Canada can’t own the future if Canadians don’t get a chance to finance it.
Canada produces extraordinary founders, engineers, researchers and technology. But too many Canadian startups hit the same wall early: capital.
We’re asking Parliament to test a very Canadian solution: extend the Flow-Through Share principle to qualifying technology startups and give more Canadians a reason to put their own private risk capital behind Canadian innovation.
By the time we worry about the company leaving, the important financing decisions may already be years behind us.
The first serious cheque rarely arrives alone. It brings investors, advisers, board members, networks and the relationships that often lead to the next round.
Canadian seed rounds are reported to be about 40% smaller than comparable U.S. rounds.
Canadian seed rounds are reported to take more than five months longer to close.
Estimated cumulative pre-seed, seed and Series A funding gap over five years.
Source: NACO / Startup Genome research cited in the 2026 Pre-Budget Submission.
Let Canadians decide where their own capital goes.
This isn’t another government venture fund.
Government defines the eligibility rules and tax guardrails. Canadian private investors decide which qualifying startups deserve their money.
Entrepreneurs still have to earn the investment. Investors still take the risk. If a company succeeds, those investors can participate in the upside.
Government sets the rules.
Objective eligibility, Canadian economic substance, SR&ED coordination and anti-avoidance safeguards.
Canadians put up the capital.
Private investors choose whether to invest and which qualifying companies they are prepared to back.
Canada measures the result.
Additional private capital, commercialization, jobs, R&D, follow-on financing and Canadian ownership.
We tell Canadians to Buy Canadian. We tell entrepreneurs to Build Canadian.
But there’s another question we don’t ask nearly enough.
Canada’s economic future won’t be determined only by what we buy. It will also be determined by what we build — and who participates in the ownership and upside.
517 U.S.-based technology companies. Canadian-connected founders. About US$414 billion raised.
That does not prove why those founders chose the United States.
The report doesn’t claim it does. Individual motives are different and often unknowable.
What the number does show is the scale of Canadian-developed entrepreneurial capacity operating inside the U.S. capital ecosystem — and why the location of company-building activity deserves serious attention.
What if more of the next generation had a better chance to build here first?
20 pages. One proposal. One very Canadian question.
Why shouldn’t Canadians have a better opportunity to back Canadian innovation?
- The early-stage financing problem.
- The proposed three-year FTS-Tech pilot.
- How Canada can mobilize private capital without government selecting companies.
- Thirty years of UK evidence using investor-side incentives for innovative companies.
- The Canadian ownership argument.
- A transparent stress test of the downstream economic stakes.
Read it. Challenge it. Decide for yourself.
Don’t just agree. Be counted.
If you think Canada should test a better way to bring Canadian private capital into Canadian technology startups, add your voice.
We’re asking Parliament for a capped, measurable three-year pilot. Not forever. Not a blank cheque. A test.
READ IT. CHALLENGE IT. DECIDE FOR YOURSELF.
Then, if you agree, add your voice.
BUY CANADIAN. BUILD CANADIAN. OWN CANADIAN.
