The federal Innovation Strategy and the agencies it has chartered support a flawed
binary mindset that sees skilled work differently than innovative work, and as such the
Canadian postsecondary system continues to reinforce a stratified labour pool with hierarchical
certifications (diploma, certificate, baccalaureate, and graduate degrees). As such,
roadblocks to postsecondary access and credit transfer are not just endemic of many
provinces in Canada; rather, they are inherent in the higher education system and supported
by federal research policy. Thus, efforts to increase postsecondary participation and
attainment in Canada must be undertaken with an understanding of the various policy
mechanisms that pit knowledge workers against each other in their quest for attaining the
human capital assumed necessary to participate in Canada’s complex knowledge economy.
Given that the Canadian economy is as heavily driven by the skill-centric natural resource
industries (petroleum and gas, forestry, fishing, and mining) as it is by the innovative hightech
sector, to not foster research connections across the educational sectors would be a
gross oversight from an economic development perspective. While both ‘‘skill-building’’
and ‘‘innovation’’ are central to Canada’s economic strategies, the federal research policy
structure assumes that these are separate and incompatible aspects of the knowledge
process. Inter-ministerial research policies and cross-agency program development, while
not an answer to instrumentalism in higher education governance, might begin to bridge
the gaps between Canada’s isolated research and development communities