Dr John de la Mothe

Innovation Redux?

By Dr John de la Mothe

Innovation — the production of new knowledge and the commercialization of ideas — is central to the continuing development of industrial nations. Every state of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) believes this. Most try to do something about it. Canada is no exception. But Canada is more advanced than some commentators would like to admit.

Ne’er-do-wells love to complain that Canada has no plan, commitment, or strategy. I understand this sentiment. After all, our stated plan to move from 15th to 5th in terms of world performance of R&D is silly and — as Statistics Canada has carefully shown — demonstrably unrealistic. Canada’s GERD/ GDP ratio has stayed between 1.5% and 1.9% for as long as I can remember, despite promises since 1984 to double it.

But using this proxy indicator is wrong headed. Someone in the government thinks that they can create 10 new high tech clusters in the near future. They can’t. Program Review wiped out a lot of R&D capacity in the science-based departments and agencies (SBDAs) and they’re still in the difficult process of rebuilding. The government still seems baffled as to what the mandate of government science should be. (Is contracting out blood services really the answer?)

We’ve had more secretaries of states for science in the past 20 years than you could shake a stick at (and all have had other jobs, like Veterans Affairs). We’ve had more science reviews since the 1970s than Industry Canada junior analysts would ever want to know. The community has been so heavily consulted that I’m surprised that they’re still talking to government. And if science, technology and innovation are so important to our future then why did the government remove the words ‘science’ and ‘technology’ from Industry Canada’s name, and why did it close the Science Council in 1992. So, like I said, I really can understand the naysayers’ view. But I disagree.

Let’s be clear on two fronts.

First, ‘policy’ is complex. It is not clear or transparent. It is opaque. Innovation is based on creativity, ingenuity, spontaneity, tacit and codified knowledge, networks and alliances and therefore is more complex. Thus the governance of innovation can never be based on one strategy.

Second, since 1993, the government has invested heavily in innovation. It’s been a long time since we’ve seen such a science spending spree. It has a generous tax credit for research. In a bevy of enthusiasm, it created the Canada Foundation for Innovation, the Canada Research Chairs, the Canadian Institutes for Health Research, and the Initiative on the New Economy. It supported the research councils. It connected Canadians (‘though it forgot about content). And parts of the government are now focusing on cities. So at least someone in the Peace Tower ‘gets it’ when it comes to innovation.

Indeed, today in Canada there are at least three innovation strategies.

I think the most important exercise is the CATA TechAction Town Meeting series. It is methodical, animated and understands that innovation is an individual and local activity. And CATA’s Town Hall Meeting approach is growing. With the support of more than 40 firms, IPSO-NPD and KPMG, CATA designed a questionnaire which is sent out to a sample of private sector, high tech individuals. Then newspaper surveys are cast to capture anyone who wants to be counted. Finally, a Town Hall meeting is convened by the city’s mayor. Between 50 and 150 executives, academics, and civil servants attend to openly discuss the future of their city around the themes of leadership, people, money and infrastructure. Local participants are engaged in a conversation about where they see their community going.

So far, meetings have been held in St John’s, Halifax, Ottawa, Calgary, and Vancouver. CATA understands that innovation is a bottom-up activity and that it is up to local leaders to define their futures, not the federal government. So when Vancouver participants cite a relative lack of leadership, it was demonstrated when mayor Philip Owen showed up half an hour late, spoke for six minutes and left. Vancouver business people noticed. The mayor of St John’s stayed the whole nine yards, despite no sleep after a local election. The participants from Newfoundland saw themselves as part of a global economy and global markets – albeit with lots of challenges. In contrast, the Halifax participants, with close market proximity to New England, saw themselves more as timid Eeyores, waiting for the feds to bail. Regardless, it is not CATA’s responsibility to make things happen in municipalities, but it sure does shake the tree.

The TD Bank exercise was less ambitious. Charles Baillie started giving speeches in 2001 about innovation and Canada’s standard of living. They got attention. With the organizational help of the Conference Board of Canada, papers were commissioned from the intellectual ‘elite’, like Roger Martin and Wendy Dobson. The news leaked out and many others submitted position papers pro bono on a wide range of topics (an unorchestrated total of about 50 papers). A meeting of the elite was held in Ottawa, chaired by Bob Rae. But it was not open to interested individuals or the media. A small reporting article appeared in the Globe. But no strategy, no hurrah, and Baillie spent plenty looking like a national leader as he stepped down as TD CEO.

The Industry Canada exercise wasn’t less ambitious, but it was less sincere. Initially promoted as a White Paper to be written between Human Resources Development Canada and Industry Canada, it took too long, there was no thesis, became a Strategy, then an Agenda, broken in two because the departments couldn’t agree. The idea seems to have come out of Privy Council, but when John Manley was asked to do it (as Industry Minister) he soundly said ‘no’ since he’d already carried out the S&T Review in 1996. When Tobin got it, he didn’t care. When Rock got it, he didn’t understand. The bureaucrats had a hard job. They have 250 written submissions to analyze with no capacity, nearly 100 meetings to digest, and no guidance from the top (Rock couldn’t even attend the Ottawa regional meeting, instead sending a video even though he was down the street).

Yes we can whine, but we are talking about innovation and the street is getting it. Don’t wait for the centre, but insist that they engage – not has pickers of winners but as backers of leaders.

Dr John de la Mothe is the holder of a Canada Research Chair in Innovation Strategy and a professor of science policy at the University of Ottawa’s School of Management.