Industry committee  First of all, it was scaled back. A number of things were scaled back, including the per cent of the tax credit, but also some of the ways the calculations were done. If that were reversed, that would certainly be quite beneficial to us. That would allow us to invest even more in

Industry committee  It depends which type of program you're looking at. For example, on a capital program, a conditionally repayable loan works out very well. On higher-risk R and D, particularly IRAP's program is geared towards that. They want to be way out there in terms of leading-edge research

Industry committee  I'm sorry?

Industry committee  That is a correct statement.

Industry committee  I think rural Canada provides a tremendous amount of opportunity, particularly on natural resource development. In our case, we're taking what was an undervalued raw material—marine plants that nobody was doing anything with—and turning them into value-added products and exportin

Industry committee  From my point of view, I would look at whatever strategic advantage the rural community has and I would find a way to exploit it. What is there that it can offer and then turn into something for the world?

Industry committee  Well, it's rather interesting. It's kind of the reverse. We're known in our smaller world as being the best in the world. When we bought the company in Ireland—we actually bought it from the Irish government—we said that we would bring our technology to Ireland, and the transfer

Industry committee  Absolutely. It makes us a bigger, stronger company, and we end up hiring more people in Canada.

Industry committee  Negotiating IP agreements with academic and research institutions is about the most painful thing I do in my job.

Industry committee  This is wonderful.

Industry committee  We have 350.

Industry committee  No, about 250-plus are in Canada.

Industry committee  It would be the immigration policy that I talked about, so that I'd be able to hire who I want, when I want—the best in the world. I'd change that one.

Industry committee  I wouldn't put those on a priority list of what would have a significant impact on us.

Industry committee  No. Our opportunities to grow our business are with respect to how much effort we put into international market development. The more I can put resources toward doing that, the bigger we will grow our base and the more value-added products we'll export from Canada.