From VancouverSun.com

Feds to cut funding for science and technology sectors, but business expects boost

 BY FIONA BUCHANAN, POSTMEDIA NEWS JULY 30, 2013

Kennedy Stewart, the NDP science and technology critic, said that in addition to overall cuts to federal funding for science and technology, the extra dollars to business enterprise reflect a change in government priorities.

Government spending in science and technology is being trimmed across the board again this year, but a new Statistics Canada report concludes the government will likely give a small boost in funding to one lucky sector: business.

The report, entitled Federal Scientific Activities, estimates that funding will be reduced in all science and technology sectors, including higher education and non-profit institutions, with the exception of the business sector. StatsCan thinks it will get a slight increase, an extra $68 million, bringing spending to $1.1 billion in the 2013-14 fiscal year from $1.032 billion last year. The money goes to "business and government enterprises, including public utilities and government-owned firms" as well as incorporated science and engineering consultants.

Higher education - the most substantially funded sector in science and technology - is expected to lose nearly two per cent of its total federal funding, from $3.31 billion to $3.25 billion, the majority of it coming from research and development allocations. Non-profit organizations will be much harder hit, losing around 29 per cent of science and technology funding. Non-profit institutions can expect $268 million in funding, down from $404 million last year.

Greg Rickford, minister of state for science and technology, did not respond to requests for comment by Tuesday evening.

Kennedy Stewart, the NDP science and technology critic, said that in addition to overall cuts to science and technology, the extra dollars to business enterprise reflect a change in government priorities.

"We've moved from funding science for Canadians to a much more business subsidy approach to science and technology," he said, adding that if science researchers don't have an industrial partner, they won't be getting (as much) funding.

Ian Lee, an assistant professor at Carleton University's Sprott School of Business, said that providing the business sector with increased funding suggests that the Conservative government is driven by the belief that investment in business research can be linked to economic returns.

"The fact that it is going to business enterprises suggests to me that they are focused like a laser beam on the productive economy that makes things or services," he said.

Stewart disagreed, and said that when looking at the scientists who are most affected by cuts to science and technology, the Conservatives seem to be targeting groups with whose conclusions they disagree.

"It is the biological scientists that are being hit the hardest," he said. "And the biologists are the ones that are really ringing the alarm bells about climate change and also the impact of pollution in the oilsands."

The report estimates the total cuts to science and technology will be around 3.3 per cent from 2012-13 to the 2013-14 fiscal year. Overall, there will be fewer cuts to research and development than to a category called "related scientific activities" - things such as collecting data or providing information services, which support research and development.

Catherine ten Den, one of the researchers who authored the report, said that spending is gradually returning to levels prior to the 2009-10 fiscal year when the Knowledge Infrastructure Program - a $2-billion, three-year government stimulus package that allocated $836 million to science and technology after the 2008 recession - resulted in an influx of new spending.

"Money was used in those two years and now the money has run out and they are going basically back to their old levels," she said. Still, the report shows a three per cent decrease in science and technology funding from the 2006-07 fiscal year, when controlling for inflation.