Parties weigh in with new and recycled proposals to boost S&T and innovation

Federal election platforms

The Liberal Party of Canada has produced the most comprehensive and targeted new S&T commitments of all the major federal parties in their platform documents for the May 2nd election. The opposition Liberals are proposing to concentrate on three "Canadian Champion Sectors" — clean resources and energy, health and biosciences and digital technologies — by introducing a new innovation and productivity tax credit for early-stage start-ups, augmented by a flow-through share tax incentive.

The measures are among several new, modestly-costed initiatives being offered by the Liberals, in contrast to the Conservative Party platform which offers nothing beyond the measures announced in the March 22 Budget (R$, March 31/11).

The only other parties to rival the Liberal S&T agenda are those of the Bloc Quebecois and the Green Party. The Bloc proposes funding for second-generation biofuels, fully reimbursable R&D tax credits for small businesses and the stimulation of technology hubs for clean energy and transportation.

The Green Party's S&T and research proposals are mainly linked to environmental issues including energy, water security and nuclear nonproliferation. The Greens also propose eliminating public support for research conducted by Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd and research into genetically modified foods.

R&D is rarely mentioned in the New Democratic Party platform, with advocacy limited to increased research through the creation of Green Bonds to allow the public to support renewable energy sources and more public funding of public R&D for the development of new medicines .

Liberal Party

If elected, the Liberals commit to making investments in a new Brain Health Strategy ($100 million), cleaner oil sands development ($500 million), the S&T component of a new fresh water strategy and the aforementioned tax credits and flow through tax credits ($175 million in foregone revenue). The neuroscience research would be directed through "leading national research bodies" while funding for oil sands R&D would be achieved through an immediate end to the accelerated capital cost allowance now being phased out by the Conservatives.

The Liberals would also develop and implement their own version of the Digital Economy Strategy (Digital Canada) and tie together their innovation initiatives with a "single window" approach — a new Innovation Gateway — that consolidates federal support for innovation and entrepreneurship in emerging and established fields.

The platform states that such an approach would help entrepreneurs get business and managerial training, advance business incubators and innovation clusters and support growth firms in bridging the "valley of death" between venture capital and the marketplace.

champion sectors

But it is the Liberal advocacy of "Canadian Champion Sectors" that resonates most directly with persuasive evidence that small nations like Canada need to focus its R&D expertise on a small number of sectors where global excellence is most achievable.

The Liberal platform states that "These sectors will be priorities across government departments," with the goal of making Canada a world leader in each sector. Underlying each sector would be the continuation of funding for basic research augmented by support for innovation and entrepreneurship with a new Innovation and Productivity Tax Credit and the extension of flow-through shares for start-ups in the three designated sectors.

The Liberals would also take action to strengthen the Canada Investment Act to clarify the net benefit test for foreign takeovers of Canadian firms and "recognize the importance of Canadian headquarters and management control".

Conservative Party

The Conservative Party is clearly not running on R&D and innovation as priority issues for Canada and Canadians. Its platform contains nothing new beyond measures introduced in the recent federal Budget. In its costing of the platform, no new money is allocated to R&D. Total Budget commitments in support of R&D is $215 million.

The Budget's support for forest innovation and market development ($60 million in FY11-12) is also listed. But $50 million over two years for a new Agriculture Innovation Initiative is only mentioned in the platform text and doesn't appear to be included in the costing data. (The platform's costing table erroneously duplicated the listing for R&D support with slightly different dollar values. RE$EARCH MONEY pointed out the duplication to a Conservative Party official, who acknowledged the error but the table was not corrected as of April 15.)

In describing the Budget measures in support of R&D and innovation, the Conservative Platform states that the provisions have not been enacted due to the decision by the "Ignatieff-led coalition" which "opposed Stephen Harper's Budget last month and chose instead to force an unnecessary and opportunistic election".

The Tory platform also mentions the launch of the expert R&D review panel and the pending Digital Economy Strategy as initiatives in support of innovation. The latter involves Budget measures to boost support for the Canadian Media Fund, promote enrollment in post-secondary science, technology, engineering and mathematics and collaborative projects between companies and colleges "to accelerate the adoption of information and communications technologies".

The NDP

The NDP has historically paid little attention to S&T and R&D issues and its latest party platform is no different. The platform document contains nothing beyond the aforementioned Green Bonds for renewable resource development and additional public funding for medical research.

Green Party

The list of R&D initiatives proposed by the Green Party is extensive, with the vast majority related to environmental protection, pollution reduction, biodiversity, water security and chemical production. If elected the Greens would ban the use of nanomaterials in all food products and support R&D or subsidies for the production of alternative energy sources. It also calls for the government to end all R&D support for the nuclear industry and shift public R&D away from biotechnology and energy-intensive farming to organic farming techniques.

The Green Party is alone in its call for an increase in research funding for federal departments, calling for the additional of $5 million each for Environment Canada, Health Canada and Fisheries and Oceans to add "knowledgeable scientific staff". The platform laments the loss of scientific expertise in federal departments at the managerial level starting with widespread program review-related cuts in the 1990s under the former Liberal government, causing science-based departments to be "starved of solid scientific in-house expertise". As part of its overhaul of science-based departments, the Greens would re-instate the position of science advisor to the prime minister as well as the post of the Ambassador for the Environment and Sustainable Development.

The Green Platform also acknowledges the difficulty of innovative businesses in accessing capital but places its proposed initiatives within the context of a "shift to a smart, lower-carbon economy". It calls for the establishment of a Green Venture Capital Fund and complementary funding programs to match federal funds with locally-raised VC. It also endorses an easily accessible and integrated system for business development and growth in municipalities across Canada — an incubator network modeled on Sweden's Technology Centres.

Bloc Quebecois Party

Consistent with its status as a regional party, the majority of the Bloc's S&T commitments comprise demands that Quebec receive a larger share of federal R&D in support of the province's main tech-based industries. The platform also takes shots at the Conservative's control of departmental scientists, pledging to allow federal scientific personnel to communicate directly with the media without risk of reprisal.

Bloc commitments include pushing to make R&D tax credits fully refundable for smaller firms to reduce cost pressures and stimulate innovation and create a program similar to the defunct Technology Partnerships Canada (TPC) that addresses the financing needs of all innovative sectors.

It also argues that the TPC-successor program —Strategic Aerospace and Defence Initiative (SADI) — should be boosted by $200 million annually. That would include more financing for the development of less noisy aircraft, which is also part of the province's new $150-million Ecological Aircraft project (R$, April 9/10).

Not surprisingly, the Bloc calls for action to support Quebec's beleaguered pharmaceutical sector which has been hit by major lab closures including the Merck Frosst Centre for Therapeutic Research in Montreal (R$, July 19/10). It seeks to remove what it terms a major impediment to investment by strengthening big pharma's right of appeal during patent proceedings to fend off premature entry by generic competitors.

In the policy realm, the Bloc calls for the federal government to take action to ensure guaranteed access for smaller Canadian businesses to the US market. It also advocates for a stronger military procurement policy to maximize industrial regional benefits.

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