[mmastrac]

As a Canadian, I'd prefer it if the government took the entire SR&ED budget and put it into an early/mid-stage venture fund like VCAP: http://www.actionplan.gc.ca/en/initiative/venture-capital-ac...

I've seen SR&ED abused at companies I've worked at, and on the flip-side I've seen claims that should qualify as R&D get denied.

By investing in startups (doing some due-diligence up front as any venture fund would), we can increase the amount of R&D in Canada while simultaneously reducing the operational cost of running it dramatically.

Big companies can take advantage of this program by acquiring earlier-stage startups in their field.

[_delirium]

Since only a small percentage of startups are doing significant R&D, that seems likely to just direct money towards general business development, the majority of which ends up being "business model innovation" combined with straightforward web development, vs. science/engineering innovation. Granted, that may not be much worse than the status quo if it's currently funding a ton of non-R&D things anyway, but it doesn't seem likely to really stimulate R&D, either.