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Digital Economy Strategy - Consultation Key Findings

Presentation to the CRC Advisory Council
Helen McDonald
November 30, 2010

PPT 2.3 MB, 8 pages
PDF, 580 KB, 8 pages

Points for Discussion

  1. Consultations – Overall Process
  2. General Key Recommendations from Stakeholders
  3. Recommendations related to Research and Development
  4. Recommendations related to Innovation
  5. Opportunities Emerging for Canada
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1. Consultations - Overall Process

  • Speech from the Throne and Budget 2010 committed to launching a digital economy strategy
  • Consultation paper launched on May 10th
  • Interactive website allowed for submissions and ideas to be posted:
    • More than 20 000 unique visitors to the site
    • 277 submissions received
    • More than 130 posted ideas, and nearly 425 comments relating to all five pillars
  • Bilateral or roundtable meetings:
    • Provinces and Territories
    • Major tech clusters across Canada:
      • Larger firms and SMEs
      • Academic institutions
      • ICT clusters associations
    • Sector Associations (on adoption of ICTs)
Five Key Pillars:
  • Innovation using digital technologies
  • Digital Infrastructure
  • Growing the ICT sector
  • Canada's Digital Content
  • Building Digital Skills

Pie chart showing percentage of submissions by organization type
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Examples of Submissions Received

Logos of organizations

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Note: The number of organisations (252) varies from the total number of submissions (277) as some organisations submitted more than one submissions.

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2. Key Recommendations from Stakeholders

  • Increase Adoption of ICTs
    • Address underinvestment in ICTs and slow adoption rates
    • Governments should lead by example and support open and interoperable standards
    • Regulations and policies must protect Canadians security and privacy online
  • Enhance Canada's Network Infrastructure
    • Government investments in rural broadband (but not urban) and to support R&D networks (e.g., CANARIE)
    • Regulations and policies that provide incentives for investment and competition, provide access to more spectrum and passive infrastructure
  • Support ICT sector growth
    • Address key issues: commercialization, R&D, talent, financing, procurement, barriers to trade and investment
    • Government, industry and other stakeholders should work collaboratively to fix these issues
  • Continue to support Canadian Digital Content
    • Focus on investments, other sources of financing, talent and sector development, national institutions, and modern rules and regulations
    • Also address infrastructure, the transition to digital over-the-air television and foreign ownership.
  • Ensure we have a skilled workforce
    • Increase enrolment in ICT disciplines
    • Improve basic digital literacy

…and lots of interest in R&D

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3. Recommendations Related to R&D

  • Provide more financial assistance for innovation and commercialization
    • Improve SR&ED Tax Credit Program, a valuable program
      • Make it refundable
      • Expand expense coverage, including IP and marketing
      • Simplify rules & eligibility (improve administration)
    • Continue to fund collaborative research projects and expand programs with a proven track record such as IRAP and Precarn
    • Ensure R&D incentives are predictable and long term
    • Continue to support critical research infrastructure, such as CANARIE
  • Promote greater collaboration within the research community
    • Create new centres of excellence and other communities to foster innovation and commercialization
    • Support cluster network development (support testbeds, connect research centres-networks, incubators, etc.)
    • Encourage clearer application of Intellectual property rights in collaborations, specifically partnerships between industry-academia
  • Increase efficiency and better align programs that support R&D
    • Encourage coordination between agencies and promote more joint federal-provincial collaboration, e.g., between NSERC, NRC, FedDev and provincial centres of excellence, and examine opportunities for co-investments
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4. Recommendations Related to Innovation

  • Address ICT adoption and use in the general economy to close productivity lag
    • Use education and awareness programs to demonstrate the enabling effect of ICT and create incentives to encourage adoption
    • Suggest additional focus on ICT adoption from the BDC and funding for IRAP to address ICT adoption rates
    • Encourage adoption of new technologies by making Government a model user
  • Improve access to capital, as financing is a significant constraint
    • Develop a cost shared investment program to support large innovative technology projects and share R&D risk
    • Create incentives to increase supply of available capital as lack of access to risk capital is an obstacle to growth and innovation
    • Consider how the tax system can be used to leverage greater VC financing
  • Ensure a growing supply of talent (HQP) for R&D and ICT industry growth
    • As a large talent pool with expertise in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) and digital media supports innovation and current and future industry demand, stakeholders suggest more internships/co-ops, more K-12 educational focus on technology and immigration changes
  • Government procurement can be used to support innovation
    • Use Government purchasing power to support commercial innovation, for economic development, and to help grow ICT firms by supporting pre-procurement R&D
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5. Opportunities Emerging for Canada

  • Stakeholders see we can "Own the Podium" by
    • Targeting emerging sectors such as e-health, clean tech and Green ICT and digital content in which Canada has the potential to achieve international presence
    • Focussing R&D to exploit convergence across industry sectors, such as ICT with digital media, health, social sciences and design
    • Enabling Canadian businesses to leverage new technology models, such as Cloud Computing, for improved productivity and global reach
    • Leveraging Canadian capabilities in wireless, mobile, digital media and gaming
  • Use DES as a spring board to address demographic, environmental and competitive challenges faced by Canada Use latest technologies to address:
    • Healthcare
      • Smart & sustainable communities
      • Smart grid power generation and distribution
      • State-of-the-art supercomputing infrastructure
      • Democracy and citizen engagement

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Long Descriptions of Images

Description of Graph of Percentage of Submissions by Organization Type

  • 5% government Organizations
  • 11% Small and Medium Enterprises
  • 12% Large Enterprises
  • 13% Academia
  • 15% Individual
  • 44% Associations

Description of Examples of Submissions Received

Associations

  • Writer's Guild of Canada
  • AdDirect
  • Communitech
  • Cefrio
  • The Canadian Chamber of Commerce
  • British Columbia Technology Industry Association
  • Certified Management Accountants
  • Entertainment Software Association of Canada
  • CIRA
  • Assembly of First Nations
  • Alberta ICT
  • Information Technology Association of Canada
  • Engineers Canada
  • OCRI

Individuals

  • Michael Geist
  • Andrew Warfield
  • Jeffrey Dale
  • Brian Cantwell Smith

Small and Medium Enterprises

  • ViXS
  • Battlegoat Studios
  • Chestnut Hall Music

Large Enterprises

  • RIM
  • Visa
  • Microsoft

Academia

  • McGill University
  • University of Toronto
  • University of British Columbia
  • Polytechnics Canada

Government Organizations

  • Canada Health Infoway
  • CANARIE
  • GRAND