When Paul Singh speaks, it’s usually a good idea to forget the F-bombs and concentrate on the wisdom and candor of the other 60-percent of his speech.

When he returned to the Atlantic Venture Forum yesterday morning, he set the tone for the discussion for the rest of the day by challenging some of the pillars of the Atlantic Canadian ecosystem, including the availability of government grants and the number of incubators and accelerators.

Singh is the founder of Disruption Corporation in Washington, D.C., which operates the $50 million Crystal Tech Fund. Last year, when he was with 500 Startups, he was the keynote speaker at the AVF. He has a tremendous global perspective because he travels constantly, visiting startup events around the world.

And his cheerfully foul-mouthed oratory Tuesday pulled no punches in telling entrepreneurs to sharpen their game and to realize they can compete with their peers in the U.S.

“I think you guys have a confidence problem,” Singh told local startup founders during a panel discussion. “Canadian founders have to realize they’re just as smart as their counterparts in the U.S.” (I must have a puritanical pen – none of the quotes I jotted down included his expletives.)

He bemoaned the politeness and lack of aggression of the entrepreneurs he meets in Canada, and said there is a huge problem with companies exiting too early in the country.

Singh has heard that Atlantic Canada has become the development shop of Salesforce.com due to the San Francisco giant’s acquisitions in the region. But he said the problem is founders are exiting too early and too cheap. So large American companies are buying startups “for pennies” because our entrepreneurs don’t have the resources or confidence to move through the growth phase.

Canadian venture capitalists and other investors should be looking at ways to let founders remain in business longer, he said. For example, U.S. investors are now doing growth-stage rounds in growing companies that would allow the founders to take money out of the company, improve their lifestyle and continue to grow the company.

Singh also warned that the startup community has to be more aware of the costs of growing businesses. “While it’s true that it’s cheaper than ever to start a startup, it’s also true that it’s never been more expensive to grow a business,” he said. “When you hire people, you have to pay them a market rate.”

His sharpest criticisms were for our dual reliance on incubators and grants.

On incubators and accelerators:  “Most of them misunderstand their goal. Most of them are this Kumbaya  thing rather than weeding out the companies that are failing.”

He said he hates going to accelerator demodays that are celebrations of mediocre companies. On the flip side, he loves going to the Start-up Chile demoday because the organizers announce how many companies started the program and how many graduated, highlight those that fell by the wayside.

On grants: “They’re a great idea but you’ve got a lot of living-dead companies.” He said the government grants let companies survive when they should be allowed to die so their employees can join more productive businesses. “A lot of talent is locked up in things that aren’t going to happen.”

Not everyone agreed with all of Singh’s views. Keynote speaker Dan Park, the Calgary-based Vice-President of Azure Capital said he likes the opportunities for leverage that are offered by so many government programs.

Park’s speech outlined the opportunities for e-commerce in Canada. He noted the market is now dominated by Amazon, which is growing in Canada. That’s a good thing because it will lower shipping rates and develop a greater mindset among Canadian consumers to buy online. That will create opportunities for Canadian entrepreneurs.