Access to capital is the number one issue in this country for venture capital spinoffs. It's not confined to small places, but it's most seen in small places. If we had a cure for cancer on a lab bench in this city today, there would be virtually no place to go, storefront-wise, to find it.
We also know there's a relationship between venture capital sources and places where the money is spent. If you put all the coloured-pin dots on the map of Canada where sources of venture capital exist today and show proximity of the deals they do, there's a geographical relationship. So communities like Winnipeg and Saskatoon certainly have deficits.
My comment is that it's the number one issue. It means that patient technologies like biotech, which have long cash trails, long maturities, will drop in favour relative to medical devices, which have shorter times to market. There is no way to raise that money now.
I would encourage mechanisms to incent venture capital pools to be set. They shouldn't be run by the feds; they should be run by the private sector, but there should be mechanisms to incent those things to happen. I know labour-based pools have fallen out of favour, but there are other mechanisms. Tax credits solely are not enough.
We badly, badly need access to those pools, because biotech activity in this country, from coast to coast, has fallen for lack of capital.