Environment committee  Actually, I don't have an exact number. But we are currently sponsoring a study that first looks at how much money is spent from all sources on oil sands research. The second part would be the outputs of this research in numbers of things--the number of people educated, the number of engineers.

Environment committee  It's part of the study--on the fringe, I would say. This is a very good point. I'll make sure to go back and see if we can get some firm numbers on that. If I do not, we may come back and say we want to extend the study. I'm very glad you're asking these questions.

Environment committee  I would say that's what they expected in this study. I haven't seen the draft yet. It will be more on the science side, but even on the social side you need some science facts. You can go with anecdotes and you can go with somebody's impression, but you need the facts to be able to translate this into real numbers you can rely on.

Environment committee  Absolutely. That's one of our main mandates in NRCan.

Environment committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First of all, I have to apologize for the quality of my voice. I am struggling with a cold virus that I can't get rid of. No, I'm not spreading it, and it is not the swine flu. Don't go back to Ottawa and say I did it. With your permission, Mr. Chair, I have a presentation here, but I'll skim through it to allow more time for questions.