Yes, it is. I have a contact that does consulting for one of the big accounting firms. SR&ED credits are their bread and butter. A large part of his job is to figure out how to get more companies to qualify as doing R&D.

Doing R&D to bake better bread? Check! Trying to make a better newsletter online? Check! (Not kidding!)

Look for your local SR&ED consultants and see if you can get a map of where they are located. Then tell me this program isn't a huge waste of money. There are a lot of people employed in the job of making companies look like they are innovative...

Don't even get me started on these tech hubs. Yes, they are important but they have a vested interest in getting companies through them. To date, there are very few statistics on dollar value invested and actual returns. i.e. there is no hard data supporting these hubs aside from anecdotal evidence. Lots of public money gets invested in them though.