John de la Mothe

Eyes Wide Shut

By John de la Mothe

Let's begin with three things we all know. First, information is of critical importance to the international knowledge economy, and Canadian researchers, firms and government officials need to become expert intelligence gatherers and users. Second, globalization has made everything that is going on elsewhere of great importance to Canada and has profound competitive, strategic, and defence implications. And third, Canada produces only 4% of the world's S&T, so the remaining 96% has to come from abroad. Canada must be extensively involved in continuous intelligence gathering, analysis and dissemination.

These three truisms seem to have eluded our policy-makers. We have no policy or strategy, and we seem to continuously run into the problem of international S&T. We don't do it well and we need to try harder. Here are a few problem areas:

The Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT) has been mishandling the international S&T policy function for government since the Privy Council Office re-organized departments in 1983. Since that time, DFAIT has jealously guarded that function, particularly from Industry Canada, and yet has allocated a paltry 5.5 person years to handle more than 500 S&T agreements that Canada has with other countries. The job is important and can't be handled adequately this way, never mind proactively, strategically or in a timely fashion.

Canada's S&T counsellor network is ineffective. There are too few (six), they are under-resourced and Canada's S&T communities (particularly the R&D-intensive industry sectors) don't know they exist.

Given that most policy-relevant S&T issues are cross cutting, one would think that inter-departmental intelligence sharing, co-ordination and priority setting would be the norm. The government's Program Review and S&T Review both trumpeted the principles of transparency and horizontal co-ordination. Gosh, even Preston Manning recently has promoted the silly idea that we appoint a super 'Science Czar' so that co-ordination and oversight could be achieved. But no such ligatures exist except between individuals over lunch.

Then there's the question of opportunity lost. During the early 1990s in the period of federal budget cuts, most science-based departments and agencies disassembled their international policy shops. Modest efforts are now underway to re-create or re-engage this function and they are to be applauded. But while the question of lost opportunities may be impossible to demonstrate, the real question is 'is there a strategy or is there a joint strategy?' The answer is 'no'.

Finally, the Advisory Council on Science and Technology (ACST) is examining international S&T, but it has taken more than a year to decide what the issues are and what two or three recommendations to make. I hope it is listened to, but Industry Minister John Manley - who chairs the ACST on behalf of the Prime Minister - could be mis-appreciated by his Cabinet colleagues if he were seen to step outside his purview and pronounce on foreign affairs. And traditionally the Prime Minister's Office has not shown much interest in outside advice - especially when it didn't ask the question.

I have never said that policy making is a rational or coherent activity, but when so much of importance to Canada is going to come from science, technology and the world abroad, surely we shouldn't be going into the future with our eyes wide shut.

John de la Mothe is a professor at the University of Ottawa and a Visiting Professor at Yale University.