Mr. Belzile, you mentioned something in your presentation about the risk and the de-risk in the adoption of new technology on the environmental side. I guess your idea can be extended to clean tech and other areas, as well.
You suggest the government should stay away from providing funding. For many start-up companies and for many innovative technology companies, they're just at the beginning, so without funding from the government—federal, provincial, or whatever—they cannot go anywhere. They cannot even survive.
I believe it is the obligation of the government to support new innovations or new technologies. At the same time, though, the government does not want to waste money, because it only wants to support or fund the projects that have potential, or will bring benefits to Canadians in the future. It doesn't want to waste money and, more importantly, it doesn't want to waste time, because a few years of time means a lot in maintaining our leading edge in global competition.
I asked a similar question before, but I did not get a good answer. I hope I can get a good answer from you, even though you think the government should stay away. If the government has to provide support or funding, in your opinion, where can the government get the expertise to evaluate or validate those proposals from industry to make sure it is doing the right thing?