The 1999 Budget: Building a Strong Economy Through Knowledge and Innovation

Investing in knowledge and innovation is essential to our overriding goal of keeping the Canadian economy strong, creating well-paying jobs and increasing our standard of living.

Over the past five years our government has made important strategic investments in support of knowledge and innovation, including:

• Technology Partnerships Canada and the Industrial Research Assistance Program, which, each year invest about $380 million helping companies exploit new research and development opportunities; and,
• The Canada Foundation for Innovation, whose initial $800 million endowment is being used to modernize our national research infrastructure in our universities and teaching hospitals.

The Canadian Opportunities Strategy

The 1998 Budget took our efforts to a new level with the Canadian Opportunities Strategy. A comprehensive plan to expand access to the knowledge, learning and skills Canadians need to get a shot at better jobs and a higher standard of living -- in which the federal government will be investing over $1.2 billion next year.

A centrepiece of the Strategy, the Canada Millennium Scholarships -- our largest and proudest millennium project -- next year will begin providing as many as 100,000 post-secondary students from low and middle-income families each year with scholarships that will average $3,000.

Building on the Canadian Opportunities Strategy

The 1999 Budget builds on the Canadian Opportunities Strategy by investing more than $1.8 billion over the remainder of this fiscal year and the next three years in the creation, dissemination and commercialization of knowledge, and in support of employment. This includes:

Creating Knowledge

• An additional $200 million for the Canada Foundation for Innovation.
• An additional $55 million over three years for biotechnology research and development.
• Increased funding over three years of $75 million for the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council and $15 million for the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.
• $16 million made available in 1998-99 to the National Research Council to invest in leading-edge equipment and an additional $15 million over three years.

Disseminating Knowledge: The Information Highway

• $60 million over three years to establish one Smart Community Demonstration Project in each province, the North and in an Aboriginal community; and,
• $60 million over five years to fund "GeoConnections," an initiative that will put a wealth of information that can be organized geographically on-line.

Commercializing Knowledge

• An additional $90 million over three years to the Network of Centres of Excellence program to build new research partnerships;
• $150 million over three years for Technology Partnerships Canada; and,
• $430 million over three years for the Canadian Space Agency, with a stabilized budget thereafter of $300 million per year.

Supporting Employment

• An additional $465 million over three years to renew the Youth Employment Strategy;
• $110 million per year for the Canada Jobs Fund to create sustainable jobs in high unemployment regions.

The 1999 Budget