Finance committee  Thank you for the question, Mr. Chair. I would agree that for the last few years, fiscal policy has not been aligned with monetary policy in that one has been working against the other. It is harder for the bank to do its job to bring inflation back to 2% if the government keeps spending over 2%, which is the price stability target for the bank over time.

Finance committee  I think the finance ministerhas been saying that she understands this. I'm hoping the government will understand the importance of bringing back spending to a reasonable level. Again, what's the finality here? The finality is to work for the benefit of Canadians. The benefit to Canadians, with fiscal policy, is to bring inflation back to 2% as fast as we can because the more time it takes, the more painful it is in terms of the cost of living.

Finance committee  The basic math is that the more you spend on debt servicing, the less you have to spend on anything else, as I said in my remarks. That includes health care, education and all the things that I think Canadians cherish and want more of, including international aid and more spending on defence.

Finance committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. The state of the world today reminds us of the inherent fragility of our international order and of the global economy. For a country such as Canada, geopolitical shocks such as these have a deep impact. The global environment is only further compounding the challenges we were already experiencing domestically.

Science and Research committee  May I add two dimensions to this that I think are really important? The first is public procurement. We have amazing global champions in advanced industries. I'm thinking about CAE, Bombardier, and I'm thinking about MDA in space. They get money from NASA, from the Pentagon, but they don't get anything from DND.

Science and Research committee  I'm still thinking about the National Research Council's industrial research assistance program. There needs to be better matching on the innovative technology side, not just on the more conventional research side. For the other niche that you mentioned, there is another program that has been created for the benefit of small and medium-sized enterprises, SMEs, which is innovative solutions Canada.

Science and Research committee  For me, the issue is not with VC and the availability of capital at that early stage. I think we've made great strides. It's the stage after. It's these exits and the lack of IPOs in Canada. This is what I'm concerned with.

Science and Research committee  That's a great question. Interestingly, the U.S. is replicating DARPA in key sectors. The industries I mentioned now have an ARPA-E for energy, which deals with clean tech, and an ARPA-H, which deals with biomanufacturing—biotechnology, essentially. These institutions are independent and very nimble.

Science and Research committee  That's true. I would also say that applied research can be integrated into the real economy. Research and development is fine, but from an academic or scientific perspective, it's not a goal in itself. The state must develop it and get involved with the intention of making it an important link in the industrial strategy.

Science and Research committee  I think incentives need to be created. Right now, researchers are acting a bit like SMEs—in other words, they are picking and choosing what they work on. That's the way our system is designed. So there is no incentive for them to commercialize their research or to use Canadian firms.

Science and Research committee  The federal government has launched the intellectual property strategy, but as far as I know, there is no mechanism for technology transfer at the federal level. As I tried to explain, that responsibility is given to universities that do intensive research, such as the University of Waterloo or the University of Toronto.

Science and Research committee  Yes. What we lack is, essentially, that bridge between research and private firms. We lack various steps in the innovation process. It's one thing to have a lab in a university coming out with a good idea, or what we can call an invention. Bringing this to a firm and scaling it so that firm can become a global champion takes many more steps in the process.

Science and Research committee  That's a great question. To give credit to the government, NRC's IRAP does a bit of this. I think, in the new innovation corporation, the plan is to scale it. I don't think we're doing enough on the industrial R and D side of things. If you don't apply research to commercial applications, you're still very far away from commercial success.

Science and Research committee  The government made some choices. Let's be honest. They went forward with this innovation corporation. I think it's been a matter of internal debate for some years. I was a proponent of instituting the DARPA model. The government rejected this and went for a bigger IRAP model, which I think could potentially be good in some aspects.

Science and Research committee  That's a great question. Thank you. I think it's really important to understand our strengths and weaknesses in the innovation ecosystem. My view is that we do pretty well at what I would call the beginning of the continuum, which is the intellectual capital part of it—human capital, universities, R and D—and VC is better than it was, I would say, but once we go to the continuum to scaling, I think global champions in advanced industries is where we're lacking.