I think the strongest predictor of entrepreneurship is if your parent was self-employed—a farmer, an entrepreneur. In Canada, because of the structure of our economy, we don't have as much as some other countries do.
I think there are groups like the Learning Partnership, for example, that try to get in even as early as grade 3 and let kids start their own businesses, even if they're just selling things back and forth to each other. There are all sorts of camps. Waterloo runs them. Ryerson runs them. Many universities run them, where kids can come to school in the summer and work on science projects or entrepreneurial ventures, and so on.
There are informal opportunities that are equally important as saying everyone must have a course in entrepreneurship, as they have in China, but I do think it goes to the fundamental culture. It goes to celebrating entrepreneurs as successful role models.
When I talk about my frustrations, to be perfectly honest, the federal government has been very good to Ryerson in terms of supporting some of our out-of-the-box approaches. What I would say is that the traditional models of funding university research and programming tend not to promote innovation, particularly at the federal level. But also at the federal level, it's important to look at what we say our objectives are and make sure we have the processes in place to realize them.
I think we're moving in the right direction, but we can be doing more.