Mr. Chair, this is actually a question that's near and dear to my heart. As the former ADM of the earth sciences sector, I can tell you a little about that.
The Inter-Agency Committee on Geomatics is the group that coordinates that for the federal government. So you're right that Natural Resources Canada will provide a lot of the base mapping for the country, but then there are a number of major user departments, including Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Environment Canada, and National Defence. For example, when we had the ice storm back in the 1990s, National Defence Canada mobilized and basically ran the whole operation on our topographic maps. Back in those days we were still printing paper maps, so we had our printing presses working 24 hours a day, seven days a week to provide National Defence Canada with those topographic maps.
Geomatics is the emerging area that combines maps on computers, remote sensing information, and the ability to analyze it; and that's increasingly what the federal government does in bringing its information together.