Canada will hold a general election on 19 Oct and with the economy confirmed on 1 Sept to have been in recession in the first half of 2015 due to the collapse in oil prices, the three main political parties have policies to improve on the dismal innovation performance. However, Jim Balsillie, co-founder of Research In Motion (RIM), now BlackBerry Ltd., says the maker of the world's first smartphone, was an anomaly in Canada and the country "isn’t equipped for global competition." Last July Damien English, minister of state for research, promised that Ireland would have a new "ambitious and visionary" strategy for investment in science by October — a visionary strategy may not be a credible one and policymakers need to understand the difference between invention and innovation.
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