[SteelTown]

The future's in Hamilton
Innovation minister says research is transforming city

January 16, 2008
Wade Hemsworth
The Hamilton Spectator

Hamilton's research and technology are transforming the city and have already become international marketing tools for the province, says Ontario's minister responsible for innovation.

John Wilkinson spent Monday and yesterday in Hamilton as part of a provincial innovation tour to acquaint himself with his new portfolio.

Between visits to McMaster University and Mohawk College yesterday, Wilkinson said the city's post-secondary institutions are driving Hamilton's economic recovery and its future.

"What you see here is McMaster and Mohawk seeing their appropriate role of being the generators of wealth in the new Hamilton and regional economy," he said. "They're not ivory towers anymore. They're embedded in our community and they understand their role and my job is to encourage that."

Seated in front of poster-sized renderings of McMaster's plans for its Innovation Park, Wilkinson emphasized that in many ways, the future is already here.

While construction proceeds on the $90-million David Braley Cardiac, Vascular and Stroke Research Institute behind Hamilton General Hospital, the minister said, Dr. Salim Yusuf is bringing accolades to Hamilton through his groundbreaking research with the Population Health Research Institute that will find its new home in the tower.

Across town, he said, McMaster scientists and engineers are pushing other frontiers.

During his university tour, Wilkinson was particularly impressed by medical and scientific research at the nuclear reactor, advanced research in auto manufacturing, and the university's new ultra-high resolution electron microscope. "It's the finest one in the world and it will be years before anybody can catch up with Mac," he said.

Wilkinson said research and innovation can do for Hamilton what Shakespeare did for Wilkinson's hometown of Stratford, Ont. That community reinvented itself, and its theatres now bring some 600,000 visitors every year, he said.

"My message to the people in this region is that you have some tremendous things going on here, and that is going to transform your economy."

Part of Wilkinson's job is to attract talent and investment to Ontario, and he said he uses examples such as McMaster's medical school to sell the province abroad. "One of the finest medical schools in the country and in North America is right here at McMaster," he said.

"It really doesn't matter whether the minister of research and innovation says that. What counts is whether or not it's true ... It is a fact and therefore it's important that I communicate it."