There were other business-related incentive tidbits in the federal budget
By Terry Lavineway
While last week’s federal budget contained widely anticipated changes to the Scientific Research and Experimental Development (SR&ED) tax credit, it also contained many other aspects of funding and incentives to encourage innovation and commercialization.
$400 million to help increase private sector investments in early-stage risk capital, and to support the creation of large-scale venture capital funds led by the private sector.
The government recognizes that access to capital for small and medium-sized businesses in Canada is both critical for growth and difficult to find. The venture capital and angel investor industries in Canada have been inconsistent for many years for many valid reasons. This budget commits $400 million to help address this problem. At the time of the budget, the government was not clear how, where or when to deploy this capital to incentivize private sector investments, other than to allocate $100 million for Business Development Bank of Canada venture capital activities. Certainly this amount of money is worth tracking to see how it will be deployed to help companies in need achieve their growth objectives.
