If sovereignty is a country’s ability to withstand pressure, in innovation that means ensuring firms and researchers have the materials, software and data alongside needed ecosystems to develop new products, services, and organizational ideas.

Canada has no realistic chance of supplying all its own inputs and continues to underperform in developing new products and services. To achieve innovation sovereignty, Canada needs to strengthen its innovation ecosystems and build international partnerships with like-minded countries to assure access to all these resources.

Where Canada falls short

Innovation occurs locally through ecosystems consisting of firms, universities, colleges, funders, communities, and governments. The world’s most intense ecosystems – San Jose/San Francisco and Boston/Cambridge in the U.S., Cambridge, U.K., and Ningde, China – are blessed by strong relationships between research institutions and major innovative firms that attract significant venture funding.

Examples of Canadian regional innovation ecosystems include Montreal’s gaming ecosystem, Toronto’s life sciences cluster, Vancouver’s cleantech cluster and Whitehorse’s efforts to build a critical minerals network. These ecosystems, however, lack important pillars: Montreal’s gaming sector only recently saw the creation of a gaming publisher; Toronto’s life sciences sector lacks risk capital; Vancouver’s industries and government programs lack co-ordination; and Whitehorse’s critical minerals network is in its infancy.

Two areas where Canada does well: it has the highest rate of post-secondary education among OECD countries, and its universities and colleges are internationally competitive in producing........

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