Thank you.
I'd like to come to another question. This is something that the parliamentary secretary—I'm sorry he's not here at the moment—and I have had a friendly debate on, and that is Canada's direct government funding of R and D. I just want to quote from a report from science and tech last year. This is a government report:
Canada’s direct government funding of business enterprise expenditure on research and development was the lowest of all Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries
Now this is something that is well known. It comes from a government report. It should be well known to the government.
I'm wondering whether our witnesses see that as having an impact on the development of e-commerce here in Canada--the fact that Canada is last among OECD countries in research and development.
I'd like to start with the Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters, because you raised R and D as an important component.