Canada faces numerous complex challenges: accelerating the transition to net-zero, adapting to a more hostile and unpredictable climate, addressing the health impacts of an aging society, and bridging the digital divide in rural and remote communities to name just some.  

What these all hold in common is the need for both new research learning to technological innovations as well as regulatory, governmental, and social innovations.  

Increasingly, countries around the world are adopting mission-oriented approaches to innovation. The good news is that Canada is now on course to join them.  

But if Canadians are to benefit from a more intentional and challenge-driven approach to innovation, the focus needs to go beyond investment in research and lab-to-market strategy. Mission approaches to governance are, at the foundation, whole-government strategies.  

Avoiding research silos 

In the 2024 federal budget, the government announced a new capstone research funding organization that would unite three existing research granting councils under a single umbrella. This followed a key recommendation made in the 2023 Bouchard report.  

The organization’s proposed mandate includes “mission-driven research,” leveraging the research ecosystem’s capacity to respond to societal missions and strengthen linkages between research and downstream innovation.  

An overarching agency like this can be crucial in tackling economic and societal challenges. Such a structure helps drive a research ecosystem that can effectively bolster investment in economic and societal prosperity.  

Encouraging innovation and competition through smart regulation 

Breaking Canada’s innovation inertia 

Forging a new industrial policy in Canada 

But a mission approach is not just a matter of science and innovation policy. Success relies on central co-ordination across the different policy levers of government. 

Canada has gone down a “supply-side” path before. ​​​​​Past efforts​ have focused on supporting science and R&D that produces strong research outputs but that fail to generate wealth for Canadians. Often this has been the result because they are commercialized by foreign firms.  

Instead, the federal government should collaborate with provinces, territories, Indigenous communities and municipalities to align efforts and create the environments needed to commercialize and deploy innovations. 

Examples to follow 

Other G7 countries are moving forward with a mission-driven approach, most recently in the U.K. After getting elected in July on the back of a platform built around five overarching missions, the new Labour government has taken some early steps to try to shift government machinery in new directions.  

These have included convening new mission boards led by senior ministers to advance goals that “are designed to be both stretching and sorting.” Stretching because aiming for the highest sustained growth in the G7 is incredibly ambitious. Sorting because missions ultimately drive every decision that gets made.  

The mission boards will convene not just members of cabinet but also more actively involve outside experts and senior officials. All will be supported by a senior public servant as “mission controller” to inform central decision-making. 

There are plenty of reasons to question whether these mission boards can overcome pre-existing issues in the U.K. system, such as strong departmental accountabilities and budget controls that set and reinforce silos.  

Nevertheless, it indicates a real attempt to shift the institutional architecture of government with the aim of addressing clearly defined cross-cutting missions.  

Building a made-in-Canada solution 

Centralization of power in the Prime Minister’s Office and the Privy Council Office in Ottawa could be helpful in facilitating the creation of broad missions and ensuring departmental buy-in with clear accountabilities. The chief challenge would be then loosening the reins to allow bottom-up experimentation and generation of ideas and initiatives – essential preconditions for successful missions – without having to go through PMO bottlenecks.  

Given many key policy levers sit outside of the federal government, success also depends on federal-provincial-territorial-municipal co-operation and co-ordination, along with the active participation and support of Indigenous communities.   

There are made-in-Canada examples that could serve as foundations. The regional energy and resource tables are partnerships between the federal and provincial or territorial governments, along with Indigenous partners, that “identify and accelerate shared economic priorities for a low-carbon future in the energy and resource sectors.”  

The British Columbia table has made the most progress so far. Its ​​​​Collaboration Framework identified 43 actions across six strategic areas of opportunity: critical minerals, electrification, clean fuels/hydrogen, forest sector, carbon-management technology and systems, and regulatory efficiency. Together, federal, provincial and First Nations partners have made “notable progress” on 18 actions over the first year.  

This kind of table could be a key part of a net-zero mission shared between the different levels of government. Successful missions also rest on the ability to build capacity and engagement with stakeholders across the ecosystem.  

Case study in affordable housing solutions 

With over 60 successful projects across Canada since 2018, the Canadian Housing and Mortgage Corporation’s efforts to implement its national housing strategy solutions labs provides a powerful example of what this involves and the momentous change that missions can drive.  

Challenges around affordable housing are especially complex. They require interventions that pertain to financing, acquisition of land or existing affordable housing, development, construction, operation, and replication. They also pertain to affordability, social inclusion and environmental sustainability, which varies from context to context.  

To tackle these issues at a systems level, innovation needs to leverage emerging technologies as part of any approach. This in turn must also draw on the expertise of practitioners, the leadership of policy and decision-makers as well as on enabling technologies. Ultimately, innovative solutions require transformations that can only be achieved by creating alignment across the ecosystem. 

On affordable housing, this calls for stakeholders to agree to:  

• examining and reframing current housing issues 

• using innovative problem-solving best practices and tools 

• co-developing potential solutions to be prototyped and tested 

• creating a roadmap that clearly describes how solutions can be implemented 

• working in concert to move beyond planning and implement the solutions 

The example of the CMHC housing solutions labs makes one thing clear: there is no getting around the need for co-operation if those involved are going to do more than pay lip service to mission-driven governance.  

Canada can certainly benefit from taking a more intentional approach to innovation. Missions co-ordinated centrally in ways that bring together stakeholders, draw on expertise, and assign clear accountability across the federal government can open new opportunities.  

By ensuring fulsome and structured collaboration with provincial and territorial tables nested under missions, and incorporating Indigenous governments and partners, effective solutions to pressing challenges can be developed for the benefit of all Canadians.