Thank you very much, Madam Chairperson, and thank you to all of the presenters who are here today. I'm sorry if I won't get to all of you with questions; there are quite a few people here today, so it's going to be difficult.
As the chair said at the beginning of the meeting, it's been a very interesting study and discussion that we've been having about health innovation, trying to really follow the path of what's going on. I think you've helped illuminate some of that today, as to what resources are there and what's lacking in how we get to commercialization.
I'd like to begin with Dr. Paige from ACAHO. In your brief, you say we need a national framework that allows for systematic identification of innovations, etc. I think you're saying that we don't have that, that it's probably quite sort of patchwork. If I understand it, even if we had that, even if we had a system for clearly identifying what is being done, we still don't have the “how” of what kind of adequate infrastructure support is needed.
It's curious to me that a number of you have mentioned the Canadian Foundation for Innovation, NSERC. We've heard from the Business Development Bank. I guess I'm really grappling with what the gap is.
Dr. Paige, you mentioned two models, I guess, that you've looked at in the U.S. A couple of people mentioned those as well—the small business technology transfer program. I'm just curious to know what is it we're not doing or what do we need to do—particularly at the federal end—to fill those gaps?
If you don't even have a way of identifying what innovation is being done, then we're in pretty rough shape, it seems to me. Otherwise it must be almost anecdotal.
Do people get together? Is there a way that this sector interacts, whether you're on the venture capital side or on the academic research side? What kind of interaction is there so that even those of you who are involved—never mind us as public policy makers—actually know what the picture is? What I am left with is that it's very fragmented. Am I right in that, and if so, what do we need to do?