Canada has ranked consistently as one of the top countries in the world to live, according to the United Nations Human Development Report.

Ontario has North America's 4th-largest regional concentration of biotechnology firms.

Toronto's Rogers Centre is the world's first all-purpose sports and entertainment stadium with a fully retractable roof.

Ontario is where instant foods, ginger ale and Pablum - instant baby cereal - were invented.

Ontario is home to one of the most favourable R&D tax environments in the world.

The Competitive Alternatives, G7-2006 Edition, is a comprehensive, international survey conducted by KPMG. It demonstrates that Canada’s business costs are the lowest among major industrialized countries namely: the U.S., U.K., France, Germany, Italy and Japan.

Canada’s R&D Costs versus Other Countries Country Percentage  Netherlands -12.8%  Canada -10.9%  France -9.7%  Italy -7.2%  United Kingdom -3.1%  United States 0% (baseline)  Japan +4.6%  Germany +9.1%

Source: KPMG, The Competitive Alternatives: G7-2006 Edition (www.competitivealternatives.com)

Canada's cost advantage in research and development is 10.9% over the United States.

Most Canadian industrial R&D is performed in Ontario. About half of Canada’s Top 100 corporate R&D spenders are located in Ontario.

In Ontario, we enhance Canada’s 10.9% R&D cost advantage by offering a wide range of additional tax incentives and R&D support programs, a network of internationally recognized researchers and research institutions and an excellent telecommunications and industrial infrastructure.

For example:

• Internationally competitive salaries. In knowledge-intensive activities, wages, salaries and other forms of compensation such as stock options are major cost items. In Ontario, payroll taxes are lower than those in any G7 country. Other programs can help lower compensation costs even further, such as the Ontario Research Employee Stock Option Credit.

• R&D infrastructure. Government-funded research councils, Centres of Excellence and funding programs help bring together researchers from private companies, universities and public research institutes. Ontario’s hard infrastructure—telecommunications and transportation—provides seamless international links.

• Highly educated and skilled researchers. Billions of dollars spent annually in R&D at private companies, universities and public research institutes support a large Ontario community of first-class scientists and engineers. The province of Ontario’s 20 universities and 24 colleges of applied arts and technology generate a steady supply of new graduates. In terms of the broad labour force, 57% of all Ontarians aged 25–64 or older have completed their post-secondary education. That’s a higher percentage than in any of the 30 countries surveyed by the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), including the U.S., U.K., France, Germany or Japan.

Canada’s R&D tax incentive program ranks among the most generous of the G7 countries. Any size business can submit a claim. The range of eligible costs in Ontario is broader than those in many countries and there is no cap on the program.

In general, the federal Scientific Research and Experimental Development (SR&ED) tax incentives consist of:

• A 100% deduction of all eligible SR&ED costs, including capital equipment

• A 20% investment tax credit on SR&ED expenditures

• The investment tax credit can offset 100% of the federal tax payable in the year, or can be carried back 3 years or forward 20 years¹.

For small, Canadian-controlled private corporations (CCPCs):¹

• The investment tax credit increases to 35% from 20%, up to the first $2 million of R&D each year

• The investment tax credit is wholly or partly refundable in cash, even if the company does not have enough tax payable to use the credit.

Ontario provides additional tax incentives when R&D activities are conducted directly by companies in Ontario or through eligible research institutes. Additional basic incentives available to companies in Ontario include:

• Federal investment tax credits earned for SR&ED carried on in Ontario are exempt from Ontario income tax

• A 20% refundable Ontario Business-Research Institute Tax Credit (OBRITC) for contract R&D performed at eligible research institutes in Ontario such as universities, colleges of applied arts and technology, and research hospitals.

In addition, for small and medium-sized companies² in Ontario:

• A 10% refundable Ontario Innovation Tax Credit (OITC) for R&D.

NOTES:

¹	Small CCPCs have:
	•	A minimum of 50% Canadian ownership;
	•	Taxable capital of less than $15 million; and
	•	Taxable income of less than $500,000.
²	Small and medium-sized companies have taxable income less than $500,000 and taxable capital less than $50 million.

The billons of dollars in R&D performed in Ontario every year help stimulate a powerful cross-fertilization of expertise and ideas between the private and public sectors. Here are some of the most active companies pushing the boundaries of innovation in Ontario:

Ontario’s universities and public research institutions have proven themselves to be a constant source of new ideas and materials with commercial applications.

Seventeen of Canada’s top 50 research universities are located in Ontario, seven of which attract more than $100 million in sponsored research funding annually.

In addition to more than 150 university and college research centres, Ontario hosts an array of publicly funded and not-for-profit research organizations.

With the ever-accelerating pace of laboratory research and product innovation in Ontario, the best way to discover what’s new with R&D in Ontario is to visit the websites of leading organizations and follow the links.

Here are a few:

Canadian Institutes for Health Research www.cihr.ca C-STAR (Canadian Surgical Technologies and Advanced Robotics) www.c-star.ca Cancer Care Ontario www.cancercare.on.ca Centre for Automotive Materials and Manufacturing http://camm.queensu.ca/ Institute for Quantum Computing www.iqc.ca MaRS Discovery District www.marsdd.com National Research Council of Canada Integrated Manufacturing Technologies Institute www.nrc.ca/imti Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada www.nserc.ca Networks of Centres of Excellence www.nce.gc.ca Ontario Agri-Food Technologies www.oaft.org Ontario Centres of Excellence Inc. www.oce-ontario.org Ontario Institute for Cancer Research www.oicr.on.ca Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation www.mri.gov.on.ca Ottawa Heart Institute www.ottawaheart.ca Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics www.perimeterinstitute.ca Research Institute at the Hospital for Sick Children www.sickkids.on.ca Robarts Research Institute www.robarts.ca Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute www.mshri.on.ca Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre www.sunnybrook.ca University of Western Ontario Research and Development Park www.uwo.ca/researchpark

Other excellent sources for R&D information and Web links are the Industry Canada Web portal (www.strategis.ic.gc.ca) and the Government of Canada’s Innovation Strategy Web site (www.innovation.gc.ca).