One of the main reasons the government would have to invest in research can be illustrated by this story. When I started my master's, about 12 years ago, I was very discouraged because I could not see when the results of my work would translate into reality. I told myself that in the end, I was doing this for nothing. This was 12 years ago, which is not such a long time. Now, I have become a professor. My master's degree students are doing their work, and the following year, governments or companies—regardless of where this applies—are testing their work on the front-lines. It is very encouraging, because this means that we are moving very quickly from research to applications on the ground. It is worth doing.
In my presentation, I talked about the countries we consider as our competitors. This means that they believe things are going better for us and they invest three, four, five or six times more in research and development than Canada does. That is perhaps in part what explains their success. It is a good thing to invest money in older workers. That allows communities and aboriginals to recover. We must continue along that path, but we must not neglect the research that often is behind all of that and that provides short-, medium and long-term solutions.