Given the competing demands for federal dollars to reform health care, refurbish the military and implement the Kyoto protocol, many observers say Ottawa's much-ballyhooed national innovation strategy (www.innovation strategy.gc.ca/) has little chance of surviving the upcoming political stickwork.
Nevertheless, Industry Minister Allan Rock remains optimistic that he will be able to convince his cabinet colleagues about the value of the strategy, which is supposed to double Canadian investment in R&D by 2010. And he thinks they will place a healthy measure of financial muscle behind the innovation blueprint, which is now assuming final form after being scrutinized by 500 delegates at November's National Summit on Innovation and Learning. “We have momentum to maintain,” Rock told CMAJ, and cabinet will climb aboard because “the innovation strategy is the centrepiece of our economic policy.”
Well, maybe.
The blueprint, which will now be refined to reflect priorities identified during the summit, will be presented to cabinet this winter. The 17 priorities culled from a list of 70 possibilities generally focused on improving industrial innovation and competitiveness — one example is a proposal to focus economic development initiatives around specific industries. Other recommendations included developing a national plan to improve the process for recognizing the credentials of foreign-trained workers and increasing funding for university-based research.
In other summit developments, Health Minister Anne McLellan told delegates that Ottawa will unveil a streamlined regulatory framework for drug approvals early in the new year that will allow Canadians faster access to recently developed drugs, while simultaneously improving the climate for pharmaceutical research. — Wayne Kondro, Ottawa