Liberals to allot $800M ‘innovation’ cash soon
OTTAWA • An $800-million commitment central to the Trudeau government’s economic growth strategy is expected to be divvied up within the next few months among groups and companies that can persuade Ottawa they’re best positioned to help young, high-potential firms flourish.
The government earmarked the cash in last year’s budget to support “innovation networks and clusters” as part of federal plans to help budding companies scale up significantly.
Ottawa hopes these firms will evolve into strong job creators and give Canada an economic boost.
The first withdrawal from the four-year program is scheduled for 2017-18.
Groups like the Council of Canadian Innovators expect the government to settle in April or May on how it would like to proceed with the $800-million plan.
Council executive director Ben Bergen, who represents tech-sector CEOs, said one challenge is there are many ways to define a “cluster.”
It can range from a university with connected companies to a string of tech firms in a given region, he said.
He pointed to the cluster of companies that formed a couple decades ago in the region around Kitchener-Waterloo, Ont. Among them was BlackBerry-maker Research In Motion.
Bergen said his council would like to see the $800-million investment used to support clusters centred around high-growth Canadian companies, rather than ones that revolve around universities and incubators.
He argued that in the past, the institution-centred approach has not produced the outcomes governments have been looking for.
“By really focusing it on the firm rather than on ... institutions or on incubators you actually give them the jet fuel that they need to go and compete globally,” Bergen said.
The chair of one organization hoping to attract some of that funding said his partners have also been pitching a business-led approach to Ottawa.
Ray Bouchard said the Manitoba-based Enterprise Machine Intelligence and Learning Initiative aims to help firms quickly commercialize in the fields of deep learning and artificial intelligence. In particular, it would focus on the technologies’ applications in the agriculture sector.
Bouchard said the group’s other goal is to help train and retrain enough workers in the skills needed for these emerging areas, such as collecting, managing and understanding data.
The initiative’s board not only includes people from Manitoba-based businesses, but also from such institutions as the University of Winnipeg and Red River College.
Last month, a report by the federal government’s influential economic advisory council recommended Ottawa assemble “innovation marketplaces” that unite entrepreneurs and researchers with public and private customers.