It’s autumn in Ottawa and policy advice is flowing like wine as organizations of every stripe attempt to influence the process leading up to next year’s Budget. With the Speech from the Throne laying down the parameters, it’s expected that proposals for new or enhanced initiatives or programs will dovetail with the government’s five-point economic strategy.
The strategy contains a wide variety of components that can be linked to innovation, from specialized skills training and changes to the Competition Act to industrial sector development and commercialization of early-stage technologies. It’s an ambitious plan and there’s no shortage of good ideas that can be wrapped around the strategy’s pillars.
If innovation indeed remains a high priority, then boosting commercialization and encouraging businesses to increase R&D spending and productivity should be at the top of the list. Exploiting the knowledge pipeline is essential if Canadians are to receive a return on their investment in research. Without the proper environment for financing promising ideas, that investment could be squandered. Work also needs to be done on how to grow small firms into large entities that will fuel job growth and economic prosperity by successfully cracking global markets.
Established companies could also use an enhanced policy environment. As the story on page 5 illustrates, corporate R&D spending is sliding. Clearly more needs to be done to instill a culture of innovation across all sectors.
These issues need to be addressed quickly if Canada wants to remain a major player in the global economy.
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