Environment committee  We do.

Environment committee  I do. It's a great question. I do. I think what we have to do is that if we fund accelerators and entrepreneurs, we should be signing agreements with them and saying, “Hey, if you're receiving federal funding, you should be staying in Canada for five years—otherwise, you pay that back.”

Environment committee  I'm going to add one more thing. We have no leadership in Canada for water. There are so many different departments we go to for everything, but we have no department for water. We live for three days without water. It's so important to everything, for example, climate, health, etc.

Environment committee  That's a great question. This is where my recommendation about funding water-tech accelerators like Foresight and AquaAction and some of the other agencies we talked about is, because we de-risk it. There is a lot of risk aversion right now in Canada, whereas if you look at Israel, Israel will adopt 90% of start-ups.

Environment committee  I think that a lot of the innovation that you're seeing develop right now, especially in Quebec in Canada, is about how we use less water and how we regulate it. For example, Quebec just released a report recently about industrial water usage. That's an important transparency measure for us to look at who the water-wasters are and how we reduce that with smart metering.

Environment committee  We don't.

Environment committee  To Heather's point earlier, they just are unable; they block at the pilot phase. A lot of these companies like Patricia's need funds to deploy their technologies, and the municipalities just don't have those funds. This is where we find it stops and they look to adopt their technologies elsewhere.

Environment committee  Absolutely. A lot of the solutions we see emerging in the innovation sector are how to make agriculture more effective. Right now 70% of water usage is by agriculture. We're very cognizant that in Alberta, for example, we have a severe drought. A lot of the solutions our innovators are seeking are on how to use less water.

Environment committee  I think that first of all we need to make sure that there are available grants for them. Right now, even though there are a lot of federal grants from ISED they're not specific for water technologies, as we've said. Two, they also don't have enough clean tax credits—nothing. When we have our U.S. counterparts going to them and saying, “hey, no taxes, so come to Michigan, come to New York”, they're jumping on that.

Environment committee  Okay. I am going to take the opportunity to answer Mr. Deltell's question as well. When it comes to innovation, entrepreneurs run into a lot of obstacles at the municipal level. Patricia Gomez talked to you about that. In our ecosystem, there are at least 80 people who, like her, have solutions.

Environment committee  They belong in every party's platform. Thank you very much. I welcome your questions.

Environment committee  Mr. Chair, and committee members, I'm honoured to join you today on behalf of the Montreal-based water accelerator, AquaAction. AquaAction's recommendations speak to Canada's strategic national interests at the confluence of fresh water and economic security. In our view, these practical and common sense suggestions belong in every party's platform.