Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thanks to all our witnesses.
I'll start with Ms. Bittman. You talked in your brief about government R and D activities, and in the last few weeks we've certainly received a strong indication of a failure of investment in R and D. What we've seen is that, among industrialized countries, Canada has the lowest direct investment in R and D; the lowest success rate in terms of producing Ph.D. students, which is in part coupled with the lack of access to post-secondary education; and also one of the worst rates for patent development among industrialized countries.
The government's response has been to throw more money at this via tax credits, but we've seen falling levels of business investment in R and D. So that hasn't worked either.
Because I have other questions, I was wondering if you could comment briefly on the failure to promote a robust R and D sector on the part of the Canadian federal government.