Natural Resources committee  I doubt that there would be any formal strings, but certainly, in constructing a case for the dollars that they would like, they would put their case forward, and those would be some of the things they would have flagged.

Natural Resources committee  I don't know if Kami knows. I'm not sure if they would have the flexibility within their powers to redirect it totally in that area. In any event, they regularly publish their documents that say how they spend their money, and they'll have to be accountable for that. I can check whether there are any specific strings on that, but typically there would be an expectation of what they would spend their money on, and they would be held accountable through the normal reporting processes.

Natural Resources committee  I think again it goes back to our evaluations where we talk to the users of the program, other experts who are out there, and ask, “Given what we have in Canada now, and given whatever is the appropriate split between public science and private science, how are we doing, how are people finding the program, do they think it's helpful?

Natural Resources committee  In some cases, yes, but you've certainly said it. It's difficult sometimes to draw the link between the activity you're funding and the concrete outcome at the end. I'll give you a couple of examples in a second where I can. You can't always do that because of the timeframes involved, and as with basic research, there are often a few meanders along the way before you get to the final result, but we do go through as rigorous an exercise as we can to try to find out the outcomes and how the program performed.

Natural Resources committee  I think I alluded to that in my comments. In that particular area, the next generation biofuels, we just found that the growth in the sector wasn't fast enough to really support the kinds of projects that needed that money. The money was taken. In a lot of cases, it was given back to the fiscal framework, and then can be reallocated elsewhere, depending on the government's priorities.

Natural Resources committee  The one thing I would say—and it goes to the earlier point we raised—is that when you look at the programs in the clean-tech area—and we talked about energy efficiency and innovation—two things are happening. Those programs have a natural cycle to them. You see them being at one level for a number of years, and then toward the end they typically tail off a bit as they're going to sunset.

Natural Resources committee  Yes, probably I'm going to have to give you specific examples. I can submit them to the committee afterwards if we get into the details of some the specific projects that they fund. I know there's a number of them that we can find through SDTC, but at my fingertips I don't have a lot of them.

Natural Resources committee  Let me take that at a couple of levels. As you said, those two programs.... You can think of them together, one of which is trying to tell us where the deposits are that we don't really know about now, a kind of public science aspect. That's important work that the industry then builds upon and goes out and makes the finds.

Natural Resources committee  I have to say that since coming to this job, certainly, one of the success stories that's raised with me is SDTC and some of the technologies it has developed. As well, it's a program that's jointly run by NRCan and Environment Canada, and when I was at the environment department, I used to hear about it as well.

Natural Resources committee  I will clarify something. There is a problem with the fact that this report was tabled after the main estimates. There are more funds in the budget but this is not reflected in the report on plans and priorities. I do not have that report in front of me, but clearly it does not include the extra money in the budget.

Natural Resources committee  I'm going to ask Kami to answer the second question. As for the first, I would say that it is important to take certain particular features of the report on plans and priorities into account. Certain programs known in English as sunset programs or programmes temporisés, will expire on a given date, for instance in 2016 or 2018.

Natural Resources committee  I am happy to speak about the Port Hope area initiative. I can't go back all the way to 2001 with specific numbers, but I will say that it is a project that we are following very closely here at NRCan, and there has been a significant investment of dollars. I am happy to report that in 2015 we are hoping to complete two new state-of-the-art waste water treatment plants in Port Hope for long-term waste management.

Natural Resources committee  Sure. Suffice to say in 30 seconds it is an area of interest for us at NRCan, in addition to our colleagues around town in Transport Canada, the coast guard, and others, to try to make sure that where we do have activity related to resource projects it is carried out as safely as possible.

Natural Resources committee  That is really an effort for us to gain greater efficiencies in government. We have the Resolute facility, and there is an opportunity for National Defence to use that facility to carry on some of its activities rather than, as I mentioned earlier, for National Defence to construct a whole separate facility and engage in all of those activities.

Natural Resources committee  Sure. There are two questions there. I think you're right to point out both B.C. and Alberta. I've tended, at least in my remarks, to focus on B.C., but the initiative covers both B.C. and Alberta. I guess it's just a reflection of the activity there that in using examples I've tended to point to just B.C.