We should certainly focus in the sense of establishing priorities, and there I think the key priorities are policy priorities. The two that stand out for me at the moment are the relationship between democracy and poverty, and the relationship between democracy and violence or conflict internationally. Those are two great areas where I think Canada over a long period of time could focus.
Looking at the history of our own democracy, I think its great strength has been pluralism and diversity. We certainly haven't been singular in building our own democracy. There are many different institutions in our society that contribute to it.
What I've suggested is not that we go to a single institution, but that we recognize now that we have an interest as a country in building a limited number of institutions that have the potential perhaps to be global leaders in certain fields of democratic development. That's what I mean by centres of excellence. I would propose that there be some competitive process of identifying those, equivalent to what goes on with the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, or goes on with the Foundation for Innovation, and so on; that takes a look at the capacity of these institutions, both what they're doing now and what they could do in the future, and says, “Let's concentrate a certain amount of what Canada's doing in a limited number of areas of excellence.”