First, it's a dramatic change in how we communicate. What brought western Europe out of the dark ages into the industrial revolution in the 15th and 16th centuries was the development of the printing press. Other nations had it. China had it. Islam had it. That printing press transformed western Europe into democracies, into people who learn by reading and studying and so on, but it took three centuries for it to reach the majority of the populace in western Europe.
The Internet, which does all of that and more, reached the majority of the world's population in less than a decade. It's a dramatic change in how we communicate, and it really is a wonderful period in history because we have so much opportunity to share our knowledge so widely.
The other thing I would say is that what I'm recommending today has to do with the culture of innovation. It's a cultural thing.
I remember John Evans, that wonderful university and other leader, saying to me one time as two fellows who enjoy hockey, “David, do you think we could ever get Canadians as interested in research as they are in hockey?” I said, “John, that's probably a bridge too far, but it's worth trying.”
That's what I'm driving at, that education is the foundation for moon shots, and I mean education on an international scale. Canada has the moon shot to be the best in the business in that kind of thing, by using the new digital revolution to permit us to lead as certain countries in western Europe led with the printing press.