Venture capital is about risks, and I'm not sure I want the government to take on all the risks for these endeavours, but we need to figure out a way to better support these widget builders out there. There are many of them. There are many of them in agriculture and food. There are some great products being developed. Mustard is an example. Saskatchewan is one of the biggest exporters of mustard grains in the world, and we haven't figured out how to bottle it and actually sell it to market in a bottle at five times the price.
We have a project in Gravelbourg now. It's starting slowly, but it's not growing fast enough to build some interesting economies of scale. They need some venture capital in there. How do you get that? Well, I think we need to establish a framework that would allow a partnership between governments--provincial and federal--and industry and perhaps angel investors. There are tons of circles of angel investors across the country, and they aren't talking to each other. People tend to keep their cards close to their vests, and there's a reason for that, but at the same time I think the government should become the broker of all these parties to allow these projects to become reality.