Finance committee  I would say that it absolutely needs to be improved, and I'll put it within this particular context. As for the regional development authorities across Canada, that process is broken, from our perspective. There is no consistency in terms of what happens in western Canada with Western Economic Diversification Canada, what happens on the east coast to ACOA, and what happens with respect to FedDev.

Finance committee  Yes, absolutely. It's all about being competitive. We deal with companies day in, day out that are looking to either expand their operations here or move their expansion somewhere else. There are companies that are comparing us to other jurisdictions, particularly in the United States, but also internationally.

Finance committee  Absolutely. When we bring a collection of people around the table, it is all those different players talking about talent. It's not about where we are with steady state. It's where we're going to make sure we can identify that pipeline, so it is working with the post-secondaries.

Finance committee  Yes, it is a conundrum. There's no question about that. As an economic development agency, as I previously indicated, we're meeting with companies on a regular basis. Of course, Don's group are members of the most senior companies that are part of the Manitoba business council.

Finance committee  Right now, the numbers that come in from The Conference Board of Canada, which all our counterparts look at—

Finance committee  They do a metropolitan outlook.

Finance committee  A metropolitan outlook basically takes a look at each of the major cities across Canada in terms of their GDP growth. I haven't seen the latest numbers, but I think it's probably tracking at about 1.8%—

Finance committee  —which is less than the provincial average.

Finance committee  Fundamentally, right now, when we take a look at information with respect to the economy, we don't have granular level data at a metropolitan level. Unfortunately, that puts us at a disadvantage, particularly with our competitors in the United States who have very granular information at a metropolitan level.

Finance committee  In terms of growth, we have seen some pretty unprecedented growth with respect to population, in particular. A lot of that is driven specifically by the immigration programs that we have. We don't have a lot of interprovincial migration. It's through immigration and refugees who are coming in and family reunification.

Finance committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I really appreciate having the opportunity to present on behalf of Economic Development Winnipeg. I have some introductory comments and then I'm certainly looking forward to the Q and A sessions during the period of time that we have around the table this morning.