To add to that, sometimes there's a perception that there's nothing wrong with our just keeping our population relatively static and happy and unthreatened. I think that view, however, loses the really important nuance of our dependency ratio as our current population ages. In fact, we have a shrinking labour force as a result of it. Bringing in new talent.... You see it from the latest round of Statistics Canada data that just came out: immigration is more important than ever.
I think there is also considerable interesting data, not just in Canada but elsewhere in the world, that immigrants tend to bring a higher degree of entrepreneurial energy into the economy. You see the participation of immigrants in leading and building these new businesses. Speaking to Michael's earlier point, they're not taking jobs away; they're actually job engines. That's another really important part.
Something that we see from a MaRS perspective, which I'm so excited about, is that the diversity of our entrepreneurial talent pool gives us connectivity to markets elsewhere. In particular, as we see more and more newcomers to Canada building businesses for the Chinese market, for the Indian market, for the African market—not just for the U.S., which has been our traditional default—this activity gives us the sort of trading network that's built on immigrants who have relationships in those markets.
There are lots of benefits beyond just the simple math.