Government Operations committee  Thank you, Deputy. Just to give a little summary, as of last March we had 61 contracts that had been signed with different innovators across Canada, mostly for goods and for some services, up to a value of almost $500,000. They ranged from as little as $30,000 up to almost $500,

Government Operations committee  Since 2005....

Government Operations committee  In terms of small business, of all non-military sales, so all other procurement, 70% to 75% of procurement goes to SMEs, small and medium-sized enterprises. So there's good uptake there. In the military area it tends to be a bit smaller. It's in the neighbourhood of 40% of small

Government Operations committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good afternoon. I'm very pleased to reappear before you today to discuss the Build in Canada innovation program, which was known as the Canadian innovation commercialization program the last time I appeared. I am Pablo Sobrino, the associate assistant dep

Government Operations committee  From the total program, 50% will go to the military and the other 50% across the standard components.

Government Operations committee  Yes. That program will be fully funded in 2016-17.

Government Operations committee  I really can't comment on that contribution to the military industrial complex. What I can speak to is the rationale behind having a military component. When the Tom Jenkins' report on innovation came out, and given our experience with the CICP...there have been a number of com

Government Operations committee  One of them was a paint coating that was more environmentally friendly. A company out of Montreal had an innovation or had the view that they could use that paint coating for fighter aircraft. That was one example; we could pull out some other examples. However, the idea is tha

Government Operations committee  The value of the program is not diminished in any of those areas; it's the same program we had before. The government has added to the approach, up to an additional $20 million a year, which will be used to focus on military innovations.

Government Operations committee  This is a program that works at the pre-commercialization phase. This is not a program to help a company access those kinds of funds. It is to take a company, when you divide the development of the technology or development of innovation, to kind of the final stages of that devel

Government Operations committee  This is one of the issues that has been raised about the program. We're there to make that one sale, to assist a company that has an innovative idea; whether we actually end up wanting to buy it is a decision the government will have to make. The interesting piece is that once y

Government Operations committee  The request for the $20-million amount was set out in the budget.

Government Operations committee  It is an additional amount that comes from the finance minister's budget. The $20-million amount is an addition. This request does not come from the research team of the Department of National Defence. This amount is set aside to allow private sector innovators to present their

Government Operations committee  It was not being done in this way. This program's objective is to encourage the private sector to propose innovations to the government. I explain this program in public hearings by saying that the innovator presents their idea to me for evaluation. Then I determine whether the

Government Operations committee  Exactly. In this case, the competition consists in inviting innovators to submit new ideas to us.