the US?
Many thousands of engineers are involved in the oil sands to make extraction cleaner and more economical. Similarly for mining potash at the extreme depths sometimes required. Or for natgas fracking. Those activities are going to have massive consequences to humanity.
For software developers, that doesn't help matters, but there remains a thriving software scene in certain Canadian centres (Vancouver, Toronto, Waterloo have thousands of startup each)- its just not made of behemoths.
Firstly, Canada has a huge branch-plant economy in agriculture, manufacturing and services, which has grown over the past 70 years. Ownership != economic output. It does change the pattern of investment, of course -- less disruptive entrepreneurs and more incremental improvements.
Secondly, the world is not made of software alone. Facebook is utterly irrelevant to the world economy. The world is still sadly not made of electrons, it is made of stuff, and that stuff powered (mostly) by hydro or carbon, and run by humans that need fresh water. Those industries you discount are massively important and only getting more so globally. IF Canada doesn't provide a large chunk of the world's natural resources, others will, until we devolve into a Mad Max type future fighting over fuel or fix our renewable energy problem economically (whichever comes first). Thus, Alberta is likely the new global oil powerhouse for the next century. Saskatchewan has the largest deposit of Potash fertilizer on Earth (4+ trillion tonnes).
None of this precludes Canada from investing in tech entrepreneurship, but it does mean the incentives need to be higher than usual.