Industry committee  There was some good discussion of this in the context of the last budget, but maybe to paraphrase a little bit on the rationale, the evidence is pretty clear that Canada does a really good job of generating ideas, but there have been difficulties in translating really good ideas and intellectual property into the Canadian business sector.

Industry committee  I might ask one of my colleagues if they have a better answer than I do. We have a great deal of statistical analysis on intellectual property and the ownership of IP. With regard to the member's question, I don't know the answer to that specific one. A colleague might, but I'd certainly be happy to get back with some detail on that space if we have it.

Industry committee  I would just have maybe a general answer to that. There is a formal process that can be triggered to get additional time, and you get put into a formal process, but as a general rule, for any investment that comes across our desk or that is drawn to our attention—and this can be even just intelligence that's gleaned from the press—there is a proactive effort to look at potentially problematic investments.

Industry committee  That would be fine, Mr. Chair. There's no trouble. Certainly, as the deputy minister at ISED, I would hope that we would always strive to make sure there's a return to taxpayers, whether it's a public benefit return or an actual monetary return for the investments made. I'd be very happy to come back to the member with an answer to the question.

Industry committee  I'd be very happy to try to answer the honourable member's question. I would say that we don't administer the program. The responsibility for tax policy is with the finance ministry. It's administered by the CRA. I'm really at a disadvantage. I think that would be probably best directed to them.

Industry committee  Thank you for the question. I would say yes. That is something we look at. The honourable member noted that there are a bunch of different models. Certainly, we're mindful of the strengths and weaknesses of the different models. For example, the strategic innovation fund, which is the biggest fund administered by ISED, can take warrants but generally can't hold equity.

Industry committee  On Mr. Erskine-Smith's question, if you look at, for example, a program that can hold equity, the equity can earn a return and you can use that to reinvest. That's one way of doing it. Another way is to set up a program that has a repayment schedule. The companies are repaying, the money goes to the consolidated revenue fund and that money is then available to the Minister of Finance to determine how to spend it.

Industry committee  Maybe I can give a quick answer to this but widen the lens a little bit. The threshold for going to a full national security review is that something “could” pose a danger—not “would”, but “could”. I want to assure the committee that if we get a clear recommendation from the security and intelligence community that they see a problem, that's going to weigh really heavily on whether a “could” threshold is met.

Industry committee  Yes.

Industry committee  Mr. Chair, let me answer the question. We plan to increase transparency. [Technical difficulty—Editor] an annual report, and we discussed for the first time [Technical difficulty—Editor] national security operations. We include more and more details in our public reports each year.

Industry committee  As I explained, we want to be more transparent. We've tried to make our annual report increasingly transparent. However, we wonder whether it's a good idea to be too transparent about the specifics of each report, because that might give a [Technical difficulty—Editor].

Industry committee  I think that Mr. Labonté could answer this question. Mr. Labonté, do you have any information on that?

Industry committee  Mr. Chair, I don't have the facts right in front of me, but I'm very happy to follow up with a piece of paper to the committee.

Industry committee  I can say that we have an active dialogue with our allies on the issue of critical minerals, in particular with the United States, which would be a very good example of that. Also, we have an active program of work to support the development of supply chains to develop Canada's critical mineral base as a contribution to the work we're doing with allies.

Industry committee  I'm not necessarily privy to the details of the discussions between my officials and my colleagues' officials in other departments with, for example, their American counterparts. I don't personally attend some of these meetings. I'll turn the floor over to Mr. Labonté, because I know that there has been a substantial amount of discussion on the minerals issue.