Thanks, Mr. Chair.
It's great to be following my friend from Platform Calgary. I will start by saying that I echo everything he has to say about the changes to capital gains.
In terms of my own remarks, I want to say thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee, for inviting me here to speak today. It's a pleasure to address you on behalf of TMX Group and the more than 3,000 listed issuers we represent. The vast majority are scale-up companies, like the friend from Platform Calgary I was just talking about. An underappreciated fact about our capital market is that it's a small and mid-capital market. Most of the public companies in Canada are actually SMEs.
For those who may not know, TMX Group is a leading Canadian financial market infrastructure provider. We operate diverse businesses, spanning information technology, equity, fixed income, derivatives and energy markets.
At the centre of everything we do is our commitment to make markets better and empower bold ideas. This guides our advocacy efforts as we strive to contribute to a thriving and resilient Canadian economy.
As operators of critical market infrastructure, including the Toronto Stock Exchange and the TSX Venture Exchange, we facilitate the flow of capital that fuels innovation, job creation and economic growth across the country. Recognizing the important role government policy plays in shaping the investment landscape, we are actively engaged with policy-makers to promote measures that support the long-term success of Canadian businesses, investors and workers.
My submission today reflects this commitment. I'm pleased to provide these remarks and answer any questions you may have.
Our pre-budget submission—which I hope most of you have had a chance to read—enumerated a whole suite of measures and recommendations. Today I'm going to focus on three of them. Really, you can think of this thematically as one ask or one proposal: Create tax policy that incentivizes investment in Canadian companies. Specifically, I'm going to talk about our flagship R and D program.
The scientific research and experimental development program allows access to the most generous part of that credit for Canadian public companies. I'll echo a bit of what my friend had to say about the changes to the Canadian capital gains inclusion rate, specifically for Canadian companies. If I have time, I'll talk a little about the mineral exploration tax credit that supports our junior mining ecosystem.
In terms of the R and D program—the SR and ED program, as it's commonly known—we've been a vocal advocate of this for years. We're hoping to get reform for this program. I want to commend the government for the very meaningful engagement process we've been involved in over the last number of years.
There have been two formal consultations. Who knows if we'll see something soon? However, I know it's something the government takes seriously, and so do we. The basic idea here is that the most generous part of this tax credit is not available to small Canadian public companies—the kinds of scale-up innovators my friend was just talking about in the previous submission. Our ask here is simple: All Canadian companies doing R and D in Canada should have equal access to SR and ED.
The second recommendation I'll talk about today has to do with the increase to the capital gains tax. What I would say here is that not all capital gains are created equal. If we are looking at measures that will drive investment and growth in companies, it's important to note that companies that need capital to innovate, grow and employ people are facing a very difficult capital-raising environment right now. This tax increase is another point of friction. We recommend repealing the increase to the capital gains inclusion rate on Canadian-based investments and Canadian companies that drive growth and productivity in our economy.
Do I still have time?