Public Accounts committee  Maybe I should clarify. In working in partnership with the U.S. Treasury, the restructuring was set up to ensure the viability of the global company. Through that, to ensure the viability and competitiveness of the Canadian subsidiary, which are obviously the operations in Canada.

Public Accounts committee  I am going to try to answer that question. One thing the Auditor General did highlight was the fact that it would be useful to do a lessons learned exercise. While we didn't do a formal one, following the crisis we got together among partners—with Ontario and all of the federal departments—to understand what we learned from that crisis: what worked well and what didn't work well.

Public Accounts committee  There's no doubt that one of the risks and one of the reasons why it was important for Canada and Ontario to be at the table was to ensure that for any restructuring of the companies that occurred Canadian interests would be protected. That would mean the Canadian operations of both GM and Chrysler would remain in Canada.

Public Accounts committee  I don't think I have an accurate assessment, but everything I've heard is much longer than was the case for both GM and Chrysler.

Public Accounts committee  With that, thank you, Mr. Chair and committee members, for allowing me to provide you with a brief overview of Industry Canada's response to the Auditor General's 2014 fall report on the restructuring assistance provided to General Motors and Chrysler during the economic crisis of 2009 as well as the automotive innovation fund.

Public Accounts committee  I don't know Miguel's title.

Public Accounts committee  That's perfect. I'm joined here by Charles Vincent, who's a senior director with the auto group in the industry sector at Industry Canada; Richard Botham, who is an assistant deputy minister at the Department of Finance; and Miguel Simard, who is the assistant general counsel of finance for Export Development Canada.

Industry committee  Yes. I'll just mention that in terms of the advanced manufacturing fund, we have a formal arrangement with that agency. For certain elements of the proposals they essentially draw on our expertise to be able to add those insights in terms of their review of the projects. However, there are other programs that other agencies also run where from time to time they actually do consult with Industry Canada and work with us in terms of trying to add in that perspective.

Industry committee  To start at a high level, investments in innovation is a key part to how you can address the productivity challenges. What the government has been doing, and partly through advice that we're providing, is trying to figure out how we can get better outcomes from the money that we support in terms of investments that are made by the private sector.