HR shortage continues to threaten Canada’s founding innovation industries

EMPOWR has yet to score the $500 million it says it needed over the next five years to keep Canada at the forefront of engineering excellence. The funding would be invested in university professors, students, laboratory infrastructure and R&D initiatives connected with micro-electronics, photonics, opto-electronics, wireless and radio-electronics. On April 12, the group pulled out Ottawa’s high-tech elite for a press conference to ensure its campaign doesn’t fall off the political radar screen. Jim Roche, chair of eMPOWR and president of Tundra Semiconductor Corp, summed up the group’s concerns in his remarks below: The problems are wide ranging in their impact. But, in spite of their apparent complexity, they have a simple solution. We need to triple the number of professors teaching in the fields that produce professionals for the micro-electronics, opto-electronics, photonics wireless and radio-engineering industries by 2005. We need to establish Canada as a magnet for world-class minds from all around the world. And, we need to create an environment where knowledge clusters can thrive in multiple locations throughout Canada. This is a simple solution but it is not inexpensive. And it will not happen by accident. The government is investing heavily in innovation. It is investing to deliver a high standard of knowledge creation in Canada. But it is investing without strategic focus.The government has set an objective expressed in the recent Speech from the Throne, to accelerate our ability to commercialize research discoveries by turning them into products and services. No sector has a stronger track record at doing just this than ours. Yet, when it comes to reaping the benefits of huge government investment in innovation, we are at the end of the line.And, quite frankly, no sector is so integral to the success of others. The chips we design, the components we produce, the solutions we create, are integral to the ability to solve complex problems in all fields of endeavour from agriculture, to exploration of space. If we don’t produce the highly qualified people we need to do this centrally important work, then every other industry that depends on the exchange of knowledge will be affected as well.The tough part is that we’re behind health sciences, environmental sciences and social sciences in this line up. All these disciplines are worthy of support. But not all of them have developed the world class reputation for converting R&D into products and services that we have. If that truly is our objective, then we must make some hard strategic choices.The toughest choice of all can be expressed this way. Do we try to lead in every discipline, or do we take stock of our economy and play to our strengths? Right now we appear to have elected to pursue the first option. Kirk (Mandy, vice-chair, Mitel Corp) and Terry (Matthews, chair/CEO, March Networks Corp) have outlined for you what the consequences of this choice will be. The eMPOWR initiative was created to avert these consequences...Canada has a strong claim to leadership in the global knowledge economy. That claim was largely built by our excellence in the global marketplace for micro-electronics, opto-electronics, photonics, wireless and radio-engineering. Powerhouse companies in these disciplines have established leadership positions and helped to establish Canada’s brand as a knowledge producing country... But you’ve heard how costly and competitive it is to maintain a world class standard in R&D in these disciplines. The private sector can’t do this job alone. We are quite simply asking the government to remember who brought them to dance in the global knowledge economy. If Canada is to fulfill its dream of wealth creation, through ‘commercializable’ R&D, then our industry

HR shortage continues to threaten Canada’s founding innovation industries

News | 04/17/2001 4:00 am EDT

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