Research and development is very important for our industry. Technology is extremely important for any type of development in terms of being able to access less conventional sources of supply, such as oil sands, shale gas, coalbed methane, and other types of tight gas. We're continually spending money on developing new ways of being able to access those resources at cheaper costs. We see reducing costs to develop those resources as being key to the long-term health of the industry, and that only comes through technology improvement.
The industry does spend a lot on research and development. We try to take advantage of the federal tax credit that supports scientific research and experimental development, and various provinces have their own provincial tax credits for the same type of activity.
We have run into a number of difficulties in accessing that tax credit, because the process for applying for it and for getting approval from the Canada Revenue Agency tends to be fairly cumbersome. A number of our members have had difficulties in the past. They have spent quite a long time trying to come up with the application materials that the process requires and then submitting them to CRA. In some cases they have not heard back for 18 to 24 months, and then they have had their claims rejected outright and without explanation.
To a certain extent, the numbers that might be reported in terms of the industry's use of that tax credit underrepresent the actual amount of research and development activity within the industry. The industry's technological research and development tends to be more on development lines, so sometimes it's not as clear-cut as taking a look at R and D that might happen in a university laboratory, for example.
That's what a lot of people think about when they think of research and development: academic research and development. In application processes in the field, a lot of tests and a lot of pilot projects are developed, and you don't know if they're going to make any difference in terms of your ability to extract deeper resources in a cheaper fashion or not.