One thing for sure is that the proposal we've made with respect to creating what we've chosen to call “innovation marketplaces” is one concrete thing the government can begin to do to bring people together. As Ilse has said, one of Canada's challenges here is that if you look at our performance in commercialization relative to that of, say, the United States, it's night and day. The commercialization of research and its success in the United States comes out of a variety of factors, but they have succeeded.... In their case, it's both geographic and sector-specific or problem-specific.
Certainly everybody knows about Silicon Valley, everybody knows about Pittsburgh, everybody knows about Boston, everybody knows now the beginnings of some interesting things in and around New York, where that connectivity has happened, where universities and research and capital and entrepreneurs are finding ways to connect.
That's really what Silicon Valley is about. You're seeing some of the same things happening in places in Israel. It's happening in a variety of places around the world.
Anything we can do to bring people together and put them in the same room to focus on the solution to specific problems so that it's not just chit-chat—because that's not going to get anybody anywhere.... The idea behind innovation marketplaces was to have specific problems that need to be solved, problems that are important for business, so that businesses come to the table with receptive ears to hear about innovative ideas.
The notion of the government is not of the government solving the problem; it's of the government creating a context whereby people can sit in a room with a specific issue that is an issue for business, so that business comes to the table, as I say, with the right mindset. That's what needs to be done.
I'm sorry to say this, but this is something that takes time. This is about building muscle reflex; this is about building different standard operating procedures.
Let's be honest. I'm not going to make any friends when I say this, but there are many people in the academic world who think that commercializing research somehow debases the pursuit of truth. I'm not signed up for that. I think that if you can commercialize research, that's probably a pretty good thing.
There are other people who say that's crass. Well, okay, but that's a cultural factor. That's not going to go away tomorrow. It's something that's going to have to be worked on over years and years.