Mr. Speaker, five years ago for the first time, through “Catching Tomorrow's Wave”, a $300 million fund was established for Atlantic Canadian businesses and universities to try to catch up with the R and D initiatives that were available to the rest of the country, particularly in central Canada, and to a lesser extent in western Canada. Still western Canada was way ahead in the R and D funds available as compared to Atlantic Canada.
Because that fund was so successful and the uptake was enthusiastically applied for, the fund was really too small to address the appetite of the universities and entrepreneurs in order to do what they wanted to do in the area of research and development and commercialization of that. This fund, as with all the other economic initiatives, necessitates the passing of this budget on Thursday. We look forward to all Atlantic Canadian MPs on both sides of the House supporting this budget.