It will be Mr. Christou for now.
We would just like to introduce ourselves. We're from Swirltex, an Edmonton-based filtration company, and we should just get right to it.
Our story is quite an interesting one. I quit my job as managing director of a major membrane firm and invented a technology in my garage, famously, in northwest Edmonton. We got international attention when I was able to use that technology at the Concordia international research centre in Antarctica. So we were very successful with that application.
I will just give you guys a quick brief on how the technology works. Originally it was designed for oil-water separation, in which there's a membrane tube, and all we do is spin that liquid within the tube. That channels the oil to the centre of the tube so that the clean water can go through. It's a pretty simple policy, but beyond that, we've done buoyancy-based membrane filtration. We can manipulate the buoyancy of those contaminants so they go to the centre of the tube.
It's been getting a lot of international attention. We've been featured in Bloomberg magazine. There's been a lot of attention overseas as well.
What we've really concentrated on as a company is health, safety, environment, and community. Right now the main application for our technology involves wastewater lagoons. We get into a service contract with a community so it doesn't have to invest in capital to upgrade its lagoon, especially in remote communities. We take the water from that lagoon and upgrade it to reusable quality. That provides economic opportunities in a real-world environment for that water. Before, that water would just get discharged into the bush where it had no value to that community. It was a wastewater product.
Now we have created economic opportunity through the sale of that water or the reuse of that water, which before had no value to that community.
Definitely in Alberta, it's a prime example of how a green technology can create jobs, especially in a rural setting.
We have found, especially in de-risking what we do, that it isn't about what we do, but about how we do it. For instance, in your classic infrastructure, you buy that infrastructure, you operate it for awhile, and there are problems with it. Using different business models—for instance, a service-type model or a utility model—really de-risks that industry. For instance, for first nations communities, a lot of infrastructure money goes into the community and there's a past history of these technologies not working properly and the government's being stuck with the bill. If they changed that to a utility or service-type model under which they would pay for what they used, it would really change the aspect. It would put it on the technology provider to make sure there's training, application, and maintenance of that technology. If that technology were not working, they wouldn't get paid. It's called cost per cube—the cost per cubic metre—and it's really changing the way to get infrastructure into these remote areas where it's up to the technology's provider to make sure the technology does what it says it does. Technology providers who are able to make joint ventures with the first nations, who really find end-users for the water, are the ones whose model will be more effective.
The best way to de-risk a lot of what we do and really push the technology is to take a common sense approach. One example, and especially in Alberta, involves the reuse of water. We can take one example of this from the remote camp industry. In the remote camp industry right now, they have to haul water in and truck the waste water out. If they were allowed to reuse even a portion of that water in the camp just to flush the toilets—we don't need drinking water to flush toilets—it would save the industry millions and millions of dollars per year and keep a lot of trucks off the road. But because of the bureaucracy behind it, we have to use potable water to flush toilets right now. This process has been ongoing for 10 years or more, whereas if were to say let's start five or six projects and try it out.... As soon as that water goes in your toilet, it's not clean water. We can get it to an extremely high purity. If we adopted that business policy even in Alberta alone, never mind in northern Ontario, etc., it would save millions of dollars in budgets.
Different jurisdictions have been really successful with different applications. One is Alberta Innovates. We've been involved with Alberta Innovates from the very beginning, in everything from the concept of the technology to the coaching and the networking to the main management of what we do.
It's one thing to have an idea for technology; it's another to make sure that you are putting it in front of the right people. We got help from the beginning to make sure this was a success, unlike in other federal jurisdictions, where you just apply and you are not assigned anybody to help you out through this process. Not everybody who is an inventor comes from a larger company and has the skill level to really make the technology successful, so it's very important that we look at other business models and what has been successful. Where we've come into play, we've definitely had a lot of international attention.
One other jurisdiction that has a different model that has been very successful at pushing innovation is Scotland, with its hydro nation initiative. In Canada, there are dozens and dozens of grants I can apply for. It's mind-boggling. There are different ways to apply for them. You might qualify for some or you might not. In Scotland, I was assigned one government appointee. I would tell him what I wanted to do with the technology, and he would decide what grants I qualified for. That's a very different approach, very easy to navigate, and it's very easy to get into that market. It's a very good way to attract other technologies to that market, as well.
Two government agencies that have been instrumental when it comes to getting funding are Sustainable Development Technology Canada and the National Research Council. Some of the government programs are better for the networking aspect, and others are good for getting the grant funding for your pilots. Without that grant funding for your pilots, it is extremely hard to prove your concept and how it works.
For the smaller companies, some of these grant processes can be just a killer. It's hard for a small company, from the conception, to go for a larger federal grant. You're not going to get the grant unless you hire a grant writer, which can be extremely expensive. Even if you are applying only for, say, $400,000, there is no difference between the $400,000 project and $20-million project. The amount of paperwork is the same for all of it. It really depends where you are as a company, but only the larger companies can afford to go through that process. The smaller innovators are left out of that process because it is far too intensive.
Some of the things we would suggest, especially to the natural resources sector is that although the grant system is important for helping out innovators, it is very paperwork-intensive. It's so intensive that we get to the point where it's almost not worth it. I'll give you an example of what we are going through right now. We applied for one grant that was both provincially and federally funded. The grant process has been going on for about a year and a half now. We've qualified provincially, and the province is willing to give us the money, but we haven't qualified federally yet. It's the same program and the same application, but two different systems altogether. We are now at the point where we might move ahead with that grant without the federal government, and just go with the provincial government's funding. When the system happens like that, there is really something wrong. If it's one system, one way of showing it would be to have a joined-hand process, and not “You qualify for it provincially, but federally we're pulling out.” That's not a good story to tell in Canada.
As for the different business models, as I explained, put it on the utility model so that the government doesn't actually have to pay for that infrastructure. It's put into the free market to have the utility providers or the technology providers bid on it on a per-user basis. It's up to the technology providers to make sure they can work with first nations or get local people to work at that plant, and to make sure that the technology they are providing works the way they say it works. If it does, it will be profitable. If it doesn't, guess what? The next person comes in.
Another aspect of it, just from travelling around and seeing some of the other government programs, is that the committee should really look at other countries and how they approach innovation and the grant process. Scotland is one of the most interesting countries in how it has approached innovation. It's a very oil-rich country, but it has been groundbreaking, especially with the hydro nation initiative and how they implement it, saying, “Yes, we want green technologies in this country, and we want to be industry leaders in the green technology.”
Our last suggestion is on the grant process. Quitting your job and starting a green technology is a hard process, to say the least. We have to make sure that we have the right programs in place for a lot of the little guys and not just the bigger innovators.
Right now the grant system is really geared for the people who can afford to do it. If you're innovating, and no matter how small or big you think it is, you cannot afford a $40,000 grant-writer and take a year and a half for a $400,000 grant. If that's the system you guys keep, there's something really wrong with that system. We need to make it easier to access those funds. Keep that system for the $20 million projects, because you need those checks and balances in place, but we can't have the same checks and balances for the $200,000 project as we have for the $20 million projects. It's not worth it.
Thank you.