Last week, the Ontario’s minister of finance presented the province’s fall economic statement. The public was advised that the government’s revenues were lower than expected in the budget tabled some four months earlier. Basically, Ontario’s economy is not producing as much wealth as planned, hoped or expected.

This was no surprise to those of us working in the field of competitiveness and productivity. In our latest annual report, we found that Ontario’s prosperity gap with its North American peers is going in the wrong direction. In 2013, Ontario slipped to 15th out of 16 peer jurisdictions on GDP per capita. Furthermore, the prosperity gap increased by $180 from last year and now stands at $11,180.

What does this mean? It means less money in the pockets of regular Ontarians. And it means less money in the public coffers to purchase the public goods that can improve the lives of all Ontarians.

It is time to get back in the race. Now, more than ever, public and private sector leaders in this province need to work together to take a new tack to get the economy moving in the right direction.

In “Finding its own way: Ontario needs to take a new tack,” the Institute for Competitiveness and Prosperity highlights four fundamental issues that have contributed to, and could form a solution for, Ontario’s subpar economic performance: shifts in industrial composition; underperformance in key education indicators; lagging business growth and inadequate levels of innovation.

In the face of the findings of this year’s report, we are calling for more dramatic courses of action. Ontario needs to “tack away” from the policies and programs of other jurisdictions. Copying the actions of others will not be enough to revitalize the province’s economy to lead in the coming years.

This year, we dug deep into broad sectors of the economy to understand what really separated Ontario from its U.S. peers. We found that our manufacturing job losses were more dramatic, that our proportion of jobs in the highly sought after advance manufacturing sector were lower and our wage levels were lower. All in all, a recipe for finishing 15th out of 16 jurisdictions.

The chances of catching up with our peers is made even more difficult when one faces the reality that the labour market of the future will require significant quantitative and technical abilities. The test scores of our students in math and science today do not leave one with confidence that we are preparing them adequately for that future. Beneath those test scores sit two uncomfortable facts — a curriculum that teachers say is leaving our students behind; and teachers who are less educated in math and science than those in peer jurisdictions.

So how does Ontario get back in the race? How can we get ahead of the competition?

We can ensure that we provide students with quality education designed to match future labour market needs. We can continue and improve efforts to teach innovation in secondary school, giving students skills they will use no matter the vocation they choose. We can focus a panoply of public policy instruments on business growth instead of incentivizing companies to stay small — smarter regulation; increasing competition by opening industries up to trade and amending tax policy to incentivize growth.

Finally, we can truly tackle the long-standing albatross of Canadian public policy — innovation. We need better data so we can benchmark and improve innovation. We need to do all we can to better protect our homegrown intellectual property. And we need to rebalance and consolidate direct and indirect support for research and development to build the economy we want in the future.

If you always do what you always did, then you’ll always get what you always got. Well, that has gotten us to second last place amongst our peers. It is time for Ontario to take a new course to grow the economy so that we can afford the quality of life we all want and deserve.

Jamison Steeve is executive director of the Institute for Prosperity and Competitiveness and the Martin Prosperity Institute at the University of Toronto.