Mr. Speaker, the former head of the B.C. Science Council, Haig Farris, has dismissed the federal government's $30 million investment in Ballard Power Systems as political fertilizer that fails to deal with the real problems facing junior technology firms.
Those problems, he said, include a tax regime that makes it difficult if not impossible for young technology firms to attract capital to finance growth, making salaries less attractive than those in the U.S. Additionally, Farris said, Canadian immigration policies make it difficult to recruit top people to manage and grow advanced technology firms. He said the federal loan was political: "The government was just under so much heat to do something out west after giving that money to Bombardier." That is not the solution.
British Columbians and Canadians interested in developing the high technology sector need a tax regime sensitive to their special needs. Such a tax regime would make better use of taxpayers dollars than the present system of politically motivated giveaways that attempts to play one region of the country off against another.