Canada’s critical mineral wealth a gem for domestic advanced manufacturing, say experts and stakeholders
Canada has a vast array of critical minerals waiting to be tapped into to supply an increasingly important global demand that’s currently dominated by China, experts say, but an open question is how Canada plans to meet that demand. The Canadian government and industry can follow a similar path and be a natural resource export […]
Time for Canada to catch up on technological transformation
Nobel-prize winning economist Paul Krugman once quipped that “productivity isn’t everything, but in the long run it is almost everything.” He was referring to the fact that the wages of workers are intrinsically linked to productivity and that a country’s standard of living depends almost entirely on its ability to increase output per worker. Other […]
Canada has a running start in the technology leadership race
As we navigate the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond, Canadians are now depending more than ever on reliable connectivity to stay in touch, work, and conduct business. The pandemic has presented new challenges which increasingly require digital solutions, and have brought to the fore pre-existing discussions on the vital role of emerging technologies. The potential benefits […]
Mining is on a strategic roll
The Canadian mining sector has been a vital cog in the country’s economy during the pandemic, with the importance of the industry growing steadily over time. Operations and exploration continued during the COVID-19 outbreak, collaborations with Indigenous communities expanded, technological sophistication accelerated, and, at a time when environmental assessment processes deter investment in Canada, international […]
Rogers-Shaw merger potentially a bad sign for 5G rollout in Canada, experts and advocates say
The recently announced $26-billion merger between two telecom giants is likely a bad sign for 5G rollout in Canada, experts say, because of already relatively low spending from Rogers on the needed infrastructure for the new technology and the uncertain position it puts Shaw in with the upcoming spectrum auction essential to offering the speeds […]
AI and 5G
We need to generate much higher returns from our investments in talent and academic research
TORONTO—According to the World Intellectual Property Organization, last year Canada ranked 12th in the world in the number of international patent applications under its the Patent Cooperation Treaty system, which is used for patents with potential commercial value. We can’t explain this low ranking in creating wealth-generating intellectual property as simply a function of size. […]
Rising to the challenge of facing inequities in health research
At a time when humanity copes with a once in a century public health crisis, the theme for International Women’s Day (IWD) 2021 carried a poignant resonance: “#ChooseToChallenge.” As IWD organizers describe it: “We can all choose to challenge and call out gender bias and inequality. We can all choose to seek out and celebrate […]
Feds should complete digital transition as part of its response to COVID
Re: “Bell Canada’s cuts were a shoddy way to treat people,” (The Hill Times, Feb. 10, by Andrew Caddell). I would like to point policy-makers to my May 2020 submission to the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology. In it, I suggested that the government complete the digital transition as part of its response to […]
Bill C-10’s focus on foreign digital giants should not ignore domestic ones
Discussions on Bill C-10 make much of the fact that the Internet was only in its infancy when the Broadcasting Act was last amended 30 years ago and that none of today’s huge and hugely-influential foreign digital companies– like Netflix, Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Spotify–existed or were contemplated at the time. While this is certainly […]
