On the remark about the United States Department of Energy National Laboratories, they made an investment that started back in the 1950s to create energy research areas that could look at atomic energy, fossil fuels, and transportation systems. They made a tremendous investment in those laboratories. There are 11 of them across the nation and they are, frankly, a little underutilized today, so they're looking for clients.
I was suggesting that with the vast amount of talent they employ in that arena, we might be able to benefit from it without spending, as Professor Plourde pointed out, excessive sums of money to get the kind of product we need. This does not mean that the technology laboratories that we have here in Canada are deficient or insufficient, but it's to point out that we can enhance their value tremendously.
As I mentioned, I'm going down to Mexico next week. One of the things that we are offering to Mexico through our government here is to help them discover some of their own technological potential by using some of ours, by trading expertise, so it has some legs in that way as well.
I would say that being able to use some of the tools that we have to target incentives, investment, and innovation in our own industries, using ourselves as a living laboratory can foster and direct the kind of innovation we want to see without necessarily specifying it at the government level.