Well, through the chair, that's a big question. Thank you so much.
Yes, I'm a laser expert. In the early 2000s I had a chance to establish two programs in photonics, one at Algonquin College in Ottawa and one at Niagara College, which covered various aspects of lasers, optics and photonics that are important for Canada. It's not just telecommunications, even though at the time it was all we read in the news—optical fibre telecommunications—but lasers and optics applied to lighting, to cameras, to biophotonics, so medical applications. It's a lot easier to point to something with photonics in it than it is to point to something that doesn't have any. My cellphone has an AMOLED screen. That's photonics.
From the point of view of semiconductors, what I know of semiconductor production is that they employ very strong UV lights and optics to reproduce patterns we want to put on the silicon in a very small area. We do have fabrication facilities in Canada. We have one in Bromont, Quebec. There is a centre called the Communications Research Centre, which I think used to get better funding, but could use some more, somewhere around Kingston, I think it is, but it works with institutions across Canada. That is about designing circuitry and making them happen on silicon.
We do have some good research facilities in Canada. It's a question of having production facilities. When it comes to making hundreds of thousands of circuits and stamping them out and putting them into millions of cars, what you need is more than just research facilities. You need industrial facilities that will take the research of our great Canadian universities and colleges and put that into actual practice in Canada. This sometimes takes a little longer.
I'm afraid I can't go into too much more detail as semiconductor production is not my exact area of expertise, but I hope I answered part of your question.