Fisheries committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for having provided me this opportunity to meet with the committee and discuss the Canadian Centre for Fisheries Innovation, or CCFI. The Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency was established in 1987 as the federal regional economic development agency for

Fisheries committee  Thank you, Mr. Byrne. I'll deal with the second question first, because I'm not sure of the exact point of the first question. Our relationship with CCFI in terms of accountability and that sort of thing would be a client-partner relationship. We get regular reports, probably q

Fisheries committee  One of the issues around third party delivery would also have to do with whether the organization conducting the third party delivery is actually undertaking things within their mandate. Is CCFI doing things that ACOA would do, if ACOA were actually doing them? Some of the thin

Fisheries committee  Since ACOA began, or over the course of our activities, one of the approaches we have taken in working with industries, industry associations, or groups within industries has been to identify particular initiatives--and usually they would identify them--where, if the industry wer

Fisheries committee  I think there were three questions there.

Fisheries committee  Is the door closed? I guess my answer to that would be yes. Minister MacKay and Minister Ashfield have written CCFI and advised them that ACOA would not be funding the CCFI further. The other questions, I guess, concerned leverage and sustainability. With respect to the sustain

Fisheries committee  The leverage would refer to the $1 million they have in research and development money. The leverage figures they quote would be that that $1 million results in their participation in x millions of dollars in research and development projects. Some of the debate around leverage

Fisheries committee  There are a couple of issues here. One is that the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency puts a tremendous amount of money into research and development. About eight years ago we developed a new program, the Atlantic Innovation Fund, which made an unprecedented amount of R and D m

Fisheries committee  No, I would not see any breach of trust.

Fisheries committee  The way our programs work is that they're for specific periods of time. There has to be a start, a time for conducting work, and an end. In the case of the CCFI, we've gone through that a number of times. We have now reached the point with the CCFI where we believe that the work

Fisheries committee  Throughout Atlantic Canada?

Fisheries committee  About 700.

Fisheries committee  I would have to guess or speculate. I don't know. A number of us have had some experience in and around the fishing industry. If I had to make a guess, it would be 10 to 20.

Fisheries committee  There's a fairly complex answer to the issue around who informs what or whom.

Fisheries committee  I certainly told the chairman and Mr. Bonnell, on two occasions, that we were unable to continue the funding.