Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I want to thank our guests for coming today. Often I'm asked who I meet that impresses me the most, and I often answer entrepreneurs. I want to thank you both for taking the risk and having the vision--much more vision than I have, to be perfectly honest with you, on lots of things. It is organizations such as yours that are driving the economy and will make the difference for us in the long run.
I have a couple of questions for you. I appreciate your comments. The recent report on whether we're getting bang for our buck on innovation was mentioned, and it looked at IRAP and SR and ED. It looked at this program, and it looked at the sustainable technology development corporation. It probably doesn't fit into either one of your organizations, but there are models that we are using. At the end of the day, the report said maybe we'd be better off doing more of a direct subsidy to businesses than offering tax credits, because you're not sure what you're going to get, the bang for the buck.
My question for you two, because you are involved, which I've asked of others is this. What do you believe the role should be for the Government of Canada in picking winners and losers in that? Is that a problem or not?
The overall concept of this report--I'm not sure you've had a chance to see it, as I know you're busy doing other things—basically is that maybe we should be moving away from the SR and EDs and the IRAPs, particularly SR and EDs because it's the tax side, to a more direct subsidy, such as sustainable technology development, for which you would need a business plan and we'd help you. We're angel investors, in a sense, to get you to commercialization. I know this is a one-off program, and I want to come back to that, but how do you feel about the Government of Canada being involved in picking winners and losers?
I will start with you, Captain.