Thank you, Mr. Chair, and good afternoon to you and members of the committee.
I want to thank you for the opportunity to provide an update on progress being made at Health Canada to address the Auditor General's recommendations regarding the management of intellectual property.
I first want to thank the Auditor General and her staff for their report. The consultations and recommendations have served to sharpen our focus at Health Canada on improving our processes in order to produce better results in intellectual property management.
At Health Canada, the research we undertake directly supports our role in policy and regulation to fulfill our mandate of helping maintain and protect the health and safety of Canadians.
While not a primary objective of this work, intellectual property can support our policy development and decision-making. Intellectual property arising from public investment is a public good, and we therefore have a responsibility to ensure that we have the policies and procedures in place to maximize its value to serve the public good.
We understand the need to improve our management of intellectual property, which is why we welcomed the Auditor General's recommendations. We have accepted all six recommendations pertaining to Health Canada, and we are now implementing an action plan to see them through.
We have shared our plan with the Office of the Auditor General. I would like to provide just a few of our plan's key highlights.
First, our plan puts strong emphasis on training managers and procurement specialists so they will be well equipped to identify and properly report on intellectual property expected to result from contracts. We've already developed a standardized procedures package for officials dealing with procurement, one of which focuses on application and reporting of intellectual property in contracts.
In addition, we are committed to providing enhanced training to cost centre managers in the fourth quarter of this fiscal year. For example, we are introducing a mandatory questionnaire on intellectual property as part of a manager's training. This will raise the awareness of managers concerning their obligations regarding intellectual property. As well, a section on intellectual property will form part of the contract review process within the department.
Second, the Office of the Auditor General recommended that we develop a department-wide intellectual property policy. Work has started on advancing our existing draft policy on internally generated intellectual property. We're working to ensure that this policy will meet Health Canada needs before putting it in place throughout the department. The policy is due to be implemented in the next fiscal year. This is an important initial step in meeting the Auditor General's recommendation.
In closing, I'd like to reiterate my commitment to implementing our plan to make sure that Health Canada has the processes and procedures in place to manage intellectual property.
I'll be pleased to answer any questions members may have today.