Environment committee  I think so.

Environment committee  I just want to make a general comment. The climate science community was fully behind Canada's participation in the Kyoto Protocol in the beginning when the protocol was set up. It never saw it as dealing with the climate problem in any substantive way. Canada only contributes 2

Environment committee  I'm very pleased to ask that question because it's very easy to answer. I'll switch to English, if you don't mind. We're talking about two different kinds of problems in physics. There's an initial value problem and a boundary value problem. Weather prediction involves knowing

Environment committee  I really do not have a lot to add. Like Dr. Stone, I'm not an economist; I'm a meteorologist. I'm quite willing to comment on the science, but I would not really want to comment on the economics of trying to do this, that, or the other thing. I would leave that to the economists.

Environment committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, members of the committee, for the opportunity to make a presentation to this group on what I think is a very important subject, certainly very important for our society. The Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society is a major non-

Finance committee  Government makes the rules. We were not arguing for government money to go into this area, but for trying to make it easier for money that is available in our economy and outside the country to come in and to fund, at the venture capital stage, developments in Canada—to keep them

Finance committee  Yes, it's a kind of matching fund.

Finance committee  On the R and D side for European money, it's a question of matching. For venture capital, it's a question of the rules governing investments in research, the SR and ED-type things.

Finance committee  Yes, and I would recommend the recommendations made by the Expert Panel on Commercialization. They're publicly available, and we endorse most of them.

Finance committee  It is clear that if a country is going to succeed, it is going to have to succeed on the basis of its brain power and its productivity and innovation, rather than through selling its natural resources. We understand what has to be done. We have to have well-trained people and we

Finance committee  Even at the global level, if you look at the investment in research and development in Canada as a proportion of gross national product, we're running at around 2% and decreasing. We reached a peak in 2001, I think, whereas countries like Sweden and our competitors are up at arou

Finance committee  Actually, Canada has invested heavily to increase university research and development, and we are doing well there. The problem is with the private sector. If you compare Canada to its competitors, the proportion of research and development in the private sector is far lower than

Finance committee  I'll just finish then. Our program is weak and dispersed. We need strong participation to access resources, expertise, and infrastructure that would be available for our scientists and engineers. We need timely decisions in order for Canada to play a leading role in these initi

Finance committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and members. The Partnership Group for Science and Engineering is an association of more than 25 professional and scientific organizations reflecting a diversity of science and technology interests in Canada. I represent one of those, the Canadi