Speaking Points

The Honourable Gary Goodyear, PC, MP
Minister of State (Science and Technology)

American Association for the Advancement of Science Forum on Science and Technology Policy

Washington, D.C.
May 1, 2009

Check Against Delivery

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you, Dr. Agre, for that warm introduction.

As Canada's Minister of State (Science and Technology), one of my roles is to advocate science and technology (S&T) policies that advance Canada's economic and social interest, including supporting business growth through innovation, higher-education research and development (R&D), and federal intramural S&T collaboration with the provinces and territories.

And so, I am delighted to be here to talk about how Canada sees the role of S&T in contributing to global economic growth and recovery. This American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) S&T Policy Forum is an important venue for discussing vital issues of this nature with leading science policy stakeholders from the United States and around the world.

In Canada, we appreciate and value our relationships with our U.S. and international partners in the area of S&T. As we face common challenges and explore new frontiers, both at home and internationally, we take great pride in building partnerships that strengthen our work and improve our lives. While our S&T partnerships are almost too numerous to enumerate — and span the gamut of scientific disciplines, academic research and business relationships — just one example of the close collaboration on cutting-edge research between Canada and the United States is the Canada-California Strategic Innovation Partnership. This partnership fuels the development of new models of collaboration and the launch of industrially relevant Canada-California research, development and demonstration projects.

Our countries are also each other's largest trading partners. We are working together to fight crime, explore clean energy sources, research infectious diseases, develop more secure identification methods that improve border security, and develop measurement standards for nanotechnology. Canada is partnering with the U.S. and with the world. And the world is taking notice of what Canada has to offer.

In many ways, Canada has fared better than other countries during this economic downturn. Our government has reduced taxes, paid down debt and invested in infrastructure. You may have heard that, according to the World Economic Forum, we have the strongest banking system in the world. We have the best fiscal position in the G7. And we have a highly educated, skilled, mobile and modern workforce.

But we are not immune to the economic challenges facing the world today. These challenges require bold, creative responses. And we understand that science, technology and innovation — or STI — are a vital component of these responses. Support for S&T today will reap benefits well into the future, and we know that the important role of STI in stimulating productivity, competitiveness and growth cannot be overstated.

We know that investment in S&T is particularly important in tough economic times.

On this front, Canada has adopted a significant stimulus package, and we are implementing it on a priority basis. But, before I go into that, I need to put into context for you our S&T landscape. Because the short-term STI-related stimulus measures that we have put in place to help us weather the downturn have been developed to support our long-term S&T Strategy — Mobilizing Science and Technology to Canada's Advantage, which Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced two years ago next week.

The S&T Strategy is our multi-year plan to guide the way in which our government, our business people and our research community can band together to drive economic activity and develop solutions to global challenges through science.

Our strategy, while providing our scientists with freedom to conduct scientific research, leverages the ability of entrepreneurs to innovate. Through it, we are cultivating three distinct advantages:

• An entrepreneurial advantage that encourages Canadian firms to be innovators;
• A knowledge advantage that keeps Canadians at the forefront of research and discovery; and
• A people advantage that helps Canadians acquire the skills they need to participate in an ideas-based economy.

We know that the jobs of tomorrow are found in the discoveries of today, so we look at research funding as an investment — an investment in innovation, in scientific discovery, in job creation and as a hedge against tough economic conditions. Canada's response to the current economic crisis — Canada's Economic Action Plan announced in January — includes measures to support productivity and economic growth. Simply put, we are making one of the largest investments in STI in Canadian history.

In our government's first three budgets after coming to power, we provided more than $2.2 billion in new S&T funding. This year, we added to that by making one of the single-largest federal budget investments in S&T in Canada's history — more than $5.1 billion allocated to S&T initiatives.

First, we are funding S&T infrastructure. Both Canada and the United States have identified investment in infrastructure as a key component of their effort to stimulate economic activity and job creation, and our government is taking immediate action by launching one of the largest national infrastructure programs in our country's history. This year alone, we have put aside $2 billion to repair and refit our universities and colleges, and another $750 million to fund leading-edge science infrastructure, through the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI). All told, Canada has allocated more than $5 billion to the CFI since its creation in 1997. We want to ensure that if you are doing research in Canada, you have the tools and facilities you need to succeed. We know that these investments will create jobs for people now, while providing the infrastructure that scientists need for years to come.

But allocating money is not the same thing as spending money or making projects actually happen. That's why, since our Economic Action Plan was presented, we have taken extraordinary steps to cut red tape. We are fast-tracking the implementation process. We are working with provinces, which, along with other partners, will cost-share the infrastructure spending. Our objective is to have the vast majority of our Knowledge Infrastructure Program funds allocated by the end of June. In all, the Knowledge Infrastructure Program will represent more than $4 billion in R&D ‑ and teaching-related infrastructure investment. A significant portion of that is flowing directly to STI initiatives.

These investments are consistent with our government's commitment to research and are also very much in line with our government's emphasis on commercializing research and improving the processes that help get innovative ideas to the marketplace. Commercialization is one area in which public policy makers play a huge role in enabling the private sector to do what it does best — turn knowledge into innovation, and innovation into greater wealth and well-being for people.

