The important thing to know is that to enable capital to be deployed, you need to enable it with something. The same thing happened with the Business Development Bank of Canada. When it was first launched, it had tax incentives, it had equity and it had different levers to ensure that capital went out to the community. It had lots of support services, and it had access to an unlimited amount of capital whenever it needed it, because it was the Government of Canada.
We haven't been afforded that same ability to access capital to have business support services meet the needs of what our clients need. To have the levers of enabling that capital to go to the community, the equity program needs to be restored to what it was. Back in the nineties, it was an $80-million program. We're at around $30 million now, so it has been reduced. The value of that money is a lot less than what it used to be, so we have really lost a lot.
We need to return to that level, so we can deploy that capital out to the community and get businesses started, so that indigenous people are part of the prosperity of Canada. Canada wants to get back to being prosperous, and we have to be part of it this time.