Industry committee  SDTC has been the government's principal connection to early-stage companies. You'll find that many of the companies that get entry-stage funding from SDTC go on to grow to successful companies and in fact obtain funding later on, as part of their process of maturation, from prog

Industry committee  If my memory serves, they are grants to the individual companies. In fact, I'm sorry. I'm technically correct: They are forgivable loans.

Industry committee  Sir, I was not aware that there was an active vote by the organization without the recusal of any board member who might benefit.

Industry committee  My purpose at the meeting, sir, was to be a liaison with the department. I was there at the invitation—

Industry committee  Yes, I did, and I continued to attend meetings until early 2023.

Industry committee  I'm sorry, sir, but I'm not sure I understand the specific—

Industry committee  I don't recall a board meeting where there was a specific discussion about an allocation of funds to the Verschuren Centre.

Industry committee  I would have to look at the specific project, sir, to determine what meetings I was attending.

Industry committee  Sir, my understanding is that all members of the board followed a fairly rigid conflict of interest guideline—

Industry committee  To my knowledge, I am not aware of any decisions to allocate funds to projects related to board members where they did not recuse themselves.

Industry committee  Yes, I was at both meetings.

Industry committee  Yes, I was at both of those meetings. Sir, in that particular case, the proposition to extend the COVID payments was made as a blanket proposal across all clients of SDTC who had active contribution agreements. I do not recall the specific discussion on any specific project.

Industry committee  The decision was taken by the board to apply the COVID payment across all active files. To my knowledge, I'm not aware of any payments past the 5%.