This will sound like a self-interested response, but if you look at the problems that regions are having across Canada, I think it's because of a lack of diversification of the economy. There is no greater way to predict success of the economy than to have a highly educated populace. In that respect education itself becomes a strong investment. And while the early levels of education are necessary to get to the later ones, you need an investment at the highest levels.
On your earlier point, if I understood it correctly, when jurisdictions are highly competitive, both with respect to productivity and the direct industrial sector successes that they have, you have a great alignment of a stable, predictable, effective level of government investment in research and higher education and you have a strong industrial investment in R and D at the same time. And they're done in a framed fashion.