Agriculture committee  Can I make one comment? I never had a chance to squeeze it in. It will take only a few seconds.

Agriculture committee  Regarding Bill's comment about clinical trials, AFMNet in fact does fund a coordinator for a multi-centred clinical trial facility that's designed to address exactly your concerns. Right now it consists of, I believe, four facilities. They have exactly the same protocols. They're coordinated out of Laval University, and that's another thing that's going to be lost.

Agriculture committee  I agree that it definitely should be done. Enrolment in faculties of agriculture is declining across the country, but I think it is because potential students don't see it as being sexy. They see it as farming when in fact the agrifood industry now is a long way from farming. Somehow, if food, agriculture, agrifood were on the national research priority list, I think that would attract more researchers, more funding, and more businesses to the sector.

Agriculture committee  AFMNet as an entity right now functions both as a facilitator, a trainer of highly qualified people, and as a granting agency. Now, the way I see AFMNet's most important role isn't necessarily as a granting agency, although that is something that is extremely important because of the cutback in NSERC funds, but being able to facilitate the putting together of researchers, bridging that death valley between the laboratory bench and being able to take a product and commercialize it....

Agriculture committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. I am the associate scientific director of AFM Net, which is a national network of centres of excellence. The headquarters are here in Guelph. I happen to be a university professor and researcher at Dalhousie University in Halifax. I'm also the director of the Canadian Institute of Fisheries Technology, which is a non-profit R and D facility supporting local industry in the Maritimes.