Science and Research committee  The three granting councils are part of the government; we are at arm's length from the government. We fund the research infrastructure; they fund the people. We provide the infrastructure to institutions, because when you purchase a piece of infrastructure or you build something, an individual researcher can't do that.

Science and Research committee  Absolutely, there are things that we're missing out on, but there are also.... If we told everybody right now, the other countries would jump on it tout de suite. I could provide you with a long list of things that I think we need to develop, but I also believe we will develop them if we give the opportunity to the researchers, and if we provide the basic tools to labs and equipment to researchers, universities and hospitals, people will come together and find those things.

Science and Research committee  First of all, you can ask your nephews to be Canadian recruiters and bring their girlfriends to Canada. There are always areas that we are discovering, just like we're discovering new knowledge, and those areas of discovery are quite often between disciplines. When we bring disciplines together, we get an exchange of different ideas and perspectives.

Science and Research committee  I think we have to make a concerted effort and invest. We need to invest, first of all, in the young researchers so that we have the next generation and the workforce that will bring business and attract economic development. We need to invest in cutting-edge research for the future.

Science and Research committee  That's a really great question. I don't think it's simply looking at technology that doesn't exist where we're going to fill a gap. I think we have to take where we have talent, where we have already developed ability, what coincides with our culture and our ability. There's no point in us developing tropical bananas or something.

Science and Research committee  Good evening. Established 25 years ago to stop the loss of Canadian talent to other countries, the Canada Foundation for Innovation, or CFI, invests in state‑of‑the‑art infrastructure. We thus enable researchers at Canadian universities, colleges and hospitals to think big, innovate and lead.

Finance committee  I just wanted to tell the honourable Ms. O'Connell that helping the Canada Foundation for Innovation helps agriculture as well. Right now, we have more than 328 projects worth $130 million invested in improving agriculture across the country, young people in the labs, and faculty doing research trying to improve the industry.

Finance committee  Thank you for the question. Without the 10,000 projects supported by the foundation in the past 20 years, we wouldn't really be in the same position today. Across Canada, we can see universities, laboratories and communities that have benefited from changes resulting from the foundation's investments.

Finance committee  Thank you. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for inviting me to speak about the Canada Foundation for Innovation and how it contributes to making Canadians more productive and Canadian businesses more competitive. The two questions this committee has posed are crucial to the future of our country, and the two recommendations that we propose for budget 2018 are crucial to ensuring that our future is bright.