Okay, maybe he'd switch.
I think when the minister comes we should ask him why he's not finding the money to do this within his overall set of priorities. You've made the point, all of you, that our reserves are shrinking, and that to get companies interested, they need to have a good sense of where the opportunities are the biggest, where the yield is potentially the greatest. This kind of work needs to be part of that, it seems to me.
Gary, you talked about the split, this silo. I brought it up with the deputy minister, but I never had a chance to get into it. If you look at NRCan, it takes the natural resources up to the point where they're sort of manufactured, or this...call it upgrading or value-added. That comes in, I guess, to Industry Canada, and once they're exported or about to be exported, that would be International Trade. But it encourages a silo mentality.
I'm wondering, does NRCan have a mandate within, let's say, the mining sector in terms of the economy? Let me give you an example. If we look at diamonds—and I think the other witness brought this up as well, Mining Watch Canada, Ms. Kuyek—I think it's something like 99% of our diamonds that are going offshore without much value-added being done here in Canada. It seems to me that's an area we should be looking at.
The case has been made to me that we should be setting up a diamond exchange in Canada. Where you set up a diamond exchange, the tendency is for the value-added sectors to cluster around it. Right now, of course, all the diamonds, or the vast major of them, go to places like Antwerp and what have you.
I think the federal government has it in our jurisdiction to mandate that some of that volume that is now going offshore would be directed to, let's say, a diamond exchange in Canada, and for the value-added to be done there. Could you tell me if that is the case?
Also, Gary, could you touch on the question of this silo mentality? Where do the different departments pick up? And shouldn't NRCan have some economic mandating capability?