Science and Research committee  The problem is there's no idea to invest it into because the idea's gone. There's nothing to invest. The government money went to foreign firms or it was just squandered because there was no institution that developed it over five years. There's nothing to invest.

Science and Research committee  Yes, I'm happy to do that. In this policy area, Canada's policy community has peddled myths that there's a complacency, lack of competitive intensity or weak receptors for the business community. You have to understand that research by government leads to research by business in the traditional production economy, but when you go into the intangibles economy, research for government must then translate into what's called freedom to operate or owned intellectual property, which naturally then drives corporate investments.

Science and Research committee  Sure. Thank you for your question and your kind comment. I'll go to the panel I chaired for the Province of Ontario. We only had three recommendations. They said that sometimes the most vexatiously complex problems have the simplest of solutions. Number one, we don't teach it, we don't govern for it, and we don't provide services for it.

Science and Research committee  Yes, I think you need to have deliberate strategies. I think we've had strategies, as a nation, to bring the branch plant here, but not really to keep the high-end talent here, and to keep all the positive tax effects, management effects, wealth effects and security effects. All roads go to a magnet for talent and for growing domestic companies.

Science and Research committee  First of all, I'm not aware of a situation where Waterloo's IP policy has really materially contributed to Waterloo's success. I'm not aware of a company that's been a successful spin-off from Waterloo of any scale in the last 20 years that's professor-based research. Of course, you have tremendous students who begin to do this.

Science and Research committee  The first thing I would suggest is that you convene a panel with this specific question, because the rules on talent management used to be relatively reduced to convention, but everything is thrown up in the air now with COVID, remote work and all of that. There's a tremendous number of things Canada can do.

Science and Research committee  Being more protective of IP is kind of like raising rent for the homeless. You can't protect something you don't have. The issue is that those who have a lot come to Canada and say it's raised protections so that we pay them more rent. They create a false myth that higher rents will catalyze more creation of intangible assets in Canada, and that's hokum.

Science and Research committee  No. I think it's much more commercial in the U.S., but their companies are trained and sophisticated and have scaled in this game. Unfortunately for Canada, our best IP, even if it's institutionally generated, is claimed by foreign companies, so we don't get the economic benefits.

Science and Research committee  I will. I have lots to share with you if this is of interest. This is not about money. I don't say spend more or less money. This is about getting more for the money that we spend, where appropriate. And I say “where appropriate”, because not all research should be oriented to be commercialized.

Science and Research committee  Yes. We have tremendous.... We invented the fundamental artificial intelligence, and then we gave it away to foreign firms. We had fundamental telecommunications technology and we gave it to Huawei. Canada is great at ideas and we have great indigenous industries. We could apply those to be value-added to raise our productivity.

Science and Research committee  The things that I recommended Canada begin, and much more, the U.S. began doing 40 years ago. The old expression is “The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The second best time is now.” We simply have no strategy, no orientation and no capacity to generate and control intangible stock assets.

Science and Research committee  Madam Chair and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to present to your committee. I'm Jim Balsillie, presenting on behalf of the Council of Canadian Innovators. As the committee is currently studying the successes, challenges and opportunities for science and research in Canada, it's important to evaluate both the inputs and the outputs of this ecosystem for Canada.

Finance committee  Sure, and the Broadbent Institute has an excellent paper on the history of the Economic Council. We shut ours down in 1989, so we went pure hands-off neo-liberalism when others were upgrading their instruments or doubling down on this. It could be something that is there to measure and manage the intangibles economy.

Finance committee  I know the details around ElevateIP. It was a number put with a sentence and there's no understanding of how they're going to implement it or what the details are going to be behind it. It's one of those things where you can spend a dollar and get 10 cents out of it, and if you don't have expertise in creating and implementing the program, you're going to have the debacle you had with the superclusters.

Finance committee  Our trade policy is firmly rooted in the 1970s. Michelle Rempel asked the question of our trade leaders at committee: Have you done an analysis of the intangible effects? They said no, yet there are no tariffs to get rid of and 99% of the effect of these deals is on intangibles.