Companies intended to spend $14.57 billion on research and development activities in 2019, down from a five-year high of $15.65 billion in 2014, and largely unchanged from the 2009 total of $14.62 billion, The Logic’s analysis of Statistics Canada data shows. The agency projects Canada’s overall expenditures will reach $35.5 billion in 2019, a 2.3 per cent year-over-year increase. (The Logic)

Talking point: Corporate Canada still funds most of its own R&D, at 73.3 per cent of the $18.25 billion in activity that businesses expected to perform last year, but that’s down from 84.7 per cent in 2009. Foreign funding for Canadian invention accounts for a significant chunk of the change, rising from $2 billion a decade ago to $3.7 billion in 2019. While StatCan doesn’t break its numbers out by sector or specific R&D types, Canadian executives and policy experts have long expressed concerns that foreign giants—particularly tech firms—use the country as a branch plant to generate IP that they monetize elsewhere.