International Trade committee  I don't think there's a structural issue. It would be better if there were removal of the tariff barriers, but because we are shipping in equipment that is heavy-duty equipment, it attracts tariffs. We're at the stage where we haven't gotten that far into the market, so I'm afraid I don't have a lot of examples to give to you to guide you one way or the other.

International Trade committee  Thank you. While I would agree that historically Canada has not reaped the kinds of returns it needs because we are great IP creators but we don't commercialize as well, I believe the Jenkins review from last year looked at the value derived for Canadians from the research dollars the government spends.

International Trade committee  Thank you. I would say that we have begun to see some interest and I've given you one example. I can give you another one. Three or four weeks ago, SDTC held an investor venture summit in Calgary. This is a non-advertised, invitation-only event, and we require that everybody who comes to those meetings be an investor who has money to spend.

International Trade committee  The rule of law for investment in Canada is obviously so strong that investments into Canadian companies is not an issue. As they begin to partner and move out to other markets, then it is very important for these SMEs to have patent protection. They are often a single-technology company.

International Trade committee  I'm not sure that I follow the linkage in your question. On the issue around patents, I don't have the numbers at my fingertips, but I believe that on a per capita basis Canada produces as many patents as the U.S. does, so that sounds like a strange number, but I really am not familiar with it.

International Trade committee  I would say that based on the amount of effort we're seeing in Asia and other parts of the world at the moment, there is a significant effort to get people aware of Canada and how we can expand and diversify our energy exports. Forestry, agricultural products, and chemicals are all on this list, and I think that clean technology is interwoven among them.

International Trade committee  I would say that we have to recognize what we have as an economy, which is that we are blessed with a great deal of natural resources and that some of those are high-carbon sources. We are the envy of many economies because we are fortunate enough to have that. What I think we are saying that it's good, it's important for us, it helps cheap energy, and all these other things are enabling our products and resources to be utilized in a cost-efficient way.

International Trade committee  Okay, but I feel we have actually.... We have about 240-odd companies in our portfolio. There's $2.2 billion worth of projects under management. As far as we are aware, we are the largest clean tech fund globally, so I have to say I think we're doing some valuable things.

International Trade committee  We were given some money in budget 2011 to keep us moving with the kind of momentum that we've been used to, and we are talking with our colleagues about recapitalization in budget 2013, so obviously we have no idea where that's going.

International Trade committee  It hasn't been denied. I think there was a considerable effort on deficit reduction in the last budget, and as we were able to continue, it was decided that was not a good time to reach those decisions. We've been talking about that ever since.

International Trade committee  We haven't been denied. We've done a number of things that we think will enable us to do more with less. There's a new model coming forward that won't be exactly the same as the SD tech fund, but—

International Trade committee  Our current fund will be fully allocated at the end of this year.

International Trade committee  I don't think they promised anybody anything in the budget for next year, so....

International Trade committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I'd like to introduce my colleague, Sailesh Thaker. He's vice-president of industry and stakeholder relations at SDTC. Thank you for the opportunity to join you today to talk about what we believe is a very important part of Canada's being able to diversify its economy.

International Trade committee  Thank you. Canada is a leader in the clean-tech arena because we have a very strong entrepreneurial spirit. We have an orientation to doing things better and faster and with less, and also with lower environmental impact, and we've integrated those concepts very cleverly. So we are competitive globally for a number of reasons.