Finance committee  No.

Finance committee  Thank you.

Finance committee  That's a really good question. I would say it's not unique to rentals. I think some of those same challenges often apply to accommodations. It's like that in many jurisdictions where you have a seasonality element. It's often very difficult to get things at the height of the season, whether it's a rental car or a room, but much easier in other periods.

Finance committee  As I mentioned earlier in my remarks, I feel that both in terms of programming and FTEs, we are in good shape. The agency does have the flexibility to adjust how we deliver our programming to focus on areas of opportunity. We always commit our full resources. If the Government of Canada saw fit to increase the agency's budget and ask that we step up our efforts in areas of core responsibility, and that's around innovation, international business development, skills and productivity improvements, you would have my assurance that those resources would be well deployed.

Finance committee  Again I'm a little out of my element here, but I know the gravity-based structures and the FPSO, fixed production storage and offloading, facilities have storage on board, and then the oil is transported to Whiffen Head, which is near Come By Chance in eastern Newfoundland. It is then available for transport or transshipment to whoever the customer would be.

Finance committee  No, it goes by tanker, by ocean vessel.

Finance committee  We have quite a number of companies that are homegrown, and Verafin is a perfect example of that. Just to give you a thumbnail sketch of what they've done, Verafin was actually started by three engineering students, graduates from Memorial's faculty of engineering. The company grew.

Finance committee  I talked a bit about it earlier. Our aquaculture sector shows significant promise, especially salmon aquaculture on the south coast. We have two major operators in that region right now that are salmon producers. We have a third—

Finance committee  They're Canadian-based, but both operate internationally.

Finance committee  We have a third company that has shown quite a bit of interest, a Norwegian-based company that both the province and the Government of Canada have been talking with around the possibility that we'll see significant investment. This is obviously a work in progress but I think it underlines the strength of the aquaculture sector.

Finance committee  What I was alluding to was a potential development in the Flemish Pass. It's a deepwater development. It's at the very early stages. It has potential, we understand, for 300 million to 700 million barrels of oil, but at this stage it's still a prospect and a project under development.

Finance committee  They're the operator, the owner.

Finance committee  As I say, we seek direction from the minister on all projects, but it has not been a significant contributor to the time to complete an evaluation. In all of our projects, we have to conduct due diligence, a business case analysis, an assessment of economic benefits, an assessment of need.

Finance committee  Absolutely, and you're right. I've heard that analogy used a number of times, that we do have two economies: the St. John's census metropolitan area, and the rest of the province. Yes, many of the interventions we undertake are quite different. Many of the challenges that both regions face are quite different.

Finance committee  The standard is 75 business days.