Thank you for coming before this committee, Mr. Meredith. I think you'll find it a lot more welcoming than other committees you might have come before.
I've been watching Growing Forward 2. I read the Saint Andrews statement. I'm aware that in May and June of 2010, at least 400 stakeholders came together for your first phase of discussions on Growing Forward 2. Competitiveness and market growth were emphasized, along with innovation and infrastructure.
One of the key features in my riding is research and innovation. When I read the Saint Andrews statement, I noticed the word “commercialization” was used only once. Frankly, that kind of concerned me. I wrote the minister a letter, and I'm hoping for a response soon, if you could just take that under advisement.
More importantly, last year, in May of 2010, our committee actually made a recommendation--recommendation 3.5--that suggested developing a national commercialization expansion program and creating a national agrotechnology commercialization funding vehicle. The response from the government was that they recognized the value of flow-through shares and other tax-based approaches to improve early-stage capital access to non-revenue producing companies.
You know and I know--we all know around this table--about the lack of seed capital and venture capital in Canada. We heard that, I think, from Dave Smardon from Bioenterprise a year or so ago. It's a theme that has been repeated at this committee in the last number of meetings. I'm wondering the extent to which you have heard the same cry for help so that all our wonderful innovation doesn't go south, as a lot of it does.
In Guelph they're now making wheel wells out of non-food agricultural products for Volkswagens. This is one of many things we could be doing, but people just don't have the money to convert this innovation into jobs.
Can you tell me the degree of the discussion, and what, if anything, might the government be looking at with respect to flow-through shares and other tax-based approaches to incentivize these industries?