Canada doesn’t have an innovation shortage—it has a commercialization failure

This country does not need another conference discussing innovation. It needs a measurable commercialization process that turns public investment into Canadian economic outcomes.

Industry Minister Mélanie Joly is in charge of the research file. Canada has its own incentives for research and commercialization of ideas, but what it lacks is an equally integrated system connecting commercialization-focused funding, procurement, and taxation, writes Dan Wasserman. The Hill Times photograph by Andrew Meade

Opinion

BY DAN WASSERMAN

August 17, 2026

Commercialization in the United States goes back more than 250 years and is embedded in the country’s founding philosophy. The U.S. Constitution explicitly empowers Congress to protect inventors and authors in order to promote scientific and technological progress.

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