I'll start off, but I suspect my colleague from small businesses will also want to speak to the subject matter.
Your first point is with respect to diversification. We've seen a sharp decline in commodity prices, and it has exposed our economy. We realize more than ever the importance of diversification. I think Canadians understand that, and different regions of the country understand it. Our government is committed to diversification.
Diversification takes place with the regional development agencies, the RDAs. We focus a lot on diversification in some of the regions. We as a government have made commitments to clean tech. Again, much of the focus through the RDAs on clean tech, for example, is on small businesses, because they're the ones taking the risks. They're the ones coming out with new ideas. We want to make sure they have the opportunity to succeed.
With respect to the innovation agenda, I want to take a step back. What we need to be mindful of when we say innovation is why we are talking about innovation. It's very important to realize that innovation is important to deal with some significant macro-level issues that we face as a country. One is slow growth. It's a challenge we see globally, but in Canada as well. The other is an aging population.
To deal with these macroeconomic challenges, we need good policies domestically to be able to address the issues. Innovation is key.
When we talk about innovation, we want to focus not simply on innovation traditionally through the ICT sector, but on social innovation. This is the basic thing. We want to find solutions to problems. That is a much broader definition.
Keeping this in mind, we've focused on an innovation agenda that was articulated in our budget. It has laid down the groundwork for the comprehensive agenda that's coming forward, but it started to signal very clearly the areas that are priorities for us.
One is the need for enhancing skills and entrepreneurship. It's about making sure we bring the best and brightest from around the world here and that we equip our local citizens to become entrepreneurs, to really create the culture of risk-taking. With innovation, you're not going to get it right the first time or the second time or the third time. You're going to fail a few times. How do we create the entrepreneurial spirit? We raised that as a key point of our innovation agenda.
Secondly, and this is really neat, it's not simply about jobs alone. It's about making sure that we continue to innovate and find new ideas that will create future jobs. Research is so critical. World-leading research is absolutely critical. This is why we made significant investments in the budget for our granting councils and to post-secondary institutions. This is very important for us.
The third one is innovation infrastructure. You want the right people with the right tools in the right environment in the right place.
Of course, the $120-billion historic investment in infrastructure is absolutely essential for those who want to innovate, but specifically the $2-billion investment for post-secondary institutions sends a clear signal that this is an ecosystem we believe in, the kind of arena in which industry and academia and small businesses come together. We really invested significant amounts in that kind of infrastructure.
The last, of course, is supporting a business environment for commercialization and growth. To speak to that point, we invested $800 million on incubators and accelerators. I can tell you right now—I was at Ryerson University, a visiting professor there—the digital media zone is a great example of an incubator in which that magic happens. You have young people, and it's very important that we bet on young people—I think that's critical—who come together and to whom you provide an opportunity to take their ideas to market.
What's neat is that they have a business acumen there: the legal advice, the mentorship, the support system. That's the kind of investment we're making when we talk about incubators and accelerators. We want to invest in these start-ups, we want to invest in young people, we want to be a global hub of innovation, and we want to help them scale up as well. That's where the accelerator part comes in.
These are some of the key areas we mentioned with respect to the innovation agenda that help small businesses in particular and will allow us to diversify. As I said, we have to grow the economy and we have to create jobs.