Gentlemen, first of all, I want to thank you for taking the time to come to us today to share your thoughts on issues the committee is dealing with in biotechnology. Of course, our impulse is to assume that transgenics is the issue, but it obviously isn't; it is only part of a much broader biotech industry.
John, you really brought that home in discussing biofuels, the environment, plastics, and any number of other things. The committee has had an opportunity to see evidence of all of that this week, having been in Alberta and Saskatchewan.
We talked about transgenics earlier this morning, and at this juncture we're talking about commercialization. I agree, and it's something I think we're all noticing, that we have great innovation. We're exporting all our great innovation like we're exporting our natural resources.
There's a lot of infrastructure out there right now to help with commercialization, such as, AFMNet. There is MARS in Toronto. We're trying to develop a mini-MARS here in Guelph. There's one in Ottawa.
I'm wondering if you think the government should direct greater energy and resources, not just financial resources but create a department of commercialization to help people adapt, identify where the infrastructure is, support it where it exists, and maybe replicate it where it doesn't exist. Only through that effort do I think the minds, the money, and the people with the entrepreneurial skills will actually come together and keep all of our wonderful innovation from being exported.
Steven, you mentioned a report, which you said you wouldn't refer to at length, about how poor our funding is in basic research compared to other countries. You seemed to have some statistics to back that up. Could you provide that to the clerk at another point in time?