Feds join provincial S&T ministers meeting

For the first time in recent memory, federal representatives attended a provincial S&T ministers meeting designed to coordinate efforts and share best practices for setting innovation policy and programs. Held July 29-30 in Quebec City, the meeting was the first in three years in which there was federal participation and builds on previous meetings in Stratford (2008) and Edmonton (2009). It will be followed this fall by a special, one-off meeting with 20-to 30 CEO from large and small firms.

"Canada has very low productivity gains so we need to work together to review our programs and have a bigger synergy between the provinces and the federal government," says Clément Gignac, minister for Economic Development, Innovation and Export Trade. "We have to solve the enigma. We have to understand why there's such a low rate of business research and a lack of the culture of innovation on the business side."

Over the course of the two-day meeting, ministers and staff covered a range of common issues such as the need to develop better metrics and indicators to track innovation and R&D, the difficulty of sustaining big science facilities at the provincial level alone, and how to get more productivity out of major provincial investments.

While attending the meeting, Industry minister Tony Clement outlined his government's digital economy review and Dr Gary Goodyear, secretary of state for S&T, spoke about the culture of innovation. Tom Jenkins, Open Text executive chairman and chief strategy Office and Secor co-founder Marcel Coté, also made presentations.

"We are policy makers and we want to create wealth so we have a common goal from coast to coast," says Gignac. "We are a small country and the competition is not just the US but emerging countries."

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