Industry committee  That is basically the bulk of what the NRC does. It is the major raison d'être over and above the IRAP program. The NRC fundamentally does two things: it runs these institutes seeking to enhance the connection between the private sector and themselves, and runs the IRAP program.

Industry committee  It varies. The aerospace one, for example, gets a lot of contracts from a variety of aerospace companies that want to test things out using its laboratories. With other institutes, such as the one dealing with metrology—which is how to count—there's not a lot of private sector i

Industry committee  Yes, that's a good assumption.

Industry committee  There are five other individuals. As for what the government sought to do, it wasn't necessarily about the individuals; it was to seek a diversity of representations. That would mean somebody from the university milieu, somebody from the polytechnics and colleges, somebody from f

Industry committee  Okay.

Industry committee  First of all, the cabinet has made no decision on budget cuts. So whatever we say is speculation. The IRAP program under the National Research Council of Canada is working very well. The program has proved to be very useful in the past. I am sure that the ministers will look a

Industry committee  As I said, no decision has been made. The ministers have not decided what the cuts will be in our department or in any other department for that matter. That is still to come. That being said, I feel that the government is aware of how important the knowledge economy is. I am ba

Industry committee  You raise a good point in regard to information, given technologies such as the web, and what one can do to provide Canadians with the information they need. The flip side is that there's so much out there that it would require a lot of time and effort just to try to keep up to d

Industry committee  Well, I think Canada is a laggard in regard to not having updated its copyright laws. There have been a number of attempts to introduce and pass copyright legislation. It is one of those fundamental framework policies that every modern country needs to have. Technology has evolve

Industry committee  The Government of Canada and taxpayers spend about $7 billion a year to support R and D. About half of that comes through a tax expenditure that is out of the Department of Finance--the SR and ED tax credit--while the other $3 billion is in a series of programs, including the str

Industry committee  I'll pass that on.

Industry committee  It could be career-limiting if I went too far.

Industry committee  The consumer affairs branch works in cooperation with a number of other departments within Industry Canada. For example, when we did our advanced wireless services auction, the goal was to help consumers. By allocating AWS spectrum to new market entrants, the goal was to help low

Industry committee  Again, the Office of Consumer Affairs--and perhaps my colleague Simon can add to this--does not have an overall government-wide coordinating mandate or responsibility. It is indeed, as you pointed out, also within the mandate and the purview of a number of other ministers. We foc

Industry committee  Yes.