Here's the problem. We supported SIF. We worked really closely with Minister Bains and his office. It's a great program, except it takes forever to get money out of it.
When you're talking about short-term emergency situations like we are in today, we need immediate relief, not something that might happen in 18 months or two years, and I use the word “might”. Since that program was announced, we have heard of very many successful companies that have gone through it. It takes them a year and a half or so, but we've also heard of companies that have gone through the year and a half and were then denied at the end of that year and a half. It's not going to work.
That's why we like things that are right in the tax measures. Don't make them granting programs where companies have to apply for certain things. Make it more outcome-based: if you invest, you get x. Clean, simple, small companies, large companies, everyone can apply for that just through the tax code. It is way easier, and it is not some bureaucrat who doesn't understand the industry or the pain they're going through who's making the ultimate decision, which tends to be what happens under a lot of these programs.
Again, those programs are great but not for this type of situation .