Alex Greco
Senior Director, Manufacturing and Value Chains, Canadian Chamber of Commerce
Canadian businesses are ready for action from adopting new technology to improving productivity and commercializing future-focused ideas.
Partnership is Proven
In 1921, a University of Toronto research team discovered insulin. Within two years, the university’s Connaught Laboratories was producing it at scale. The researchers assigned the patent rights to the university, which used licensing to protect quality and availability. From 1923 to 1967, insulin royalties generated $8 million and helped finance medical research across Canada.
The discovery saved millions of lives. It also demonstrated what happens when Canada connects research, clinical testing, intellectual property, manufacturing and reinvestment. A breakthrough became a product, supported an industry and financed further discovery here at home. Each step supported the next.
From Canadian research to Canadian value
The modern version of that model requires businesses to be involved much earlier. Businesses understand what customers need, whether a technology can work at commercial scale, how it fits into a supply chain and what investment will be required. That knowledge can help researchers focus on problems with real-world applications and anticipate obstacles before a promising idea reaches the market.
We should recover the principle that made insulin’s impact so enduring: connect discovery to production, retain the value generated by Canadian ideas and reinvest it in the next one.
In the forthcoming digital world defined by 6G, for example, the standards and technologies that will underpin connected factories, artificial intelligence and autonomous systems are being developed now. As the Canadian Chamber recently warned, Canada risks becoming a technology user instead of a technology creator. This is a prime area for Canadian leadership.
It’s a moment for such ambition too. The federal government’s new permanent Productivity Mega Deduction is a critical change. It can strengthen the investment environment for advanced manufacturing by improving investing in machinery, technology and other productive assets. That matters at the commercialization stage, when an invention must leave the laboratory and work reliably on a factory floor or communications network.
Rebuild the Commercialization Chain
Investment incentives alone cannot complete that journey. Canada also needs research partnerships built around real market needs, with businesses involved early and clear agreements on intellectual-property ownership, licensing and data.
In our pre-budget submission, we called for a competitive patent box offering a preferential tax rate on income from IP developed and commercialized in Canada. We also recommended broader access to the Scientific Research and Experimental Development (SR&ED incentive, alongside support for 6G technologies, fibre optics and AI deployment. These policies would give companies stronger reasons to develop, own and scale innovation here.
Governments and large institutions can also play an important role by becoming early customers. Procurement and demonstration projects give Canadian technologies the real-world validation needed to attract investment and enter export markets.
Canada’s innovative future should recover the principle that made insulin’s impact so enduring: connect discovery to production, retain the value generated by Canadian ideas and reinvest it in the next one.
Visit chamber.ca to learn how the Canada’s largest business network is advancing policies that help Canadian businesses innovate, invest and succeed.
