Innovation takes time. Innovation is a balance between long-term research activities, technology development, technology maturation, and technology implementation primarily through the private sector. The private sector transforms innovation into products and therefore into dollars, jobs, and better positioning within a marketplace.
In Canada today, we do quite a bit of knowledge development. We rank number one within the G8 countries in supporting higher education. Supporting higher education is supporting long-term research activities. We rank number one in G8 and number two in the OECD. We're demonstrating that Canada is committed to supporting knowledge development and training of HQP. We do that, and we are not bad at all in transforming innovation into products.
If we look at the statistics in Canada, Canadian industry is investing less in R and D than our competitors are. In OECD countries, the proportion of R and D funding coming from industries ranges between 65% and 68%. In Canada it's more like 55%. So already we have a discrepancy compared with the other countries. This is something that we as a country must try to correct. This is something we are partially doing through IRAP. We are supporting SMEs. Larger companies also do this for tax credits or tax incentives.