It's good to be back.
Thanks to our witnesses.
Some of the stories we're hearing remind me that my mother grew up in a one-company town not far from here. It was a pulp and paper town. The company supplied the housing. The company supplied pretty much everything. That was fine at the time, but there was consideration for how things could develop. Over time there were institutions built up, there was governance, there was taxation, and lo and behold, if you go to that same town now, you'll find that there is a mix in the economy and in governance, and that it is no longer beholden to just a company.
I say this without prejudice. It's an observation about how things evolve.
It seems to me that we're talking about development in these terms. We are now, in my opinion, regressing to looking at companies providing things that normally would be provided by government. I'm hearing Mr. Watson say it's good to have capacity being built up. It's about how you get there.
I say it's regressive, because when I was in Congo—we talked about Congo—I was talking to government officials and to ministers there and talking about the flight of capital out and the lack of investment in. I was saying you should be doing this and looking at that. They said, why don't you get your act together and talk to other countries, because the flight of capital out of here is enormous, and it's not because we don't want it here; it's because there's a lack of understanding of the capacity we need.
I'm going to put my question to you, Professor Campbell. You see that our government has decided to go down the path of partnering through CIDA with some of the biggest mining corporations in the world. I think you both agree that Canada has the biggest mining footprint on the entire planet. Now we've decided to go down this route whereby we're going to partner with mining companies to help develop capacity.
I want your comment. If you've looked at this, what are the long-term implications of going down this path—I think it was a $26 million announcement this past fall—and working with mining companies to develop capacity?