There will clearly be a fallout. However, do I know what might be done to resolve the problem? That is another matter, but the large companies in our sector create a whole ecosystem of smaller businesses around themselves. As Terry stated, they operate in a collaborative mode. We can talk about collaboration between governments, the education system and the business sector, but in the area of innovation, the big corporations now recognize that they are unable to do everything. They surround themselves with an ecosystem of small companies and these companies, in turn, grow in size. We have Nortel, we have RIM and a few other such corporations. The impact in a given region is extraordinary. When a company such as Nortel is in difficulty, this obviously worries us. These businesses also train people who have experience building and managing large companies operating in other countries. Therefore, through their management and their capabilities, they serve an entire region.
In the past, our industry was perfectly capable of withstanding repercussions, of enduring ups and downs and of redeploying its talent and its people in order for new companies to start up, etc. At present, there is a lack of venture capital. Usually, these people, when there are lay-offs or projects that are abandoned by a company, can leave, strike it out on their own and be very successful. However, that possibility does not exist when there is no venture capital. The negative impact can be very serious.
This is important for us, but our association would be ill-advised to say that help must be provided to one business rather than to another or that a specific solution should be adopted for a given member. The fact is that once a company reaches a certain size, its importance extends way beyond the direct jobs it creates.