I'm trying to bring this back into the challenges facing the Canadian manufacturing sector. I think some of my other colleagues asked a question, but I'm going to be a little bit more direct. If I'm a company, why should I invest in R and D? What's my dollar return?
I know, Mr. Stewart, you were quite eloquent in your presentation. I think you said that we have value from R and D because we've been quoted, we've been cited, and Canadians have been in articles and newspapers, but that doesn't give any return to any of the companies. It's much easier to have somebody else develop the technology, and then we just copy it. I think Mr. Masse alluded to it.
Is that one of the problems? How do we tie this into the manufacturing sector? Has any type of research that the manufacturing sector has been conducting in the last few years been worth it for them? Does the government need to be involved? That's basically what I want to hear. How is this going to help the manufacturing sector? I think you alluded to it yourself, and I want to allow you to answer.
You compete on an innovation basis, but sometimes companies look at costs, so it's not innovation. Innovation may take five or six years or it may take one or two years, so how do we put a dollar amount? How do we put a return on it?That's what we're here for. We're here for industry purposes.