Ottawa,
ON, October 31, 2008 - It starts with two paragraphs,
according to Irving Ebert. Canada's Information and Communications
Technology (ICT) sector currently accounts for 600,000 jobs, and $140
billion in revenue, yet Ottawa’s angel and venture capital
investment community believe their newly elected colleagues on
Wellington Street don’t grasp the opportunity offered by
technology innovation.
Speaking on the most recent edition of the OCRIRadio.com tech business
podcast, OCRI President and CEO Jeffrey Dale said, “Our
innovation economy is producing more jobs than the auto sector and the
resource sector combined but we don’t seem to have much focus on
it. Our public policy better pay very close attention to the
challenges.”
One challenge to the innovation economy that requires immediate
attention is a couple of paragraphs in something called “Section
116”, said Irving Ebert, a former Nortel executive who has
invested in 27 Ottawa technology companies within his Purple Angel
investor network. Section 116 is an esoteric part of Canada’s tax
code that makes it unduly difficult for foreign investors to get their
money out of the country once a tech company is bought or goes public.
“This thing has no impact on revenues flowing into the Canadian
treasury,” said Ebert on OCRIRadio.com. But it does stop many
high tech investors cold at our border, and causes Ottawa companies to
locate in the U.S. or elsewhere when they grow enough to warrant
venture capital investment. He cited the recent local example of
MODASolutions Corp., an e-payments company that moved out of Ottawa to
relocate in New York.
What difference would such changes make? Israel has no such barriers to
investors, according to Ebert, where the population of the entire
country is less than the population of Ontario, and the amount of
venture capital there is greater than that invested in all of Canada.
With such barriers out of the way and a concerted focus on building the
tech sector, does Canada have what it takes to succeed? Absolutely,
believes venture capitalist Bernie Zeisig, who has just launched a new
Ottawa-based fund called Great Northern Capital concentrating
exclusively on emerging growth-stage technology firms with established
products and revenues of approximately $5 million. “There’s
no question Canada has strong technology – nobody’s going
to question that,” said Zeisig on OCRIRadio.com. But he also
points out Canadian entrepreneurs need to be encouraged to think on a
global scale.
With a quick fix to the tax code and some globally scalable thinking
from the politicians on Wellington Street, the Canadian ICT
sector’s got a lot to look forward to.
OCRIRadio.com is hosted by Jeffrey Dale, President and CEO, OCRI, and
Nathan Rudyk, President of market2world communications inc. The podcast
is produced by market2world. Past guests on OCRIRadio.com include Steve
Ballmer, CEO, Microsoft Andrew Waitman, Managing Partner, Celtic House
Venture Partners and John Chambers, Chairman and CEO of Cisco Systems
Inc.
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About market2world communications inc.
market2world is one of Canada’s most innovative PR and product
launch agencies, where markets are conversations - dynamic global
conversations occurring every minute of every day inside and outside
organizations. market2world puts Web 2.0 tools like blogs, podcasts,
wikis, and vcasts to work so companies and institutions can tap in,
participate, and grow business with social media. For more information
visit "The New Way Things Are" blog at www.market2world.com.
About OCRI
OCRI (Ottawa Centre for Research and
Innovation), the city's economic development corporation, is leading
the way for Ottawa. OCRI is the rallying point to bring business,
education and research together to create the winning economic
conditions that allow Ottawa's technology companies to thrive locally
and compete globally. At OCRI we promote sustainable economic
development to maintain our high quality of life. For more information
on OCRI visit our website at www.ocri.ca and for more information on the Ottawa
Region please visit www.ottawaregion.com.For media inquiries, please
contact:
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Kim Cunningham
Manager, External Communications
kcunningham@ocri.ca
Phone: 1 613 828-6274 x 256
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Nathan Rudyk
President and CEO
market2world communications inc.
nathan@market2world.com
Phone: 1 613 256-3939
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