The following is a letter from Barrie – Springwater – Oro-Medonte Member of Parliament Alex Nuttall to Navdeep Bains, Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development.
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The Honourable Navdeep Bains, P.C.
Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development House of Commons, Parliament Buildings
Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0A6
Minister,
Riding Office
48 Alliance Boulevard, Unit 104 Barrie, ON L4M5K3 705.728.2596 [email protected]
Tuesday February 14th, 2017
Alex Nuttall, MP
Barrie – Springwater – Oro-Medonte
I am writing this letter in regard to the advice that the ‘Innovation Leaders’ have given you on how to spend the $800,000,000 set aside in Budget 2016 for “Strengthening Innovation Networks and Clusters.”
Funding the super clusters will waste resources on expensive real-estate and excessive and salaries, that would otherwise go to help actual innovation. When you appointed Dr. Ilse Treurnicht, and Dr. Sarah Lubik to your ‘innovation leaders’ group, it was a forgone conclusion that the ‘leaders’ would advise you to spend the $800 million on their institutions.
I would like to suggest some alternative options in regards to the Strengthening Innovation Networks and Clusters fund.
There are hundreds of innovation clusters in Canada that do amazing work in smaller communities. Not only do they help foster innovative start-ups, they have multiple beneficial off-shoots for their host communities, such as mentoring entrepreneurs or teaching young girls to code. This is not being done through the traditional education system. These smaller clusters are an effective way to build a talent pool for the big city super-clusters, and contribute significantly to economic development in their regions.
In my own riding, we have a privately funded, volunteer staffed cluster. It has low overhead and produces great result for our community. I have no doubt that dollar for dollar; it has a greater economic impact on Barrie and the area, than the super clusters have on their host cities.
It would be absolutely shameful if the smaller clusters across Canada received nothing. The fact is the top-down, centre-out plan as espoused by your ‘innovations leaders’ will deprive smaller communities of their skilled digital workers and further stunt economic development outside of metropolitan Canada.
I am respectfully requesting that you follow through with my request to fund the smaller clusters of Canada first, and the super clusters second.
Sincerely,
Alex Nuttall, M.P.
Barrie – Springwater – Oro-Medonte
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