Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Mississauga—Lakeshore for his excellent work at the Standing Committee on National Defence. It is an honour and a pleasure to work with him.
The IDEaS Program opened a number of doors to industries, universities, and innovators when it comes to research and development into the defence capabilities that we need. Over the past year, we received more than 600 proposals from across Canada. As a result, we invested $27 million in 160 contracts that are already paying off.
I had the chance to be in Montreal during the forum run by Aero Montreal, which brings together several businesses and companies that are already benefiting from these contracts. I was very impressed with their work. They are very happy with the investments we are making to help them grow in this field.