Transport committee  I simply don't know. One has to say that industry—I'm sorry.

Transport committee  It's but a term of endearment.

Transport committee  The aircraft manufacturing industry as far as airliners are concerned—we'll leave aside the military side—is a mature industry. The idea that you can have massive increases or decreases in fuel consumption is difficult. If it were a new industry, no. If you look at an airliner of

Transport committee  At the end of the day, the industry is making a genuine investment that tends to increase over time. In the beginning, it was zero. Then, the industry recognizes the size of a project and the time it takes to build an aircraft, and the industry becomes more involved, even though

Transport committee  It all depends on the industry. Take aerospace, for example, where you have engines, electronics and planes. That is a sector that can do basic research. Look at Bombardier. In terms of its planes, the basic research can involve materials. In the case of certain alloys or metals

Transport committee  I am no expert, but I do know that there is a lot going in that field, although not necessarily in Canada. In terms of biofuel research, I believe Nova Scotia is doing work on algae, in partnership with the National Research Council of Canada. With respect to land biofuels, the

Transport committee  If I may be allowed to give a little background here, before the First World War, you had small aircraft industries, especially in Europe and the United States, because you had the military market. You had sportsmen pilots who bought airplanes, but they bought one or two. There m

Transport committee  If I may, there were a lot of people who worked on airplanes before the First World War. You had a number of them. There were probably hundreds of them. The Wrights happened to be the ones who got it—and it's wonderful, although one has to.... Being very innovative, they got it r

Transport committee  I could not say. There are investments in research. For instance, the National Research Council of Canada provides government equipment. There are also investments as far as tools go, meaning assistance is provided so an industry can develop its potential. Investment in the area

Transport committee  I'm not familiar with things like that, but there might be certain countries where you have policies like that. As far as Canada is concerned, we might be more laissez-faire because Bombardier has been doing rather well so they might be sort of left to do their own things. Prat

Transport committee  It was tested here. It was developed in part by Canadians but I do believe it might have been made in the United States. The group is certainly Canadian-American. Yes, it certainly has strong Canadian—

Transport committee  Yes—

Transport committee  We're also realizing that there's a market there to buy the turboprop, the propellor-driven aircraft, to fill that market, but having a jet, no one has thought about it, but let's try that. They have already had the Challenger, which served as a basis for the regional jet, so the

Transport committee  If you look at the past of the aerospace industry, you had companies, any company—let's take Boeing, for example, during the Second World War. You have aircraft manufacturers, but lots of the components of the aircraft—the landing gear, the engines, the instruments, the navigatio

Transport committee  Being more of an historian than an economist, I might have problems with that one. In the industry, Pratt & Whitney Canada, for example, have very close relationships with their customers. They're very attuned to what the customer wants, and that can be the airline or the ai