Information & Ethics committee  I'll answer, and then André will jump in. We think the European model is very burdensome. It in fact puts the responsibility onto the organizations to decide who stays on and who comes off. In our view generally, people who are putting information out there are generally doing it through the proliferation of smart devices whereby they're putting information out.

Information & Ethics committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair, and honourable members. It's a privilege to be here today to discuss the evolving worlds of technology, data, and privacy on behalf of the Information Technology Association of Canada, ITAC. ITAC is the national voice of Canada's information and communications technology industry.

Finance committee  Do you mean the SR and ED tax credits?

Finance committee  Yes, they are working pretty well. We don't want to criticize them, because they're very good. However, they haven't been looked at lately. They need a review, because you do have lots of interest, more than ever before, from companies, Canadian-owned companies and internationally owned companies, wanting to do R and D, more R and D in Canada.

Finance committee  We at ITAC fully embrace the government's—and particularly the Prime Minister's—knowledge-based economy focus. That is the future. There is no question about it. Having a digital advisory council, with experts from around the world to help develop this, is there waiting. The capital cost allowance doesn't cost anybody anything.

Finance committee  The priority is innovation. We are talking about the youth. Our dollars are there. Raw dollars on the table are about $42 million to help the youth and health.

Finance committee  The ICT companies in Canada will be investing. They're going to invest. It's a matter of accelerating it, having it move forward faster. That's what you're doing with the capital cost allowance. You're allowing greater depreciation. If you think about it, it's simple. What you're doing is so different, because they would either write it off later or write it off sooner.

Finance committee  I think your question was how do you get connectivity in Canada? It is a big task. We have 36 million people, and the country is arguably the second-largest in the world, but a significant number of us live within 100 miles of the border, which is about 3,000 miles or so wide. It is a geographical challenge, no question, because of the investment for companies.

Finance committee  The federal government can directly work with our ICT industry, in fact, with corporations directly. Canada has some world-class corporations in the ICT sector as well as large international corporations that have set up world centres of excellence here. Microsoft, Ericsson have set up places where they export this expertise internationally and bring in new employees and students for that.

Finance committee  Thank you very much. Every industry sector in the world, every government in the world, every region in the world, is talking innovation, is talking the digital economy. They're all talking about the same thing. Learning the digital economy, learning about digital is the enabler for anybody in the world to do better.

Finance committee  We have already reached over 80,000 students and would like to reach more. Therefore, we recommend a $2.5-million funding over the next five years to continue with CareerMash. Next is funding experiential learning opportunities in the technology sector. It is, again, something that is required.

Finance committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for inviting me to appear today. As stated, my name is Robert Watson. I'm the CEO of Canada's national Information communications technology business association, the Information Technology Association of Canada, ITAC.

Human Resources committee  We don't have a figure right now. The report is coming out at the end of the month.

Human Resources committee  We clearly see this is as a long-term labour need, because the need is not just for workers to do source code or develop a product, it is for workers to help a hospital or a power company convert its IT system or to help somebody to develop a new system for renewable energy, to coordinate the power coming from windmills or something like that.

Human Resources committee  First of all, we have to do more to help with the students coming through the system—not only to get more students to go into the IT sector, but to get more than just young guys going into the IT sector. Diversity, particularly, is what we have to do. However, even if we had more than our fair share coming through the Canadian system, if we want to start scaling up Canadian companies or have international companies set up centres of excellence here, we have to have more workers.