NECESSITY (not grant money, or passion, or culture or anything else) is the mother of innovation.

I am writing this mostly for myself. I don't expect anyone else to read it let alone voice an opinion about its contents. I have finally had enough. I am a proud Canadian of some fifty years or so. I've often wondered about the apparent gap in out ability to take great research and convert it into good market-ready innovations that move the needle of our economy. I run a company that is dedicated to making a difference in this area. I've read all the books that the pundits have written about how risk averse we are (read "blah, blah, blah") and how we need to change the culture or the mindset of the people etc. etc. etc. Here's a thought for you: If we continue to import the best people from all over the world how come THEY can't start the change for us? Bottom line: I don't think we are addressing the right issue in bemoaning our culture etc.

The simple fact is that we are living in one of the richest parts of the world no matter HOW you care to measure it. We have all the basics - food, water, shelter, clothing - by and large in GREAT abundance in this great land of ours. And we have so much more! Don't get me wrong, I don't mean we are all well off. Sure there are places that do better than others and groups that do better than others in Canada but ON AVERAGE we are a lucky lot to be just living here in Canada as compared almost to anywhere else on earth! There's an old saying that necessity is the mother of invention. I was at another of these rather common sounding talks this morning where the speaker spoke enthusiastically about how we need to do things which we have a passion for and how we need to take more risks and not be afraid to fail. I'm sure if you are ALIVE and in this country you have not escaped such talks completely. He gave example after example of great innovators and great inventions. He spoke of the "hub" of such innovation - Israel. He gave examples of his life where he has had to be inventive and he gave examples of the banking industry where the littlest bank - Tangerine - simply HAD to be nimble and inventive because they were - as it were - dancing among the feet of the BIG giants of the banking industry and would be crushed if they only stood still long enough. All of the many inspiring examples he gave had one thing in common. They had a SURVIVAL need to innovate. There was a wolf at the door, their very existence hung on their success at being innovative. And it begged the question for me: Until we have dug out the last resource from our beloved country or exhausted the last easy extraction of wealth from this land, HOW will we have this need to innovate which drives every example of success that you can think of?

So in a sense there is some relief in what I am saying for me. It says that our failures as a nation to succeed at innovation are not the function of an inbred cultural gene that blocks innovation that needs to be removed through cultural reshaping or anything else. We are humans like all the rest of our species Until we have a NEED we will not be inventive enough as a nation. Here is one case where I hope that I am wrong but even if I am right I am confident that when the challenge arises we will rise to it simply because we are... yes HUMAN.

Now I must come to the nub of what bothers me: our government has a long tradition of interfering in the harsh free market directly rather than attempting to "level the playing field" through legislation. Their most recent fashion is to support entrepreneurship - a noble concept on the surface if well executed. Their solution is to shower your tax dollars and mine on anyone who says they are helping young entrepreneurs in some way. The number of incubators and start-up competitions cropping up all over the country is simply staggering. The government can say they are doing their part by supplying the money. But I have a problem with that. There is no strategic leadership to go along with that supply of money. I understand that this is politically unwise for a government to appear to be "picking winners" as we say in Canada. So they blame the implementation on others. But I contend that they are doing the whole area of entrepreneurship a dis-service by supplying easy money and other support to start-up companies. They have removed the SURVIVAL need from most of these so-called "grantpreneurs" which would otherwise drive them to succeed. They have converted their desire to succeed to a desire to be supported. Let's face it, there is a difference in the effort that will be put into survival by someone who has mortgaged their house, maxed out their credit cards and borrowed from all of their relatives and that which will be invested by someone whose company started through a grant from the government.  In the family context we call that a failure to launch. We have lowered the selection criteria for launching something that looks like a start-up but has absolutely no chance of success from the brutal market forces to a kinder-gentler one that is more painful to all of us in the long run because, if NOTHING else, it dilutes those who are REAL entrepreneurs and puts them at a disadvantage in the short term. I am not against helping those with promise. I think we have gone too far and made this into a political game that will not serve anyone well and will simply delay the inevitable.