We Fund Innovation, Others Take the Profits
Imagine if Canada spent billions mining gold, only to hand it over to foreign companies for free. Imagine if we developed world-changing technologies, only for them to be owned and monetized by other nations. Now stop imagining—it’s happening right now.”
Imagine a country that pours billions into research, develops world-class innovations, and then watches as the economic benefits—patents, intellectual property, and global-scale businesses—slip away into the hands of foreign companies.
Imagine a nation that pays for the future but never owns it.
That nation is Canada.
We have become a Research Colony—a place that generates breakthroughs but fails to commercialize them, a country that builds intellectual wealth only to see it exploited elsewhere. While we celebrate our status as a research powerhouse, other nations profit from our discoveries. We hand them our best ideas, our smartest companies, our technological edge—then wonder why our economy lags behind.
This isn’t just a policy failure. It’s a betrayal of Canada’s potential.
We Spend More, But Get Less
Canada spends over $50 billion annually on research and development, yet we continue to fall in global innovation rankings. More than half of all patents filed by Canadian researchers are now foreign-owned, a staggering rise from just 18% in 2000. That means the very ideas we fund—through government grants, university research programs, and taxpayer-backed initiatives—end up fueling other economies instead of our own.
Universities, the supposed engines of national innovation, remain laser-focused on publishing research rather than turning ideas into companies. The reward system is broken—professors chase citations instead of commercialization. And while other countries tie public research funding to economic returns, Canada hands out billions with no strings attached.
The pipeline from discovery to economic growth doesn’t exist here. Instead, there’s a revolving door—where promising Canadian startups, particularly in AI, biotech, and clean tech, are snapped up by U.S. firms before they ever have a chance to scale. We aren’t building global powerhouses—we are building intellectual property farms for foreign investors.
And it gets worse.
Canadian corporations—many of them old, risk-averse, and addicted to government subsidies—barely invest in research at all. Unlike in Germany, the U.S., or South Korea, where companies spend aggressively on R&D, Canada’s private sector waits for universities and government grants to do the work. Instead of building innovation, our corporations import it.
Canada doesn’t own its research. It doesn’t scale its own ideas. And it doesn’t demand better from the institutions that control the system.
A System Built for Everyone Except Canadians
This didn’t happen by accident. We are a Research Colony by design—because of policies that allow universities to treat commercialization as an afterthought, because of governments that fail to protect Canadian-developed intellectual property, and because of corporations that refuse to invest in their own future.
We don’t require that publicly funded research stays in Canada. We don’t stop foreign firms from acquiring our best technology before we can capitalize on it. We don’t prioritize applied research—the kind that translates into real businesses—because our academic institutions are still rewarded for output, not outcomes.
Yes, we have IRAP that helps fund innovation, but it doesn’t stop Canada from being a Research Colony. IRAP doesn’t prevent foreign takeovers or help Canadian companies scale. It’s a pipeline without a reservoir. IRAP funds the pipeline, but it doesn’t close the leaks—until we fix this, Canada will keep paying for the future while others profit from it.
And so, we keep writing the checks.
We fund the research. We generate the ideas. And we let someone else reap the rewards. Unlike the U.S., which blocks key tech acquisitions through CFIUS, Canada has no protections to keep its best innovations at home. Meanwhile, large corporations underinvest in R&D, relying on government programs instead of building self-sustaining innovation.
The Research Colony Must End
There is a way out. But it will require something we haven’t had in a long time: the political , academic and industrial will to act.
It starts with tying research funding to real economic outcomes. If universities and colleges want billions in public money, they must deliver more than just journal citations—they must create businesses, not just theories. The last major review of research commercialization was the 2011 Ontario Auditor General’s Report, meaning we are still operating on outdated assumptions. More recent data from the Association of University Technology Managers (AUTM) tracks progress, but when viewed as a whole, it confirms the same pattern: Canada funds breakthroughs, but the economic benefits rarely stay here. The numbers tell a clear story—despite investments, Canada continues to underperform in turning research into real, Canadian-owned prosperity. It means stopping the open-door policy for foreign takeovers of Canadian technology. Other nations protect their industries.
It means forcing corporations to invest in R&D instead of waiting for the government to do it for them. Tax breaks should go to companies that build and scale technology here, not to those who simply extract resources and call it economic growth.
And it means shifting research funding toward applied innovation—the kind that creates businesses and jobs, not just academic prestige. Polytechnics and applied research institutions should be closer to the center of our R&D ecosystem, yet they receive a fraction of the funding given to universities. That needs to change.
If we don’t act now, we will never escape the Research Colony trap. We will continue funding discoveries that power other nations’ economies while our own stagnates. We will keep watching as our best startups and scientists leave for better opportunities abroad. We will remain a country that creates knowledge—but never keeps the rewards.
The truth is, commercialization alone won’t save us. If it were the answer, we would have already solved this problem. Canada doesn’t suffer from a lack of research or even a lack of commercialization attempts—it suffers from a failure to complete the full cycle of opportunity creation. We have world-class innovation, but we don’t scale it. We have brilliant startups, but we sell them off before they can become global leaders. We invest in research, but our corporations underinvest in their own R&D, relying on universities and government to do the heavy lifting. Without a strong ecosystem that supports research commercialization, corporate investment, and industrial scaling, any attempt to fix one piece—like pushing for more commercialization—will fail because the other pieces aren’t in place.
The deeper issue is that we don’t seem to recognize this gap. This is a ‘we don’t know what we don’t know’ problem—our innovation economy is running on half its potential, and we lack the skills, awareness, and policies to complete the cycle. Canada focuses on discovery, but not on destination. We celebrate breakthroughs, but not business-building. We fund research, but we don’t fund the infrastructure that keeps the results in Canada. We are trapped in an outdated belief that innovation begins and ends in the lab, when it must be part of a larger system—one that turns ideas into industries and research into revenue that benefits Canadians. Until we recognize that our R&D system is incomplete, we will continue throwing money at research without ever realizing its full potential. The challenge isn’t to do more—it’s to stop making the same mistakes. Until we build an ecosystem that keeps innovation here, we’ll keep funding the future for everyone but ourselves.
I’ve seen this firsthand. I’ve built and sold in markets that know how to turn research into dominance. I’ve also tried to do the same in Canada—where the system is fragmented, the mindset is incomplete, and the path to success is full of roadblocks that don’t exist elsewhere. I’ve profited from innovation ecosystems that work, and I’ve paid heavily for trying to navigate one that doesn’t – Ours.
This isn’t just theory—it’s lived experience. Canada has all the raw potential to be a powerhouse, yet we keep losing because we don’t recognize that research alone isn’t enough. Innovation isn’t just about discovery; it’s about completion. It’s about building, scaling, protecting, and owning what we create. Other countries understand this instinctively. Canada doesn’t. In Canada, we mistake research for victory. But discovery is just the first move—winning means owning what we create.
We need a complete rethink of how we structure R&D, how we commercialize it, and most importantly, how we ensure that the economic returns actually benefit Canadians. Until we shift from simply ‘producing knowledge’ to ‘owning outcomes,’ we will remain a Research Colony—funding the future, but never keeping the rewards.
This is no longer just an economic issue—it is a crisis of sovereignty. This is a call to action for those who understand what’s at stake. I’m ready to build a Canada that owns its future—are you?
Brady