Science and Research committee  I will answer in two parts. Firstly, you asked whether the work done by universities is important: I can tell you that it is vital. Universities do excellent work in agri-food research and innovation. We absolutely support their funding requests for research infrastructure. It i

Science and Research committee  That can be achieved by funding the centres, the business incubators and the organizations that support the connections between universities, research centres, entrepreneurs, farmers and organizations. Business incubators do superb work and it would be excellent to help them out

Science and Research committee  Thank you. I certainly won’t say that the program isn’t a good one. It certainly has a good purpose. So it’s a good thing, yes. I’m going to go back to what I was saying about the proliferation of programs that are spreading in all directions, and the industry’s concerns about

Science and Research committee  I believe you misunderstood me, Mr. Lauzon. What I said is that when we asked a senior government official if he had data to show us how much money the government was investing in agri-food research and innovation programs, the answer was no. We were told he'd had access to the

Science and Research committee  No, that was not the case...

Science and Research committee  I will look further into it, but this was not a matter of what data the official had when I inquired. The answer I received was that they no longer had those metrics.

Science and Research committee  They said they used to have that information. To be clear, I asked the question, “Do you know how much money in total you're spending on agri-food research and innovation?” The answer was that they used to have that information; they don't have it anymore.

Science and Research committee  I provided a statement. It was said verbally.

Science and Research committee  To me it's very concerning. It is very concerning to the sector as well. It speaks to a broader issue. It speaks to the fact that there is no coordination. You have a multiplicity of programs, and people are creating new programs and more programs, and that seems to be the value

Science and Research committee  It is crucial. It is going to enable producers to have significant improvements on their farms. We've invested in research. We've gone through I don't know how many regulatory hoops and legislation. We've brought in regulations. Everybody said, “Okay, we're finally there”, and th

Science and Research committee  I don't have the exact number, but I can tell you that it's been way too long. I think it has maybe been four or five.

Science and Research committee  Maybe.

Science and Research committee  It is a challenge. Ultimately the federal government shouldn't be in charge of the commercialization of IP. It should help research and researchers, but ultimately at some point it should hand that to the private sector to move ahead. The federal government has done great work a

Science and Research committee  It absolutely is. I think there's much more of a continuum now where the private sector is able to move in and support the protection of IP. My colleague at the table talked about it not being a bad thing if IP gets bought—and I fully agree—as long as the benefits go back to Can

Science and Research committee  Thank you for that. I'll send a list to the committee later on, but there are a couple of things. We've talked about funding. There have been discussions about funding and a new corporation that's being developed. That's great. In the agri-food research and innovation sector,