I think the key issue is to have a long-term commitment. It cannot be just a two-year fix where the government says, “Okay, we'll give you $10 million or $15 million to fix the problem”, and it will be fixed. It has to be a long-term commitment in energy data structure, so that when the investment's made we know it's for good and it's not political. It's not because it's the Liberals or the Conservatives or the NDP that want the data. We need to make sure it's there for good and we have strong institutions and independent statistics. It is there for everyone and is rigorous about the way it collects data.
You need users. You need the data, and you need the users. Again, we need to make sure that the government is actually funding research, and not only technical research, because there's a lot of data for innovation in new techniques for energy. There is very little funding for energy research in terms of how we use it, energy economics, and that's a funding priority. I think there should be users everywhere across Canada, and again, with a strong commitment from the government to fund that research not on a yearly basis but on a long-term basis. Of course, it's required by the government to use the output of the research, to be informed, and to inform its policies with the research. Otherwise, if governments make decisions that are not based on research and evidence, then of course.... Sometimes it may be good for political reasons, because you have a good pitch to make, but for the confidence in the system, confidence in the data, confidence in government, trust in government, we need to have a population that actually trusts the government to make the best decision based on the best analysis of the best data.
It's a whole stream of issues. It's not the energy data. It's also the users. We need an energy data user community that is strong, and as I said, I'm one of the few in business schools who are doing this, looking at energy economies. You received David Layzell from Calgary, but there aren't many professors doing energy economics and looking at how we manage energy issues across Canada, and that's a shame when we are such a big energy superpower.