This House of Commons Science and Research committee meeting studied how to promote and grow private sector investment in research and development in Canada. Witnesses included Ryan Williams, a fellow at the Balsillie School of International Affairs; Grace Lee Reynolds, CEO of MaRS Discovery District; Bruce Johnson, Executive Vice-President of Martinrea Innovation Development; Molly Shoichet, a professor at the University of Toronto; Marc Nantel, Vice-President of Research, Innovation and Strategic Enterprises at Niagara College; and Robert Asselin, CEO of U15 Canada.
Ryan Williams argued that Canada must double business R&D investment by 2030, starting with asserting digital sovereignty. He noted that 80% of Canadian data is on U.S.-controlled servers subject to the U.S. CLOUD Act, and that 75% of patents from $4.4 billion in AI funding are foreign-owned. He recommended a Canadian innovation and data sovereignty act, a $100-billion sovereign innovation fund matching private VC with repayable loans and equity stakes, and rewriting the Competition Act to break up monopolies and ban killer acquisitions.
Grace Lee Reynolds said Canada has fallen to 18th in OECD productivity and that half of founders raising over $1 million do so in the U.S., where they raise nearly twice as much. She recommended fixing the capital problem by having government act as a first customer through strategic procurement, accelerating university-industry collaboration by simplifying IP transfer, and retaining value in Canada through coordinated policy across ISED, provinces and superclusters. She noted that Budget 2022 proposed a new innovation agency but its status is unclear.
Bruce Johnson said that early- to mid-stage companies typically achieve proof of concept but struggle with industrialization and commercialization. Using the Effenco example, he noted that capital-intensive projects with long development cycles are hard to fund. He recommended combining strong public grants with enhanced tax-based incentives including repayable tax credits, strengthening public-private co-investment through BDC, introducing rolling intake for high-impact projects, and standardizing an IP protection framework for publicly funded programs to protect Canadian commercial interests.
Molly Shoichet said location matters and that Canada must attract multinational R&D teams, not just sales teams, by inviting them into leading research institutions. She noted that most Canadian companies are chronically underfunded, which is a fatal flaw, and recommended greater investment from Canadian pension funds into early-stage companies, targeted tax incentives for biotech and health-tech investors, expanded public capital from seed to Series B, and programs to bring experienced Canadians home. She disagreed with any framing that pits colleges against universities, urging big ambitions for Canada.
Marc Nantel said colleges operate within 50 kilometres of 95% of Canadians and completed 8,500 applied research projects in 2023-24, with 95% of partners being Canadian firms and 80% of projects finished within one year. He noted that IP is transferred directly to partners with no complicated licensing, and that colleges receive less than 4% of tri-council funding. He supported CICan's request for $485 million over five years for NSERC's college and community innovation program, and argued that funding applied research at colleges is the fastest path to commercialization.
Robert Asselin said Canada invests 1.81% of GDP in R&D, well below the OECD average, and that business R&D intensity is the second lowest in the G7. He noted that foreign-controlled companies now perform 37% of all business R&D in Canada. He recommended a sovereign technologies fund focused on economic and national security, exempting graduate students from the study-permit cap and accelerating visa processing, and a modern science and technology architecture linking universities, industry and government, using defence innovation as a generational opportunity through initiatives like BOREALIS.
The committee agreed to request a summary of evidence before drafting instructions and asked about the availability of the science adviser.
AI-generated summary — may contain errors; verify against the official evidence.