Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In fact we have to seek consent from the people who received the loans to disclose the amounts. For those companies who have signed such consent, I would be prepared to provide that information to Members fairly quickly. The Member asked why we should not

make this sort of information public and I would say that what you have with an immigrant investor program are a number of people who, as a condition of immigration to Canada, are required to invest their money in businesses in Canada. As such they expect to be treated as any other investors in business. This means that typically they are not identified publicly as investors. The people who are borrowing the monies are doing so just like going to a bank.

Again, if we are in competition with the banks, which in fact the Aurora Fund is, unless you are offering some advantage to companies why would they come and borrow money from you? When this program was started there was an expectation that bank rates would probably rise, and through the Aurora Fund we would be able to offer investors a preferred rate of interest which might attract people to use these monies in the north for businesses that could not otherwise get bank financing. In fact, as Members well know, interest rates have not increased in the past couple of years and in fact, the rates that the Aurora Fund offers its monies are very close to bank rates. There is not much of an advantage in a business coming to the Aurora Fund and asking for funds over that of going to the bank. Since there is no preference, there are companies that say why would I bother to borrow money from a fund which has obviously become a political target. That is the situation in which we find ourselves at present. As I said, Mr. Chairman, I would be quite happy to provide Members with a listing of the loans and the amounts for those companies, which have signed waivers.