Well, I'm on the board of the Canadian Venture Capital Association. For the past three years or so, we've been encouraging the federal government to look at additional ways to assist in creating a greater supply of VC. There has been a dearth of VC available to Canadian entrepreneurs over the last number of years.
Mr. Mintz is correct when he says that the returns in the VC industry generally have not been great in Canada over the last number of years. That is not attributed to the labour-sponsored model; that's private funds throughout Canada. That is changing. In our own fund, our rates of return have changed significantly in the last couple of years. I think the labour model is a very effective tool for unleashing private capital. As I said, 15ยข generates $1 in investment. How much more leveraged can you get with that model?
I compliment the federal government for also trying to bolster and introduce new measures through VCAP. But whenever we were involved in talking about other measures the federal government could take, in all of the consultations across the country, we never thought for a moment that the government would remove what we consider to be a very effective program to introduce an untested one. It was announced two years ago, and we still haven't seen a cheque written to an entrepreneur seeking capital.