Good morning. I am happy to be here in Montreal, the very place where the AUCC was founded. Incidentally, we will be celebrating the 100th anniversary of our association at the end of October.
Looking back, we see a century of growth, vitality and diversity. Looking to the future, we see how crucial education and quality research will be for a prosperous Canada.
Ladies and gentlemen, I really envy you. You've each earned the trust and confidence of voters in your communities, and for the first time in over a decade, you have a four-year mandate to achieve something extraordinary. This is something that members from all sides of the House can do together. It is an opportunity to build a better Canada.
Canada's universities recognize that we are facing a period of intense worldwide uncertainty. Universities are helping Canadians navigate through these challenging times. When the last downturn hit, the government moved quickly to create the knowledge infrastructure program, showing tremendous alignment in federal and provincial cooperation in an area of national priority. It has helped transform campuses across the country. From an idea to an announcement in six weeks and from an announcement to funding decisions in six months, it was an extraordinary event.
Next month, universities across the country will open their doors to showcase the upgraded, expanded and newly built facilities made possible through KIP. It is our way of showing Canadians the lasting value of smart stimulus. There will be more than 59 public events that will demonstrate how KIP is improving the quality of the research and the learning experience of Canadian students. We hope you will join us at those events on campuses across the country next month.
This year, Canada's universities welcomed the largest incoming class ever, because students and their parents recognize the value of a university degree. Through the last downturn, from 2008 to 2010, there were more than 300,000 net new jobs created for those with a university degree, compared to 430,000 jobs lost by those with no post-secondary education. We will need to continue to increase university participation even more to meet the needs of an aging society in which the number of retirees will double while the workforce will grow by just 8%.
Let me now turn to the 2012 budget. We recognize that the recovery remains fragile and that we will need to be flexible in the coming months.
The government is to be commended for sustaining investment in research, even during a downturn. These investments are yielding results for individuals and communities. In the past, this committee has asked me to elaborate on these results. I am pleased to say that today we are releasing new information to all members of Parliament about the value of research to Canada's prosperity.
For next year's budget, we have three major priorities.
The first is in the area of university research. Funding through the three federal granting councils and the Canada Foundation for Innovation not only supports new discoveries, products, and processes but also allows faculty to engage students in hands-on research. That gives students the analytical and innovative skills they need to thrive in today's knowledge-based economy.
The second is to enhance links to the private sector and to build a stronger innovation culture. We need to link university student and faculty more closely with private sector partners to build greater collaboration and networks. What's needed now is a new mechanism to help business engage new talent and to help highly qualified graduates connect with Canadian enterprises, with the help of a new funding mechanism for creating job experiences in the private sector for Master's and Ph.D. graduates.
Finally, we need to improve Canada's educational connectivity to the world. Last year at this committee, I spoke about our interest in India. Last November, Canada's universities committed $4 million of their own resources to promote student mobility and research collaboration with India. And there is more to be done. We are also very pleased that the Prime Minister has announced that the Governor General will lead an AUCC mission to Brazil in the spring of 2012.
Why do I keep coming back to the issue of educational connectivity? It is simply because of scope, scale, and urgency. Brazil has just announced a scholarship program that will send 75,000 of its students abroad. China has increased its enrollment by two million in two years, and India will surpass each of the G-8 countries in research productivity within the life of this government. As a country, we need to be able to seize these opportunities to connect with growing markets, especially when our competitors cannot. That is why our third priority is a significant global research fund, focused on priorities such as Brazil and India, to enable more students and faculty to participate in international collaborative research and to create the links that are essential to prosperity in the years ahead.
In conclusion, we are pleased to see that others have followed our recommendation to improve access to education and set young aboriginal Canadians up for success. This continues to be a burning national issue for us.
We need to make sure that this generation of students is the best educated and prepared to meet the challenges our country is facing. We believe that a research-enriched, globally engaged university experience within a culture of innovation is the best way for Canada to prosper as we navigate through a changing world.
Merci.