New voucher pilot, youth entrepreneurship highlight innovation-light Budget

Ontario Budget

Research and innovation took a back seat to a raft of social spending measures in the latest Ontario Budget as the minority Liberal government seeks to gain New Democratic Party support for its passage. But it contains a handful of new investments — combined with a re-announcement of several recent investments — indicating the province remains committed to strengthening its knowledge-based economy.

A new pilot vouchers program and funds for youth innovation and entrepreneurship were the only new initiatives in the Budget. Details are scarce on the Commercialization and Innovation Vouchers pilot program but it will be managed by the Ontario Centres of Excellence.

"Industry that needs help can get vouchers and go to our institutions to solve problems. It helps industry and institutions to get to know each other and work together in a business environment," says Research and Innovation minister Dr Reza Moridi.

youth innovation

The Youth Innovation Fund ($10 million over two years) and Youth Entrepreneurship Fund ($45 million over two years) are part of a larger $295-million Youth Jobs Strategy with the single largest amount ($195 million) devoted to a Youth Employment Fund. The Budget also commits $20 million over two years for On Campus Accelerator Centres to "facilitate development of entrepreneurial activity in Ontario's universities and colleges".

The Budget also mentioned past investments the government has made through its flagship Ontario Research Fund (ORF), which supports research excellence and research infrastructure. Moridi told RE$EARCH MONEY that a new round of the ORF Research Excellence fund is currently being readied and will be announced in the near future.

"Research and innovation are the basis for the knowledge-based economy and we must cover all areas of research — that means the whole spectrum of knowledge creation," says Moridi. "Innovation is a chain of events and we need to consider the whole chain."

Moridi confirmed that the federal government has committed $50 million to a new venture capital fund, which was announced in late March and re-announced in the Budget. The goal is to attract $200 million in private sector funding for a total of $300 million, following the success of the Ontario Venture Capital Fund which was launched in 2008 and leveraged $750 million from the private sector (R$, April 3/13).

The Budget also re-announced the province's $100 million investment in the Ontario Brain Institute (R$, March 14/13).

Despite the new investments, the budget of MRI (which the Budget combines with the Ministry of Economic Development, Trade and Employment) is slated to decline $61.4 million to $911 million in FY13-14 — a $6.4% drop from FY12-13 levels. However, Moridi says that cut will not be reflected in MRI's programs budget.

"Our MRI programs funding is completely separate. (The Budget has) no impact for program funding," he says.

Ontario remains committed to eliminating its annual deficit by FY 17-18 although the estimated shortfall for FY13-14 is $11.7 billion, up from last year's $9.8 billion. Budget document says the deficit will fall to $10.1 billion in FY14-15, $7.2 billion in FY15-16 and $3.5 billion in FY16-17.

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