Editorial - 16-19

No one can fault the delegates to the National Innovation Summit for departing from the event with a renewed sense of optimism. For the first time since the consultations were launched, innovation, skills and learning finally seemed to be on the national agenda. The speeches were lofty, the discussions intense and the sense of collective purpose palpable.

But was anything achieved? As hired guns honed the day’s recommendations into suitably ambiguous jargon fit for bureaucratic consideration, the concepts and initiatives that emerged were awfully familiar to those posed at the outset. Even before the final leg in the engagement phase had begun, the government brought forward a five-point action plan to frame the discussions, pushing them towards pre-conceived conclusions nearly all of which have been cited in previously published studies.

The ideas emerging from the Summit may not be original and most lack specificity. But they’re strong and certainly enough to act upon. What happens next is critical to the success of the government’s innovation agenda. What the country needs now is a bold strategy with effective implementation.

If the Summit did nothing other than rally the troops in other sectors, it will have been a qualified success. Bringing together such a disparate group of high-powered individuals for the purpose of making Canada more innovative certainly can’t hurt. But the momentum must be maintained. Leadership and the willingness to affect change are essential for the innovation strategy to avoid the fate of its predecessors.