The I-CAN group of partners brings basically a special, unique infrastructure that is very large-scale, very industrially oriented, quite unique, and not duplicated elsewhere in the country. The challenge is that it isn't recognized as a national resource; it tends to be recognized either as a provincial or a regional resource.
The first and most important thing would be to have the federal government acknowledge that this is an important part of our innovation system and allow us to participate in the national scheme. In that respect, if this committee were, for example, to support the idea of some modest funding, perhaps $1 million over three years, or something like that to help us knit this capability together, that would be very helpful.
The second thing is that by our nature we're currently ineligible for many of the federal programs that support the R and D system--the CFI, Sustainable Development Technology Canada, NSERC, and so on. The eligibility to be able to bring some of that support a little downstream would be very helpful.
I was listening to my colleague talking from Flexxaire's point of view. For example, there are programs that I know are being looked at--both TPC and IRAP--where I-CAN might in fact become a very useful partner or even a manager for that program, to help get it a little further downstream and more effective in helping companies.