I'll call the meeting to order.
Welcome, Mr. Minister, and welcome to your officials from the Department of Industry. We have a meeting for an hour. I know your last meeting went a little late, so I'm told you can have the full 60 minutes before the committee.
The orders of the day are to discuss the minister's priorities. But we sent you a letter, which I have before me, in which we asked you to talk, obviously, about your priorities in the area of industry, science, and technology, but highlighted to you some of our areas, which we would like you to respond to. Specifically, these include: the telecommunications policy regulations; the commercialization of research, about which two reports have recently been finalized; also, members wanted you to address the state of competitiveness of the Canadian economy; the manufacturing sector, which we are currently studying before the committee, including prosperity research and development; another area, the high gasoline prices on the Canadian economy; the effect of the U.S. western hemispheric travel initiative; and Canada's policy on data protection for patent pharmaceutical medicines.
We're asking you to do this within about ten minutes. And I, of course, have an interest in your reaction to last night's hockey game with the Edmonton Oilers.