Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Good morning, Mr. Dicerni.
You were not here when I made my comments to your colleague in Transport Canada. I would reiterate a lot of them.
First, I think this report should be discussed at the industry committee, Mr. Chair. I think we should mention to them that these reports exist. It is for them to review, because we have no time here, and it's not the role of this committee to review the industry policy of Canada. It's more to give you our reaction to this report. Is it workable? Is it easy to read?
I would tell you that it's a work in progress. A lot of the criticism I made to transport, I would reiterate to you. We are in the middle, between a classic ministerial report, where you describe your activities and your programs in a very boring way, and indicators. The link between the two is difficult to make.
I agree that it's a bit better than Transport's report, but I still think it would be important to have a strategy of buildup when you write these reports. Each year we should see where we are. We start from scratch year after year. We should see where the direction for the country is.
And I would say that it's dangerous to put everything on the same footing. You have said a lot of interesting things since you have been here with us. They're not in the report and there is no way that we will find them.
Where is Canada strong? Where are we weak? What is your department doing to address our weaknesses and to keep up our strengths, to make us stronger? There is no way to know. Everything is on the same footing.
Yes, we will discover what your minister just said, which is that we are falling behind, if we are not careful, on some key part of the innovative economy, but we need to discover that it's on page 26 in the table. It should not be on the same footing. We should have a direction. We should see what is important and what is less important.
There is no sense that clean tech will be a big part of the economy when you read this report. It's not part of your three pillars. Yes, you have programs here and there, but how will it stop Canada from falling behind, as many reports have said. This part of the economy may become as big as the automotive industry in the coming decades.
I will just give some examples in the few minutes I still have.
On page 19, in the section entitled Barriers to competition, it says that Canada ranked 5th in 2008 and 11th in 2003. Canada ranked 8th in the world in overall competitiveness in 2008, up from 10th in 2007. In one instance, the report refers to 2003 and in the other, 2007. But it does not say why. It may be because the methodology changed, and therefore it is not possible to go back further. We do not know, but the report should explain it.
There should be uniform standards year after year. We should be able to see where we are going. We should not change from one indicator to another unless there are valid reasons. It's an example that I give you.