Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to our guests for being here today.
I know there has been a lot of discussion over a number of years, and we've had to push back against budget cuts in the past and ensure that there's adequate funding. Then there very important issues related to moving patents and work to manufacturing, especially in our country where we have a very poor record of moving patents, and I'm not blaming you.
However, at the same time, I'm also very concerned about all research just being done with the private sector and trying to look for outcomes first and foremost, versus exploratory research work. I say this because if you look at history, a lot of the inventions that have changed our lives have been accidents. They've been from projects where the aim was to achieve a certain result X, but then these other things emerged from of them. There are all kinds of examples of that out there.
Speak to me a little bit about that element. Here I would say that I think you occupy a unique space on this that others don't, and there is tremendous added value for pure research without a derivative at the end of the day. I'd like to hear a little bit about that.