Science and Research committee  As I said at the beginning, I believe that the investment by Volkswagen and in Volkswagen is a good investment for Canada to make. That was not the point of my example. The point of my example was to point out that while we make investments like that—and you could look at other ones recently—we need to make equal investment in the part of the ecosystem that is growing or scaling companies to get better and best outcomes.

Science and Research committee  I'm sorry. I didn't understand the first part.

Science and Research committee  As I said, I have not actually seen the agreement, other than just to look at the coverage that's occurred. That's my understanding as to how it is, which is that we will generate good-paying jobs as a result of that deal. If we could put similar investments into companies such that they put the sales divisions into Canada and Canada gets the taxes from the revenues, that would be the better and the best type of outcomes that we're looking for.

Science and Research committee  It's a great question. That's a lot of money, to be clear. We would spend a large portion of that investing directly in the companies that we are supporting. A big portion of that would go into trying to generate procurement, both domestically and internationally, for the companies we support, because what we really need to see happen is more procurement and more revenue.

Science and Research committee  I don't have a percentage at the tip of my fingers, but I would say a significant portion of them have. These companies are independent businesses that are making the best decision with all of the options in front of them today. In my experience in working with the entrepreneurs in Canada over the last 15 years, people have every intention of remaining headquartered in Canada, and they want to do business from here.

Science and Research committee  Is it a foreign multinational? Yes.

Science and Research committee  I want to be clear: This is a good outcome for Canada. The Volkswagen investment is a good outcome. It will produce economic return for the country.

Science and Research committee  I'm not aware of the details of the deal, so I'm not sure what the IP provisions are.

Science and Research committee  Getting it better would be to create it such that you do keep the IP in Canada, but more importantly, that you keep the commercial activity here. If you look at the economic outputs, it's not just about where the IP is owned; it's about where you drive the sales from, where the taxes go and how many jobs you create around it.

Science and Research committee  Good afternoon. Thank you for having me today. My name is Krista Jones, and I'm the chief delivery officer for MaRS Discovery District. MaRS is a large-scale commercialization engine that has supported 4,000 Canadian entrepreneurs and their deep IP-based SMEs over the last 20 years in key growth sectors.