Tapping in to great Canadian minds

Who should be supporting scientific research? How are we going to build a knowledge-based economy? What must Ontario do to innovate in the future? How important is scientific collaboration? Why is funding infrastructure so important? What lessons have we learned from the way we've done research? How are we going to retain our best and brightest?

These are all important questions all of us should be asking ourselves. And just a sample of the questions we posed to some of the leading names in science, industry and academia. Notable individuals that include Alan Bernstein, David Crane, John Evans, Mike Lazaridis, Mark Poznansky, Rich Murphy, Nils Peterson, Gord Nixon, Bonnie Schmidt and Lou Siminovitch.

Want to hear what these prominent people have to say? Simply choose the Q & A you want to read using the drop down menu above. Whether you agree with their point of view, or not, one thing is certain. You are sure to be stimulated and challenged.

Q In 2003 you gave a speech at the opening of MaRS where you pointed out how disappointing Canada's spending on R&D was and how we had to end the old pattern of "invent in Canada and produce elsewhere." Five years later how are we doing?

A I think there's been an acceptance of the importance of these issues by everyone - government, academia and the business community. And this has made things better. For example, MaRS has turned into a wonderful strategic initiative for bringing people and ideas together. And we're making progress also in the venture capital area with new pockets of dollars like the Ontario Venture Capital Fund in which RBC is a partner. But I guess everything has to have a "but". There clearly is more work to be done.

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The Government of Ontario has invested more than $3.2 billion in research over the past 10 years (1997-2007).
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