White Paper

Despite three decades of concentrated public policy work and incentive programs, Canada still lags behind its competitors in innovation and productivity.1 Innovation is a key driver of productivity and yet Canada’s productivity growth is 20% less than that of the United States.2 Canada is in the bottom quartile for innovation within the OECD.3 In an increasingly unpredictable and complex world economy, Canada must consider revisiting its innovation policies by focusing on its greatest resource: its people. Just as the knowledge economy shaped economic development through the second half of the 20th century, the creative economy has become a dominant force in today’s world economy. How can public policy work to unleash creativity in the Canadian labour force across all sectors? To build economic strength and resiliency, Canada should develop a bold strategy to incubate creative minds and the places and processes in which they can thrive. This task force report makes the case for high-impact federal initiatives that could work to unite business leaders, academics and artists in building a more competitive and creative Canada.

One of the most important experiments taking place within Canadian universities is not in a laboratory or clinic. The outcome of this experiment will impact Canada’s future prosperity. It has the potential to improve our health and safety, protect our environment, and make our businesses more productive and competitive. The goal of the experiment is to make Canadian universities the best at moving new discoveries to market. This experiment takes place within university technology transfer offices (TTOs). Without any dominant national policy, each office is testing different policies, operations, and strategies in the search for ‘best practices’. Technology transfer is still much more art than science, but University research spin-off companies such as Google, Hewlett-Packard, Amgen, and Genentech, demonstrate the stakes involved. For decades research output has been measured by the discovery and dissemination of new knowledge. This view is evolving as universities are recognized as critical drivers of knowledge-based economies. These “entrepreneurial universities” are measured by new research outputs such as patents and start-up company formation. TTOs are expected to be the catalysts within this new role. Technology transfer is the point at which ivory-tower research begins the path to job creation and economic stimulation. It is where government and academia meet the private sector.

This paper explores two DSIPs, which were designed to bridge these aims: North Carolina’s BioWork course and Finland’s Nokia Bridge program. Their purpose was to increase the resilience of mid-to-late career workers affected by technological innovation, while supporting regional economic growth. As such, these case studies hold relevant lessons for Ontario. They were shaped by strategic design and implementation that accounted for the economic realities of participants, target industries, and regions, to promote the development of inclusive innovation economies. In particular, they demonstrate that the existence of education and training supports, while important, is not sufficient to ensure inclusive outcomes.

With the rapid advancement of technology, robots could now be easily equipped with the state of art computing, electronics and communications technologies, with the potential to act as intelligent companions and with important applications in the education, entertainment, games and healthcare industries. The integration of all these technologies is the first step to realizing social robots – robots which will walk amongst humans, playing out their assigned roles whilst interacting with humans in a humanistic way. Social robots can have definite roles and tasks, such as educators, cleaners or guides, with a profound impact on human daily life. This advanced class of robots, just as we humans do, is made up of a complex array of interconnected modules – electronics (inner physical workings), sensing, planning and cognition, and finally, intelligence, interaction and communications. This paper provides an overview of each of these individual aspects, and how advanced technology in these areas can be integrated to form a social robot that can meld seamlessly into the human society.

The rising cost of energy and resources, worldwide policy action to fight climate change and the transition to a low-carbon economy are causing a paradigm shift in the global economy. This shift will profoundly affect the roots of Canada’s prosperity, but it will also create vast new markets for clean technologies that promise increased performance, lower costs and fewer negative environmental impacts. The global cleantech market is currently a $1 trillion opportunity, expected to reach $3 trillion by 2020. Many of our country’s international competitors have moved aggressively to embrace the cleantech opportunity. Canada has a vibrant and growing clean technology sector, but we currently lack the policy framework needed to reach our full potential. We cannot afford to miss this opportunity: if Canada can capture just 2% of the global clean technology market by 2020, our domestic cleantech sector will be worth over $60 billion. This report makes three key policy recommendations to move us towards that goal.

Young Carers are young people who provide significant care to family members because of illness, disability, or other challenges. While Young Carers are found in every classroom in Canada, they are too often invisible to their teachers and others who could provide support when needed. Because of this, Young Carers may not receive the care they need. When properly supported, young caregiving can be a positive life experience. But without proper support, Young Carers can run into educational, health and social barriers that can last a lifetime. These barriers translate into costs and lost opportunities for Young Carers and for society. This report introduces Young Carers to Canadians and calls for three first steps to improve conditions for Young Carers across the country: increased awareness, improved data collection and research, and a multi-sector effort to support Young Carers in their communities. Drawing on international examples, the report suggests tangible actions on each of these fronts.

One might think that inequality and poverty are the proper domain of social policy, not “economic and business policy,” this year’s Action Canada fellowship theme. Canadians are trained to think about economic and social policy as separate fields. Indeed, when the Action Canada Task Force on Inequality, Poverty, and the Knowledge-Based Economy (the “Task Force”) first met to discuss our project, we had a much narrower view of “economic and business policy” than we do today. The Task Force now considers economic and social policy to be inextricably linked; in fact, we believe that addressing what are traditionally considered social issues is crucial to Canada’s long-term economic prosperity. The evolution of the Task Force’s thinking itself demonstrates why inequality and poverty are important from an economic standpoint.

This study examines Registered Apprenticeships, career-training programs administered by the Employment and Training Administration's Office of Apprenticeship in the U.S. Department of Labor, in conjunction with state apprenticeship agencies. The study found program participants had substantially higher earnings than nonparticipants, and program social benefits were much larger than costs.

A Deloitte survey (sponsored by Facebook) asked C-suite executives for their perspectives on the future of work. Their responses reveal six themes about the future workplace—and six lessons to help leaders ease the transition.