By: Phil Froats
The current edition of Canadian Business Magazine has a feature titled “The Power of Innovation” with a ranking showing that we are number 7 out of 25 in 2007 when compared to the world’s largest economies. (See rankings at www.canadianbusiness.com/countryrankings). This remains unchanged from 2006. So how much money has the federal government spent to enable us to cheer “We’re number 7”?
The table below taken from a Statistics Canada report summarizes federal expenditures by region on science and technology. For fiscal 2004/2005, a total of $8.156 billion or $252 per person was spent in Canada. This is up over 34% from 2000/2001. In addition, about $24 per person or $779 million was sent to foreign entities or could not be geographically identified. Due to the location of the Capital Region, Ontario and to a much lesser extent Quebec, receive most of the benefit of the money spent there.
Source: Statistics Canada Service Bulletin Science Statistics Catalogue 88-001-XIE/ISSN1209-1278
