A total of 43 percent of PIAC respondents rated this barrier as important (33 percent) or very important (10 percent). Large pension funds gave this barrier greater emphasis (61 percent important/very important).

Survey responses of PIAC members to this barrier were a little surprizing given the strong feedback from pension trustees and managers on this topic during CLMPC interviews in the months prior. In these interviews, a frequently articulated outlook was that extensive pension participation was inhibited by supply influx trends in certain private capital markets and, in particular, in venture financing (i.e., due to labour- sponsored funds and government-directed financial institutions). Also expressed was a concern that current Canadian entrepreneurship was unlikely to produce enough SMEs with credible goals for job-creating expansion in national and international markets.^{Endnote 155}

In contrast, several PIAC respondents to the survey said that the relative quantity and quality of developmental business opportunities in Canada was not a serious impediment. As mentioned under Barrier #9, this may be due to evidence of a larger and more sophisticated stock of Canadian entreprenuers in such regions as the Ottawa Valley, a fact demonstrated by market practitioner Denzil Doyle (Doyletech Corporation) in a genealogy of new business formations there from 1965 to the present.^{Endnote 156} Rather, the problem for pension fiduciaries lies in uncertain methods for precisely and cost-effectively identifying the best opportunities for exponential growth and returns now available in traditional and non-traditional industries and sectors.

A research report by the Federal Reserve System in the United States (1995) was cited earlier for its reference to developing advisory and agency infrastructure in private equity and mezzanine financing markets there. Among the newest professionals, an important category is advisor-agents who collect information from SMEs, highlight good investment prospects to institutional investors or their pools/syndicates and attempt to put deals together (see also Barrier #3). Thus, they perform an essential function in separating wheat from chaff. Specialization of these is also on the increase as some advisor-agents concentrate on firms of a specific size or at a specific stage of development. SME intermediaries also act in service to selected American ETIs.^{Endnote 157}