Recognizing that small and medium-sized businesses are the backbone of our economy, this year, we have also set aside an additional $200 million specifically for small and medium-sized businesses through our Industrial Research Assistance Program, which supports innovative R&D and helps small companies become more innovative and productive.

And we have made improvements to our Scientific Research and Experimental Development (SR&ED) Tax Incentive Program, which is one of the most advantageous systems in the industrialized world for supporting business investment in R&D. In fact, our SR&ED tax credit is our single largest S&T program at $4 billion per year.

We have also set up an automotive research fund that is helping our auto sector make the transition into the 21st-century economy. The program supports R&D projects in specific areas, such as alternative fuels, and is industry driven. And through programs such as this, we are addressing not only domestic challenges, but larger ones that we all face, such as climate change and the need for sustainable technologies for energy production.

For instance, to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions, we are investing $1 billion over five years to support the development of next-generation clean energy initiatives such as the very promising carbon capture and storage; clean coal; reduction of the oil sands' environmental impacts; hydrogen and fuel cells; energy-efficient buildings and industry; and renewable energy from clean sources such as wind, solar, tidal and biomass. This is an area of critical importance for everyone, and we hope that we can work with the United States and our international partners on developing new technologies to combat climate change.

Through these measures, we are helping to foster an entrepreneurial advantage that will make it easier for companies to invest in scientific research and experimental development, even in tough economic times.

We are also improving the linkages between public research and private sector needs through a number of government programs that help companies partner with universities and colleges. This way, the private sector and academia have common access to research networks, facilities and young research talent. Programs such as our new Business-Led Networks of Centres of Excellence and our 18 new Centres of Excellence for Commercialization and Research will help Canada develop new ideas and translate those ideas into products and processes that generate wealth and well-being for our society.

Emerging from this economic crisis, successful countries will be those that create a knowledge advantage by supporting research and encouraging new lines of inquiry — those that understand that today's research is tomorrow's technology, insight or cure.

This is because ideas propel prosperity. Imagination and innovation create opportunity. As this audience well knows, knowledge is different from any other resource — it's endlessly renewable and, when shared and combined with others, it makes exponential progress possible.

That is why a particular priority for us has been higher-education R&D. Canada spends more on this form of research as a proportion of gross domestic product than any other country in the G7, and Canada is second in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in this respect. At the beginning of this decade, our country suffered from a notable “brain drain” — many of our best and brightest were leaving Canada to perform research abroad. We remedied that by making strategic research investments in both pure sciences and social sciences, and by creating a number of programs to attract and retain top-tier talent.

The Canada Research Chairs Program attracted global attention by establishing 2000 research professorships in universities across our country. And we have built on that program's success by introducing our new Canada Excellence Research Chairs (CERC) Program — 20 prestigious research chairs, selected through a robust international competition, will receive $10 million each over seven years to carry out their research in Canada. The CERC Program was created to attract the highest calibre of researchers to Canada and will help Canada compete in the international market for research talent in the areas of health, energy, the environment, and information and communication technology. In addition, this initiative will strengthen the ability of Canadian universities to attract and retain the world's top science leaders, but also to tackle big issues of priority to Canadians over the long term.

Our new Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarships program is among the world's most prestigious programs and will help our universities develop, attract and retain the world's best researchers. The value and prestige of the Vanier Scholarships put Canada's doctoral students on a par with recipients of such highly renowned scholarships as the Rhodes Scholarships in the United Kingdom and the Fulbright Scholarships in the United States. Scholarship recipients will receive $50 000 each year for up to three years. The program will support up to 500 new Canadian and international students annually.The recipients of these scholarships are the world's leading doctoral students and the next generation of researchers, professors and industry leaders, who will make considerable economic and social contributions in Canada and abroad.Like the new research chairs, this competition is open to U.S. and other international applicants — Canada wants the best in the world and we want them now.

These are indeed interesting times. We are seeing the dawn of a new and changing scientific landscape, both here in North America and around the world. And some challenges, if addressed correctly, can become viable opportunities for future technological development.

As I mentioned earlier, investment in STI is security against tough economic conditions. That means that we will continue to follow through on our S&T commitments and, because of that, we are prepared to adapt to the economic contingencies that may emerge in the coming months and years. If I may borrow some words for a moment, I will paraphrase Einstein, who once quipped that his wisdom was not based on the fact that he was so smart; it was that he just stayed with problems longer. And it is precisely this unrelenting commitment to problem solving that can lead to great innovations, and sometimes even to entire cultural paradigm shifts.

The world order of STI is being reshaped into an integrated global domain confronted with human challenges never before seen. So perhaps most importantly of all, even more important than our swift reaction to this economic crisis, is our sustained action. Long-term economic competitiveness depends, as never before, on ideas, innovation and inventiveness. And it is through short-term stimulus measures coupled with long-term strategic policy objectives that we find our place in shaping adaptive, dynamic, innovative societies of tomorrow, where science is, without a doubt, everybody's business.

Thank you for your time this morning. And a special thanks to the AAAS for inviting me to participate in this important S&T Policy Forum.