Mr. Chair, the question of how the Canada Innovation Corporation would work was the subject of a blueprint issued by the government some time ago to explain its goals and its objectives of providing a continuum of support to innovators and entrepreneurs. It would, according to that blueprint, provide support from the earlier stage to later stages, at which more significant funding might be involved, in terms of particular technologies, particular risks, things that are hard to get up off the ground, and for which public support would be warranted.
The purpose of the company, the Crown corporation, would be to provide a continuum of support to those innovators and entrepreneurs. Bringing SDTC into NRC IRAP would be sort of a first stage of that system, within which we would start at the early stage, create a relationship with the company and provide support through the regular IRAP, but also be able to work with them later on so that they became sustainable businesses as they grew and the challenges were increased as those firms were scaled up.