This year’s Budget was not preceded with much expectation. With the government gearing up for an election in 2015, the Finance minister’s economic blueprint for the next fiscal year was expected to be relatively bereft of any significant spending increases. So if the Budget represents a holding pattern, did research and innovation hold its own?
At first blush, the answer appears to be yes. Reaction was dominated by the surprise announcement of a $1.5-billion, 10-year investment in a new fund designed to boost excellence and talent and boost Canada as a global brand. The fact that the money rolls out slowly and won’t flow until FY 15-16 was downplayed. There was some money for the granting councils, Mitacs, a couple of big science facilities and the beleaguered auto sector. A few new initiatives were also squeezed in, such as $3 million for an Open Data Institute.
But a bit of number crunching suggests that suite of measures supporting research and innovation is modest in the extreme, even niggardly. The increases are not enough to cover inflation and a considerable amount of the “new” money is in fact re-profiled from existing sources.
Funding for basic research delivered by the granting councils— already an area of serious concern — was bumped up $37 million. But when added to a combined base budget of about $2.7 billion, the impact will be minimal.
So yes, the Budget represents a holding pattern with research and innovation barely treading water. Let the expectations begin for 2015 to see whether research and innovation really are government priorities.
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