Okay, good. There are some other ideas I haven't addressed.
I would concur with the other presenters on the spread of the R and D funds into the top end of the R and D spectrum versus further down the R and D spectrum of commercialization and development. That's one of the messages I hope would be understood here.
One of the other messages that wasn't mentioned but that should be there in broadening the mindset is the awareness of what programs are out there for a lot of SMEs. We have urban and rural manufacturers. Urban manufacturers in Alberta in Edmonton, Calgary, and Red Deer tend to be fairly well serviced, and they are in the pipeline of information on IRAP and BDC, and so on. However, in rural Alberta a lot of them are not aware of those kinds of programs, frankly. Awareness is one of the challenges.
Another idea that I would commend to the committee is we have to look at different ways of delivering the programs, and different tools. Maybe the tools need to be more through incubators that can deliver certain programs, and also through innovation centres. Recently we did a project in Quesnel, a new agri-food innovation centre, because since 1995 the federal government's pulled out of technology transfer in the agri-food system. It's pulled back quite a bit, and the B.C. government has as well, so the City of Quesnel was looking at how to provide innovation supports in their region. They were looking at a new, small-scale innovation centre.
This kind of strategy of using different tools to deliver programs such as small-scale, rural-based, regional innovation centres is an idea that probably would help get some wind under some of the manufacturers.
Importantly, we need to have a strategy around competitiveness. The other two presenters mentioned this. A number of trade agreements are implemented and the Canadian dollar is favourable for manufacturers, but as we implement trade agreements, that allows others to come into the marketplace. If we're not prepared, if manufacturers are not adapting to conditions and not strengthened and do not have scale and scope to respond to competition, they get hammered and go out of business.
Similarly, we need some way of broadening the succession in smaller-scale manufacturers, putting two or three of them together to work in business networks and to collaborate on jointly owning manufacturing facilities or hiring a marketing person or an accountant or someone like that. We need to look at new ways of delivering services to these small-scale people, because they won't survive otherwise.
I've worked in other countries, and it's instructive that others are doing different things and not staying the same. I think we need to re-examine some of these things. We are delivering programs and they are useful, but manufacturers who want to put their own money on the line and then borrow other money need to have other supports put in place.