Nortel, one of the world's largest makers of telecommunications equipment, employs 23,000 in Canada as part of a global workforce of 75,000, and routinely scoops up some of the best and brightest science graduates from Canadian universities. Still, [John Roth] says, about 300 of Nortel's 12,000 Canadian researchers pack their bags for the United States every year.

Roth told reporters he has brought the desperate situation of the so-called "brain drain" to the attention of Industry Minister John Manley.

Roth might have had to get in line. Manley, whose sprawling department routinely finds ways to protect Canada's auto and aerospace sectors from subsidized foreign competition, has suddenly found his outer office crowded with all sorts of folk who want their industries protected - from taxes.