This is a very good question.
CICP is something we've obviously looked at, as have all the other SMEs we've been in touch with, as well as the bigger players. We work in the military and public security market, so the major defence contractors are also at play here. I'll just speak from our experience.
As an SME it's very tough to currently compete on the CICP program. It is intended for pre-commercialized and tested applications. The problem we run into is that in order to get to the pre-commercialization stage, you will have performed your R and D, you may have submitted a patent application if you feel there is a need to do so, and you may have gone all the way up to pre-commercialization. But there isn't yet a user grab; there isn't a client pull.
It's very tough for us, as an SME, to be a solution to everyone's problem, so we try to attract a niche market, a subset of clients. The larger players have the ability—because they have already-existing contracts, already-existing deliverables, already-existing services and products that are selling to the majority of their clients—to bring in their R and D innovations and test them out at those clients' sites, whereas we're running up against a wall, unable to bridge that gap as well.
If we can't get our products and services tested at the client base, then there is no real chance for a CICP application—CICP really requires you to have your stuff already tested out—and obviously no real chance for further testing by particular client bases.
As to the tweaks, I just look to our neighbours in the U.S. and at certain programs they've set up, which aren't tailored and geared towards SMEs. Maybe CICP could have a particular tweak such that SMEs might have a base that they could apply against each other across Canada, instead of applying against every single company that exists in Canada.