Thank you very much for your question.
Right now, there's no doubt that Canada is in jeopardy, in a way, and we're in danger of dropping in the world rankings rather quickly. That's what the future holds.
It's not just in relation to the United States, even though it's closer to us. It's in relation to Europe too, undoubtedly. Of course, China is also increasingly focused on science as it looks to the future.
There's been a lot of emphasis in Canada recently on the fact that the United States has embarked on a really aggressive Inflation Reduction Act. It actually did, last summer, two things. Right before it did the Inflation Reduction Act, it did the CHIPS and Science Act. Those two go together. It clearly has a two-pronged attack, and there's going to be significant development in a whole variety of infrastructure and a whole variety of aspects of the United States and their transformation. It's all going to be driven by a serious thrust in research and science.
This is sending a clear signal that in building a better future for the world, geopolitical borders are going to be really important. This is interesting because it wasn't that long ago that we were being told all the time about globalization and that the role all countries would have is to be part of global networks and chains, supply chains and so on. There was even a debate about the end of geopolitical borders, as if we wouldn't have to worry about them and there would be all these great transcontinental and globalized forces. However, it turns out that geopolitical borders make a big difference.
We're even seeing that in Quebec. For example, the Fonds de recherche du Québec is working well and it complements federal initiatives. In my opinion, that's an asset.
From a federal perspective, it would be very good if the other provinces had research funds as well to increase the effort across Canada. However, federal leadership in Canada is key.
There's no doubt in my mind, as we're now having this conversation, that we can say Canada has some strengths, and we have the possibility to play a leadership role globally. That's thanks to federal leadership starting in the 1990s and being pretty consistent ever since. The difficulty is that the international competition has been getting greater and greater.
I think we've maybe taken for granted a bit—and we read it a lot—that Canada has a great post-secondary system. Some say, “Isn't it wonderful?” However, in Canada, it's not like that. We don't like to pat ourselves on the back, and we shouldn't. We should say, “Look, we have work to do. The international competition is intense. We have to double down.” That's why your committee is so important to have at the parliamentary level, the federal level. It's a concerted effort to say that we have to get much more serious about this.