Compas Poll / Survey

The COMPAS CEO panelists have largely been on a metaphorical honeymoon with the Harper government, repeatedly crediting it with high performance and excellent intentions. R&D is an exception. R&D policy is one area where the Harper government earns only nominally higher performance scoring than its predecessor. Panelists seem concerned that the government is not embarking on a clearly different direction from its predecessors.

Members of the CEO and business leader panel were asked a multitude of questions about desirable policy instruments, desirable targets, and desirable policies. Only tax credits and tax relief earn plaudits though even R&D-targeted tax relief elicited some reservations from panelists, many of whom believe that across-the-board tax cuts are the fairest way of treating business. Grants, loans, venture capital investments and other instruments apart from taxation were seen as poor policies at best (governments are perceived as “poor” at identifying winners and losers) and susceptible to political corruption at worst.

Some concern was expressed about the need to clean up after the R&D record of the previous government. According to the President of a science-based company, “TPC [Technology Partnerships Canada] has an abysmal record, and rumours of corruption and former employees getting jobs with companies who dealt with TPC need to be investigated by the police. So far the Auditor General has not done the thorough audit required.”

CEOs and business leaders on the panel are uncomfortable with grants or loans to businesses though they are supportive of research and development grants to universities.

As for targeting support, the only type of research that merits targeting in their view involves environmental and enabling technologies.