There have been many criticisms of the S&T provisions of the recent Budget but the one that resonates most forcefully is lack of vision. Perhaps more pointedly, is displays a lack of comprehension for where research fits in the overall system of innovation.
How else can one explain an expenditure of $3.5 billion that, instead of being greeted with congratulations, is being fingered as having the potential to rekindle the brain drain of the 1990s? How else to explain dire predictions of Canada losing its key competitive advantage in areas like genomics and proteomics?
The short and the sweet of this Budget is infrastructure and economic stimulus. S&T was included if it fit into the hastily developed Budget themes and discarded if it didn’t conform to its short-term horizon. The result is a mess that has managed to upset all those who see the potential of nurturing S&T and the people that create it throughout an extended period of economic recession and beyond.
President Barack Obama and his administration get it, so why doesn’t the Harper administration? Clearly the Conservative government needs to learn to listen far more carefully than they have in the past. Even the recommendations of various business groups were almost unanimously ignored.
The amount of money this government has allocated to infrastructure is not trivial. Will it be completely ineffectual? Hardly. But in the hands of those who truly understand — and enthusiastically champion — the power of S&T to ensure a better future for all Canadians, its impact could have been so much greater.
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