Industry Committee on Oct. 30th, 2012

[Kennedy Stewart, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Could you table that? Could you let the committee have a copy of that?

[John McDougall]

Oh, sure. It's a public document.

[Kennedy Stewart, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Are there other documents of a similar nature you could supply us that would give us a better idea of what your directions are?

[John McDougall]

There are some, for sure.

[Kennedy Stewart, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Could you table those for us as well, so we can take a look at what your plans are?

[John McDougall]

We can certainly try to provide sort of a framework that would be useful to you.

[Kennedy Stewart, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Okay. Thank you.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

A point of order, Mr.Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Yes, Mr. Lake.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

The honourable member is a very smart man and a good friend of mine. I'm sure he knows how to use Google. It sounds like the documents we're talking about are public documents.

It seems not an efficient use of Mr. McDougall's time to have him go and put together these documents, to bring them before the committee, when they're readily available on the Internet.

[Kennedy Stewart, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

They're not, actually. This document I've referred to is—

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

I think he said it was a public document.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Okay, folks, I think I will make it very easy for Mr. McDougall.

If you just send the links to the clerk, the clerk will assure they're in both official languages so then we'll be copied on it.

[Kennedy Stewart, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

I do have the link here, but you can't get in unless you have a particular password. It would have to be supplied by Mr. McDougall. That's exactly why I asked.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

That's great, Mr. Stewart. We've asked him to do that.

I'm certain, if can judge from his character, that he's kind enough that he'll fulfill that request.

If there are no other points of order, we'll go back to your questions, Mr. Stewart.

[Kennedy Stewart, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Thanks. I have another question.

It has been mentioned that you'll be closing the construction research groups in Regina and London. What research capacity do you think we'll lose by closing those groups?

[John McDougall]

Those groups are actually quite small. They're doing work that is done in lots of places that are well established in industry today.

Our view is that actually there will be no net loss to Canada from that, although there will be a small number of people, some of whom will be reallocated....

[Kennedy Stewart, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Impacted by it.

In terms of your overall reallocation of the workforce, do you expect a significant downsizing of the NRC workforce? Maybe you could give us a sense of how many layoffs we can expect over the next year.

[John McDougall]

The NRC exercise is not about shrinking. As you will have probably noted, the budget actually provided additional resources, so my expectation is actually that we will be growing, although, you know, as you go through processes, that you go up and down, right?

[Kennedy Stewart, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

But you'll be laying off some people and hiring new types of people, essentially—

[John McDougall]

Yes, that's correct.

[Kennedy Stewart, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Okay. Is there any idea on the shift of the balance from basic research to applied?

[John McDougall]

Basic to applied is not a good way of assessing it.

[Kennedy Stewart, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Okay.

[John McDougall]

You do basic that you have to do to achieve an end. We don't do basic in the sense of curiosity. That's the difference.

How that will shake out is going to be a moving target. It will move all the time, so it's not a very meaningful number.