I think there are a few things in terms of all of the performance indicators. I think that we've heard today, for example, that BDC has a lot of information about the companies that are being invested in, what they're doing, and how they're how tracking, and Industry as well is tracking quite a bit of information.
I think our concern mostly is about what information you have as a parliamentarian. This is $400 million that the government has put into these funds of funds. As has been described, that $400 million is not an expense, so it did not affect the government's deficit one cent at the time it was made because it's considered to be an asset. So BDC has to track very carefully to make sure that the asset continues to be worth $400 million, and it tracks a lot of information. I get a bit concerned, as I said earlier, that a lot of what we keep hearing about is $1.35 billion committed and all of that. This is for you as parliamentarians to decide, but I don't think there's really a lot of information about how much of this money has actually gotten into the hands of the companies, and I think that information was part of the report released yesterday, how much has actually gotten into the hands of the companies.
But we still don't really know, sort of, who those companies are. We don't really know what progress they're making. There's some categorization between whether they're a seed company or various different levels. What we were trying to point out is that it's not an issue of the information doesn't exist; in fact, the information does exist. It's more an issue of, okay it's $400 million that the federal government has put into this investment, and it's being monitored and it's being watched by BDC and the other departments, but is there a certain amount of information at the public level that you as parliamentarians should be receiving so that you understand exactly where this money is going and what it's being used for? I think that's really what we were pointing out.
When we looked at things like what was going on in other countries, what academics were recommending, and that type of thing, it was all those types of possible public indicators to help give you, as the people who oversee everything, some information about progress being made, and it's not just the importance of building the ecosystem of fund managers, but fundamentally, to the extent that the companies are going to be successful, that's probably the number one key.
This is $400 million, but based on the report yesterday, that $400 million hasn't all yet gone into individual companies. I think it's just important that you understand all of those parameters of what this program is about.