Peter Braid at the Industry, Science and Technology Committee

On November 29th, 2012. See this statement in context.

November 29th, 2012 / 12:45 p.m.

Conservative

Peter Braid Conservative Kitchener—Waterloo, ON

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister Goodyear, Mr. Dunlop, and Mr. Archibald for being here with us today.

Minister, there are a range of very important programs under the FedDev umbrella. You've touched on many of them. In my mind, one of the most successful FedDev programs has been the investing in business innovation program, or the IBI program. We're certainly seeing the very positive impact of that program in Waterloo region, where we now see the creation of an average of one start-up company every day.

In my riding of Kitchener—Waterloo, the centre of innovation in Canada, we're of course very familiar with the flagship companies like RIM and OpenText, but there are 1,000 other high tech companies in the Waterloo region.

Minister, could you speak to why IBI was established and to the impact you believe it's having?

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