Industry Canada’s innovation road show reveals key planks of innovation agenda

Report from the innovation front – first of a series

Broadband connectivity, assistance for commercialization, access to capital and a coordinated investment strategy emerged as some of the major themes at Industry Canada’s regional summit for Central Eastern Ontario. The one-day summit in the Lake Ontario city of Belleville marked the half way point of the government’s 34-city engagement process, one of several consultation tracks designed to provide federal politicians and bureaucrats with input for shaping its innovation strategy for the next 10 years.

The engagement process being led by Industry Canada has also been designed to incorporate the skills and learning portion of the strategy, which was assumed by Human Resources and Development Canada when the innovation agenda was split into two.

Drawing on invited participants from Kingston, Peterborough, Belleville and the region’s large rural population, the August 27 summit was a carefully stage-managed affair. Discussion and debate were directed toward four pre-selected themes: knowledge creation and commercialization, skills and learning, innovation policy and regulatory climate, and strengthening community capacity to innovate. Plenary sessions featuring federal MPs (and a taped message from Industry minister Alan Rock) also helped to set the tone, seeding key messages within speeches that encouraged frank and open debate of the issues.

“Government needs to be a partner (but) it can’t be the driver of this agenda,” said Andy Mitchell, secretary of state for rural development and FedNor. “It needs to be from the bottom up and not from the top down. The government has a role, in the business environment, in the regulatory environment and in some cases the tools the government can provide whether it’s in research and development or commercialization of knowledge.”

Local MP Paul Macklin added a local perspective to the meeting, stressing the region’s split between a significant rural population and three smaller urban centres. He cited his role in the creation of a 40-person Research, Innovation and Technology Advisory Committee which has produced several reports on innovation. He then called for the creation of a nation office of broadband infrastructure or secretariat “to assist communities to best coordinate financing, access and implementation of broadband telecommunications structure”.

Earlier this summer, Rock announced that the government was accelerating the creation of a broadband network for rural Canada, signaling at least a partial reversal of government policy. In the last federal Budget a proposal to spend at least $1 billion was severely cut back and deferred — a move largely viewed as the result of leadership squabbling between then Finance minister Paul Martin and former Industry minister Brian Tobin (R$, December 17/01).

BREAKOUT SESSIONS TIGHTLY STRUCTURED

Participants in the regional summit were divided into four facilitated groups to tackle the four selected themes, and engaged in brief discussions focused on three general questions. RE$EARCH MONEY participated as an observer in the group assigned to innovation policy and regulatory climate and monitored the process from the opening instructions to the development of a final list of priorities and obstacles by day’s end.

Many ideas brought forth during the discussion stage were invariably jettisoned or folded into larger categories, as the lists of recommendations are barriers were developed. In addition to access for all Canadians, commercialization emerged as a key issue, particularly for delegates from Kingston, the region’s hotbed of R&D and innovation centred around Queen’s Univ.

Latching onto a handy catch phase (‘valley of death’ – used to describe the gap between commercially promising S&T and the stage of development where private capital takes interest), participants stressed the need for new or enhanced initiatives to support company and skills creation. Technology transfer centres were forwarded as a possibility, as well as an investment strategy that includes human resources.

Several barriers to innovation were also cited, including access to capital for small urban and rural areas, insufficient cooperation between and among various levels of government and other stakeholders, a relatively small population base, lack of infrastructure (including broadband access), entrepreneurial literacy and cultural resistance to change. It was noted that the federal government needs to unify the two parallel innovation strategies, creating one overarching approach with a flexible structure to allow for regional differences.

Central Eastern Ontario has no obvious technology clusters, with the possible exception of biotechnology and information technology in Kingston. However, it was strongly recommended that the region be linked to strong clusters in the Toronto and Ottawa regions to ensure spill-over benefit.

Within the region, the disparity between the urban and rural areas was also focus of considerable debate. While Kingston is the region’s undisputed centre of innovation both Peterborough and Belleville have pockets of strength, much of it centred around their respective community colleges.

Belleville is also home to a flourishing biotechnology firm — Bioniche Life Sciences Inc, which develops and manufactures animal and human vaccines. Bioniche president and CEO Graeme McRae was the event’s keynote speaker. He outlined the advantages of growing a biotechnology firm in Canada and locating in a city within easy travelling distance to Toronto and Montreal.

McRae credits Canada’s R&D tax credit regime, early stage financing as well as its interaction with the private and academic sectors as major opportunities for biotech.

“We have a history in this country of starting companies up, getting them going and helping them on the way,” he says. “We have very active federal participation in our type of business ... That makes a tremendous difference to a company in terms of moving projects forward without running around banks and falling on your face.”

Like other regional summits, Industry Canada has committed to posting the results of the Belleville event on its web site within three weeks. The Industry Canada roadshow continues through Ontario and moves out west in the coming weeks. RE$EARCH MONEY will attend and report on the regional summit for Vancouver in a future issue. FMI: www.innovationstrategy.gc.ca

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