I suspect that there are structural barriers to effective R&D in Canada.

One is the difficulty to focus enough ideas in one place in such a big country, and with so much our our economy tied to resource extraction.

The governments' unhelpfully allow companies a lot of latitude in terms of nondisclosure and noncompete agreements tying employees' abilities to bounce ideas around.  Really effective clusters like Silicon Valley grew in regions that restricted such limits.

Finally, we Canadians may be too darned polite to challenge each other's ideas.