--and we are aware of some people who feel that BDC unfairly competes in venture capital. On the other side, we hear especially major funds say, “Thank goodness BDC is there to invest funds in funds, because if they weren't there to make that additional contribution, we'd be short.”
Going forward, I think there is a need to truly look at how to expand those funds. We have had a decrease overall in this country of the availability of venture capital funds. If you look at where the money comes from right now, you'll see that it fundamentally comes from governments. The provincial government in Quebec is quite involved, as they are in Ontario and B.C.
At a certain point it's not right for the state to be taking all the market risks. There has to be a way to get more private capital. I was quite pleased to note that OMERS has established a venture capital division. They haven't allocated a tremendous amount of money to it, but it's a start, and I'll be interested to see if some of the other major pension funds seek to emulate that. Obviously, at the end of the day there has to be a return. Some of the returns on venture capital have not been great in this country, so one has to look at that.
This is one of the areas in the context of the Jenkins panel report that the government has asked them to look at. Because if you're looking at innovation, well, capital formation at the front end has to be analyzed, and we have to determine if there's a better way of doing it. That's one of the chapters in the Jenkins panel report that I'm looking forward to reading.