The average you cited, as a percentage of the gross domestic product, is the sum of both governmental and private sector efforts. That is why we are in the middle of the pack.
But if you consider government investments in research and development, you see that Canada is performing at Olympic level, we are in the three or four top countries. The country's performance comes down because private sector investment is modest compared to what goes on elsewhere.
So we asked an independent group, the Council of Canadian Academies, to look into why this is the case, to study the matter in depth and, once and for all, to find out why the private sector in Canada invests comparatively much less than other countries.
You also asked if the investments provide us with anything: is investment worth the trouble? First, investments need time to pay off; we cannot expect immediate results from attracting great minds to university chairs, from awarding scholarships and so on. It takes time before it all starts to work.
Yet we no longer talk about a brain drain, about bright people leaving the country, because we now have interesting challenges for them. We are going to continue to see benefits in the years to come, but it is a constant challenge, a daily challenge.