S&T champions, skilled people, focus, partnerships and research excellence are critical if Canada is to successfully compete in a rapidly evolving global economy, says the parliamentary secretary to Industry minister Jim Prentice. Dr Colin Carrie says his government's new S&T Strategy addresses all these issues and more, as it attempts to position Canada for competitive advantage in areas where the nation can be among the world leaders.

"With the S&T Strategy, the government is starting to take a look at the big picture to get from a step ‘A', — a human being, a mind — and get it out to a product that gets commercialized. Where is the government's role in that and what kind of resources do you put towards basic science?," says Carrie. "It's something that is very important for us to know, so that industry, our manufacturing sectors, our value-added industries, start to obtain results from the research we're doing at our universities and our colleges"

Carrie acknowledges that the effort must begin early in the education cycle if Canada is to build a more entrepreneurial culture.

"We have an issue that we're not taking little kids and getting them excited about the science, excited about industry, excited about technology and trying to work them through the system so that when they come to that point in life, they see this as something that's fun, they have a future," he says. "Our choice and our position is that we want to be leaders, not followers. Advantage Canada (Finance Canada's economic strategy released in 2006) lays out the template for that. And with any template, it has to be dynamic, you have to listen and you have to learn. This is a competitive world. It's a global economy."

For government to have a significant and lasting impact on raising productivity and competing internationally, it must solve the problem of chronically low business R&D spending and capital equipment acquisition. Carrie says this poses a major challenge for a small nation like Canada, and part of the answer lies in niche expertise.

"We're going to have to make decisions on where we want to specialize and concentrate on the things that we do really well (and) look at the SR&ED tax credits to see what we can do. We're going to have to sit down and say ‘where are the champions in Canada, where are our advantages and where do we want to take the country for the next several years?,'" he says. "You have to concentrate on a strong economy, and make sure that our tax rates are competitive around the world. Because we're competing for research dollars that are out there with multinational companies. How are we going to get those?"

To achieve the critical research mass required to compete, partnerships must be forged among all sectors, says Carrie.

"What is the government role because we can't do it all?," he says. "The challenge for government is to make sure we're putting our resources where they need to go and make sure that it's working."

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