Mr. Chair, I would refer back to and commend particularly to analysts of the committee to look at our performance measurement strategy, which is quite detailed in enumerating how we are undertaking to examine performance. It addresses also the facts of the challenges, in particular when you're supporting programs, mechanisms where you're trying to achieve an outcome in the commercial market where a lot of other factors come into play over and above whether or not the support for the R and D is in place. I think it is important to make that point.
Our objective in terms of commercialization is that 80% of the projects that we support would see the technologies that are developed ultimately find their way into products and services in the marketplace. Then a subset, in terms of our own objectives, is managing the portfolio itself.
In the case of SADI, we're seeking to achieve nominal repayment to the crown for the funds that are expended. That's a very key indicator. If the companies are in a position to return those funds back to the program and essentially make them available for reinvestment, then we're succeeding.
Those companies are having success in the marketplace and there is an objective to have nominal repayment to the fund over time, but each agreement—speaking to where we are with the agreements and where we were in the early days when the reporting was thinner—is a 20-year relationship. There is a five-year period in which R and D is undertaken. It takes time for the actual engineering, the technical work, to develop to a level where you can actually say you're starting to see the objectives of the project come to fruition. Then there is a 15-year period over which they're repaying.