Industry committee  To start at a high level, investments in innovation is a key part to how you can address the productivity challenges. What the government has been doing, and partly through advice that we're providing, is trying to figure out how we can get better outcomes from the money that we

Industry committee  Yes. I'll just mention that in terms of the advanced manufacturing fund, we have a formal arrangement with that agency. For certain elements of the proposals they essentially draw on our expertise to be able to add those insights in terms of their review of the projects. However

Public Accounts committee  I don't know Miguel's title.

Public Accounts committee  That's perfect. I'm joined here by Charles Vincent, who's a senior director with the auto group in the industry sector at Industry Canada; Richard Botham, who is an assistant deputy minister at the Department of Finance; and Miguel Simard, who is the assistant general counsel of

Public Accounts committee  With that, thank you, Mr. Chair and committee members, for allowing me to provide you with a brief overview of Industry Canada's response to the Auditor General's 2014 fall report on the restructuring assistance provided to General Motors and Chrysler during the economic crisis o

Public Accounts committee  I am going to try to answer that question. One thing the Auditor General did highlight was the fact that it would be useful to do a lessons learned exercise. While we didn't do a formal one, following the crisis we got together among partners—with Ontario and all of the federal

Public Accounts committee  There's no doubt that one of the risks and one of the reasons why it was important for Canada and Ontario to be at the table was to ensure that for any restructuring of the companies that occurred Canadian interests would be protected. That would mean the Canadian operations of b

Public Accounts committee  I don't think I have an accurate assessment, but everything I've heard is much longer than was the case for both GM and Chrysler.

Public Accounts committee  It is.

Public Accounts committee  It is completed and is now posted on our website, as of December 2014.

Public Accounts committee  It will be completed by the end of this year.

Public Accounts committee  I'll clarify that the department has always used, and continues to use, a risk-based approach when it assesses projects. As noted in the Auditor General's report, we did not have that approach properly documented. As of October of last year, we've now included that explicitly in

Public Accounts committee  Maybe I should clarify. In working in partnership with the U.S. Treasury, the restructuring was set up to ensure the viability of the global company. Through that, to ensure the viability and competitiveness of the Canadian subsidiary, which are obviously the operations in Cana

Public Accounts committee  Participating in the overall restructuring of GM and Chrysler was necessary to protect the Canadian automotive sector at large, which I said in my opening remarks. With most of the production exported to the U.S., the events that were south of the border were affecting Canadian

Public Accounts committee  Maybe I'll answer the last question first, which is that there is no federal equivalent to the automotive innovation fund in the U.S. The support that takes place in the U.S. in terms of attracting automotive investment is at the state level. That's usually a combination of eithe