Thank you to the member for that question. I’m always happy to stand in this Legislature and talk about the amazing work our intellectual property and research sector is doing.

As the member mentioned, I announced last month that IPON CEO Peter Cowan and board chair Karima Bawa would be hard at work this month laying the groundwork for the agency. Just last week, I invited both Peter and Karima to Queen’s Park to meet with me and update me on the progress they have been making and how our government can better enable their ability to create a meaningful culture shift in the intellectual property community. I’m proud to say that since the announcement, IPON is well under way in making the concept of an Ontario-first and Ontario-driven intellectual property strategy into a reality.

And 2023 will be an incredible year for our research and businesses, and I cannot wait to see how they join the IPON framework to better leverage their work for the benefit of Ontario and taxpayers.

IPON will work with our research and business sectors to create a more robust culture around protecting Ontario-based intellectual property and how to use the economic and societal benefits of the research to fuel further research and economic activity in this province. In short, with IPON we are putting Ontario in the driver’s seat, not only for research ideas but transforming research into new technologies, methodologies and capabilities that will fuel Ontario’s future economic and societal prosperity.