POLICIES FOR TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT IN CANADA: 1987–1993

NOTES AND REFERENCES

• During the four months in which she was prime minister, Ms Campbell made only a few changes to the federal technology system. Of significance was the expansion of the mandate of ISTC to include responsibility for corporate and consumer affairs, intellectual property, telecommunications, and investment monitoring. ISTC, in the process, was to change its name to Industry and Science Canada (ISC) and become a super ministry instead of simply a flagship one. Ms Campbell also named the deputy prime minister, Jean Charest, to head it, with the assistance of one junior minister, for science and small business.
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• Report of the Task Force on Federal Policies and Programs for Technology Development, Ministry of State for Science and Technology, Ottawa, July 1984.
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• Andrew H. Wilson, ‘Technology development: A Canadian priority’, Prometheus, 3, 1, June 1985, pp 86–109.
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• See reference 3, page 108, for short notes on the IRDP, DIPP, IRAP, and PILP programs. Short descriptions of the later programs included in this present article may be found in ISTC Programs and Services, revised edition 1992, published by the Services to Business Branch of Industry, Trade and Commerce Canada, 235 Sparks Street, Ottawa, Canada K1A 0H5, or in the 1993 Guide to Federal Programs and Services, published by the Canada Communication Group, Ottawa, Canada K1A 0S5. Information on the Scientific Research and Experimental Development (SR&ED) program — the federal R&D tax incentive — is available from the Department of Finance, Ottawa, Canada K1A 0G5.
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• Education in Canada is a provincial responsibility and, in this context, the provinces normally deal with housekeeping items such as overheads for research. The federal government does, however, transfer negotiated funding to the provinces to help pay for education.
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• The 1970 report by a working group headed by Dr Pierre Gendron included recommendations on the future organization of federal scientific activities. Those made in regard to the National Research Council (NRC) were remarkably similar to those of the Wright task force. A discussion of this report appears in: Andrew H. Wilson, “The Gendron Report: Another view of Canadian science policy’. Science and Public Policy, 16, 5, October 1989, pp 269–281.
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• Andrew H. Wilson, ‘Technology development: The continuing story in Canada’, Prometheus, 5, 2, December 1987, pp 338–358. One of the other inputs was the report of the task force chaired by deputy prime minister Erik Nielsen, whose mandate included policies of all kinds, and whose main recommendations were published in New Management Initiatives, which was part of the Budget Papers of the Department of Finance, Ottawa, May 1985.
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• Science and technology, and research and development, will be referred to in this article as S&T and R&D. The difference between them will be related scientific activities (such as data acquisition and diffusion), or RSA. The equation, S&T = R&D + RSA, applies.
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• The news release package from the Ministry of State for Science and Technology (MOSST) on the National Science and Technology Policy was issued in Ottawa on 12 March 1987. This package included a background paper.
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• The news release package from MOSST on the federal InnovAction Strategy was issued in Ottawa on 24 March 1987. This package included a background paper.
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• A discussion of the 1987 Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement appears in Andrew H. Wilson, ‘Canadian and U.S. science and technology policy under free trade’, Science and Public Policy, Vol. 16, No. 2, April 1989, pp 119–125.
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• The Senate in Canada is appointive, not elective.
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• This article cannot deal with the policies and programs developed by the provincial or territorial governments for their own jurisdictions. However, a recent discussion of them appears in: Andrew H. Wilson, ‘Canada: federal and provincial issues, policies and programs’, National Purposes, Federal Government, ASTEC, Canberra, November 1990.
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• The NABST-Wright connection was made in a private communication to the author from the Chief of Staff to the Prime Minister of Canada on 20 May 1993.
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• The full list of the publications of the National Advisory Board on Science and Technology (NABST) is too long to be included in this article. The list (including NABST's current mandate), and copies, can be obtained from the Board at 240 Sparks Street, Ottawa, Canada K1A 0H5.
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• The statement was made on 30 January 1990 and reported in Reérch Money (Evert Communications, PO Box 3158, Ottawa, Canada K1Y 4J4), on 7 February 1990.
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• The Proceedings of the National Conference on Technology and Innovation, held in Toronto in January 1988, and the accompanying discussion papers can be obtained form ISTC, Communications Branch, 240 Sparks Street, Ottawa, Canada K1A 1A1.
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• The Minutes of Proceedings of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology, Regional and Northern Development can be obtained from the Canada Communication Group, Supply and Services Canada, Ottawa, Canada K1A 0S9, as can copies of the Committee's reports. Three of these reports have been cited in this article and are listed below.
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• Copies of the Halifax Declaration — and the later Edmonton Declaration and Victoria Report — can be obtained from NABST (see 15 above).
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• The Action Plan developed by the Council of Science and Technology Ministers (CSTM) was released at Saskatoon, Saskatchewan on 9 May 1991, under the title — National Science and Technology Framework for Action. Copies can be obtained from CSTM at 235 Queen Street, Ottawa, Canada K1A 0H5.
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• One of the keynote speakers at the Victoria Forum was the Hon. Barry Jones, the former Australian Minister of Science.
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• The following were among the competitivenesses/prosperity studies released in Canada around 1991: Canada Must Compete, report by the House of Commons Standing Committee on Science etc., December 1990 (see n.18 above).
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• Statement on Competitiveness, by NABST, presented to the Prime Minister in November 1990 and published in March 1991 (see n.15 above).
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• Inventing our future: An Action Plan for Canada's Prosperity, report of the Steering Group on the Prosperity Initiative, 1992. Copies can be obtained from ISTC Communications Branch (see n.17 above).
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• Prosperity through Innovation, summary report of the Task Force of the above Steering Group, 1992. Copies can be obtained from the Conference Board of Canada, 255 Smyth Road, Ottawa, Canada K1H 8M7, or from the ISTC Communications Branch.
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• Vincent Wright, Editor, Reérch Money, 4 March 1992 (see n.16 above).
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• This measure was influenced in part by the final report of the NABST Committee on the Financing of Industrial Innovation, published in March 1991.
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• The Science Council of Canada closed its doors in June 1992 after almost 26 years of service, many publications, and a great deal of open advice to both the public and the private sectors — in particular, to the federal government.
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• This statement was made in a private communication to the author from the Hon. Tom Hockin, then the Minister for Science, on 28 April 1993.
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• IRAP: An Inquiry into the Industrial Research Assistance Program, report of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Science etc., December 1991 (see n.18 above).
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• Government Procurement Committee Report, NABST, February 1988 (see n.15 above).
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• Report of the Committee on Federal Government Procurement, NABST, March 1992 (see n.15 above).
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• An analysis of the performance of the federal Centres of Excellence, Beyond Excellence: The Future of Canada's Networks of Centres of Excellence, was published by the House of Commons Standing Committee for Science etc. in May 1993 (see n.18 above).
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• A discussion of Canada's annual trade deficit in the high-technology sectors and in the context of risk capital, ‘Canada throwing away high-tech jobs’, by Denzil Doyle, appeared in the Ottawa Citizen on 7 March 1993.
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• The critics of the Mulroney administration's technology policies include two Nobel Prize winners, Drs Gerhard Herzberg and John Polanyi, one of Canada's astronauts, Dr Roberta Bondar, as well as the Academy of Science of the Royal Society of Canada.
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• Source of the R&D statistics: Statistics Canada.
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