In responding to that question, I want to underline a point that Monsieur Dionne Labelle was making when he spoke of the compétences de base minimales when we discuss l'alphabétisme and numeracy. I think this is an important point in light of the question that you just posed as well. Again, I want to underline that I'm absolutely in agreement with Monsieur Robillard and Monsieur Lévesque on the importance, of course, of literacy and numeracy.
It goes without saying that…
these are things that we would like to be pushing close to 100% by whatever mechanism, provincial or federal, that can be used.
But again, as Monsieur Dionne Labelle was indicating, we're speaking of the compétences de base minimales. When we think of the knowledge economy, which is another one of the phrases that is on everyone's lips today, the kinds of enterprises that we think of and which we hope to encourage and develop in a country such as ours, which does have a highly educated workforce, are in general not those that are being created by people with a minimal level of competencies.
This kind of educational investment that we think feeds into this growth in the knowledge economy is really the most highly educated and capable people, and this is a different kind of program. Again, that does not take away from the importance of literacy and numeracy as Monsieur Robillard and Monsieur Lévesque have underlined, but it's another part of the distribution of talents that we're thinking about.
The Canadian government has addressed these things with a number of programs, including the Canada Foundation for Innovation. There are a number of ways in which the creation of a high level of knowledge and skill have been addressed. It's that other part of the distribution, rather than the competénces de base minimales. I can't quite think of how I want to say that in English, but it's a sort of minimal level of skills. That other part of the distribution is critical for this. so I think we should be making sure that our attention is turned to that as well.
As I was saying earlier, economic growth depends upon investment—we all know this—and investment has many forms. Education is one of these forms. Installation of capital is another one. To the extent that we are talking about education, as many people have been implicitly doing here today, I think we need to be sure that we're talking at least in part about the most highly skilled people in the economy, and not only providing the training, but also attracting people of that type to Canada as a place in which to learn, stay, and create enterprises.