I think this sentiment around competitiveness and ensuring that we are not only maintaining Canadian companies, but also maintaining Canadian talent to feed into those incredible companies has been a topic of conversation for quite some time, before my time at Startup Canada. I think we are constantly losing incredible founders because of the environment and the perception of comfort with risk in Canada and the supports that I think a lot of founders perceive that we may not have.
To my point earlier, I think that access to capital is actually the challenge. It's not that there isn't money to access or support. To ensure that we have incredible businesses that are staying in Canada and growing and that we have more exits stay in Canada.... I'm sure that the capital gains tax will impact that, especially when we see our southern neighbour's very—I don't want to use the word "positive"—appealing tax environments.
I do think it's an important variable, but we need to be very serious if we want to be competitive and really wave our Canadian flag proudly internationally. We need to be looking at why so many Canadian companies are going to the U.S. and shifting from Waterloo to Silicon Valley and beyond.