A good example of the former would be the invention of the BlackBerry, by the Waterloo, Ontario-based company, Research in Motion, while an example of the latter would be the development of a new class of aircraft, the regional jet by Bombardier Aerospace of Montreal, Quebec.
In almost all cases the corporate bottom line is a paramount consideration and the payoff for such activity is not usually immediately evident.
However it is true that there are times when the difference between the two is not at all clear, as was the case for example, with atomic research at Chalk River, Ontario, during World War II and in the post war years, which led to the development of the CANDU power reactor.
[clarification needed] In 2006, total spending on scientific and industrial research in Canada amounted to C$28.067 billion or about 2 percent of GDP.
In 2007, Canadian corporations spent C$15.773 billion on research and development, again representing about half of all R&D expenditures in Canada and an amount equal to about one percent of the GDP.