I seem to recall reading a study reporting that Canada's spends a smaller proportion of its budget on R&D that do most G8 countries on average. Practically speaking, that's R&D carried out by the private sector. But the private sector is lagging behind. There were problems with R&D being done by university institutions and that lead to the establishment of the Canada Foundation for Innovation.
If our measures were as good as we claim they are, then Canada would at least rank among the average G8 countries and be leading the parade, not bringing up the rear. Isn't there a problem of some kind with our system, which doesn't seem very encouraging?