Thank you for the question.
I would like to highlight the current measures, whose goal is to increase the use and adoption of technologies by companies. For instance, I mentioned the Industrial Research Assistance Program, IRAP, whose goal is basically to increase the use and adoption of information technologies.
It is my understanding that the executive director will testify before the committee in a few weeks. The government launched this program in 2011 in order to focus specifically on the adoption and use of information and communications technologies, ICTs. The government is building on IRAP's success and effectiveness. Experts are also involved. In addition to the funding provided, experts in the technology industry are giving companies advice in order to help them find solutions specific to their needs and maximize their impact.
I also talked about BDC, which has some free online services. It provides advice for increasing the effectiveness of online technologies. So far, it has already provided companies with advice on over 20,000 occasions. The government and BDC have set aside $200 million to help companies purchase equipment. A program is in place to help them with that.
I have one last thing to mention. We also have CANARIE, which is our ultra high-speed Internet network used to connect universities, colleagues and so on. It uses its infrastructure in a way that enables small companies to use cloud and high-performance computing to accelerate innovation and commercialization.