Thank you, Mr. Chair.
And thank you to our witnesses.
I'm hoping, Mr. Elliott, before you go today we're going to have a short tutorial to help us through the use of our BlackBerries.
I'd like to turn to the human side of this. Mr. Gupta specifically referred to the talent pool as a major hurdle in technology today. I come from an SME background, so I've experienced the frustration with a pipeline of qualified potential employees who could come in and help me get to the goal line....
As I listened to both you, and specifically the chambers of commerce, I was thinking about the small business internship program for post-secondary students that Industry Canada talked to us about. We've had good input from universities and colleges over the past few days and some very exciting revelations about the work that's being done.
With regard to the internship program--and I would like to start with Mr. Gupta, then Mr. Beatty and Mr. Elliott--is that program working and worth our while putting money into? That's number one.
When you talk about where we're lagging behind these other countries, such as Australia, I know a lot of it is relevant to infrastructure, etc., but how about the talent side of it? Are they doing anything that we should be looking at as we try to learn how to do this better and to close the gap?
Mr. Gupta, if I could start with you. And then, Mr. Beatty, it's over to you.