Thank you, Mr. Chair and honourable members.
My name is Jim Roche. I'm the president and CEO of CANARIE Inc. Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you about CANARIE and its importance to Canada.
CANARIE is a key element of Canada's publicly funded infrastructure in support of research, education, discovery, and innovation. It is funded by the Government of Canada through five-year mandates. The current mandate ends in March 2012, and I'm here today to request your support for a new five-year mandate and continued funding for CANARIE in the coming budget.
Increasingly, as you know, we all rely on the Internet for our daily activities, both at work and at home. Canadian researchers and scientists are no exception. What sets them apart from us, though, is that to do their work they require bandwidth thousands of times greater than what the commercial Internet can accommodate. That is why CANARIE was created in 1993, and why the federal government has continued to fund its services and programs.
With the Government of Canada's support over the past 18 years, CANARIE has built a 19,000-kilometre-long fibre optic network separate from the commercial Internet. This national backbone links to provincial and territorial research networks and stretches from coast to coast to coast. Provinces share in the cost of this infrastructure. Every federal dollar invested in the CANARIE network leverages $1.50 in matching investments from the provinces.
CANARIE connects together Canadians at all of our universities, over 100 federal and provincial labs and departments, and thousands of community colleges and K-to-12 schools. More than one million Canadians have access to this national ultra-high-speed network. It enables them to collaborate across Canada and with colleagues in 100 countries worldwide, including the United States, China, India, and Brazil.
Researchers and educators are increasingly relying on this digital infrastructure in their work. Every year we see traffic on the network increase by around 50%. This is one of the key reasons in support of continued funding for CANARIE. Over the next five years we expect demand for the network to increase eight-fold. To meet this demand, we must continue to build out the network. This is a role for the public sector.
All OECD countries and the vast majority of developed and developing nations have publicly funded research and education networks. In Canada, CANARIE works closely with private sector partners to build and manage the network. Without government support, though, the private sector would not be able to meet the unique needs of our research and education community.
The world-class infrastructure that CANARIE provides underpins the more than $3.3 billion that the Government of Canada invests annually in research through the granting councils and CFI, the Canada Foundation for Innovation. At a cost of roughly $25 million per year, CANARIE's infrastructure is essential to much of this research and increases the effectiveness of those investments. CANARIE contributes to the implementation of the Government of Canada's science and technology strategy, and is reflected in the digital economy strategy.
CANARIE helps to attract some of the world's best researchers to Canada by offering key infrastructure required to successfully undertake their work. As a result of its connections to the private sector, CANARIE also facilitates the transfer of knowledge from researchers to the marketplace. A recent study has shown that for every dollar invested in Canada there is growth of $2.85 in Canadian GDP.
Investments in CANARIE have benefited many disciplines in all parts of the country. There are hundreds of examples I could give you, but here are a few. We recently funded a connection from the University of Regina to four outlying Saskatchewan Institute of Applied Science and Technology campuses, including one in Prince Albert, to deliver nursing courses. Environment Canada's meteorology lab in Edmonton uses the CANARIE network to support the analysis and prediction of weather. At McGill University researchers are using the CANARIE network to support an international multi-site collaborative study of the human brain to find cures for diseases like Alzheimer's.
In short, by supporting research and education CANARIE is helping to deliver on the government's priorities, including innovation and productivity, to create more wealth and improve the health and wellness of Canadians. There's a very exciting future ahead for Canadian researchers and innovators. With continued support from the Government of Canada, CANARIE will continue to increase the effectiveness of federal research by meeting the expanding needs of the research community.
CANARIE is a major internationally recognized Canadian success story. The need for CANARIE remains compelling, and it is growing. As I mentioned earlier, there's a legitimate role for the federal government to invest in CANARIE, notwithstanding the difficult fiscal situation. CANARIE represents a key strategic investment in the future of Canada.
On behalf of its users and the beneficiaries of its services and programs, CANARIE seeks your support for another five-year renewal of its mandate and funding.
I'd be pleased to answer any questions from members and provide what additional information you may need to assist you in your consideration of this request.
Thank you for your time.