Absolutely. We do not have any problem with Bill C-2. Genome Canada has no problem with the government asking it for information.
I would like to return to the issue of confidentiality. I believe this is not being approached in the proper way. For Genome Canada, the concept of confidentiality is to protect the researcher who makes an application, rather than the reviewer, since the latter is anonymous.
We have no difficulty in disclosing the report of the reviewer, on request obviously, because we do not want to see negative reports splashed on the front page of newspapers. However, as far as confidentiality is concerned, our reviewers sign a confidentiality agreement, not to protect themselves but to protect the research scientist, because there is a lot of patentable material in the projects which are submitted to us. There are very large social and economic impacts.
So confidentiality aims at protecting the applicants for funding. Not one application would be submitted to Genome Canada--I repeat, none-- if it were to be made public, for reasons of competition not only in Canada but in the world. Therefore, confidentiality aims at protecting the scientist, not the reviewer, because the latter is already guaranteed that his name will not be disclosed. However, we have no difficulty releasing the report itself.