Monday, June 27, 2016

The 2002 Liberal Innovation Strategy

          By Chuck Black

Canada's Innovation Strategy. Graphic c/o Gov't of Canada.
It's worth noting that 2016 isn't the first time we've had a Liberal government in power in Ottawa, nor the first time there have been concerns over our Canadian "innovation agenda."

As outlined in the June 13th, 2016 post, "Government Announces Comprehensive Review of Canadian Science," the current Liberal government under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has announced an independent review of billions of dollars of federal funding for science and academics currently in place to support scientists in Canada.

That review is expected to be completed by the end of the year.

But, in February 2002, the governing Liberal party under Prime Minister Jean Chrétien was dealing with much the same problem.

Under his administration, the Canadian ministers of industry and human resources development released two interesting policy papers on innovation strategy.

The first, Achieving Excellence: Investing in People, Knowledge and Opportunity recognized the need "to consider knowledge as a strategic national asset" and focused on "how to strengthen our science and research capacity and on how to ensure that this knowledge contributes to building an innovative economy that benefits all Canadians."

The second, Knowledge Matters: Skills and Learning for Canadians proposed a series of national goals and milestones against which progress can be measured over time and reported on regularly to Canadians.

Chuck Black.
Of course, neither of those policy papers ever turned into government policy and are mostly forgotten today. Figuring out why this happened is something the Trudeau government needs to do as it moves forward with its current review.
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Chuck Black is the editor of the Commercial Space blog.


1 comment:

  1. hey this is really nice post. thanks for sharing this with us

    ReplyDelete

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