It's actually a bit humbling for us to think about the fact that we arrived at this point and we're surprised to learn that the level hasn't increased since 2003-04. To me, that's a bit of a sign that we weren't looking; we weren't paying attention to that.
I think you're putting your finger on part of this phenomena. If you think about Canada's decision to build a talent-based innovation system producing the people we really need for driving innovation across all of society so we have access to the global pool of knowledge, it shows we have really lost focus of that pretty basic item.
Those students, though, are just a small proportion of all graduate students, so where do the rest of them get funding? It's through research projects. At least half of all the research funds given for research projects go to people. They are paying research assistants, graduate students and so on. They're really investing in people.
One thing that's really important to think about is how embarrassing it is for us that those fellowship levels are the same. The punchline is that if we fix that, it's going to be a small aspect of the larger issue of what effort and investments are being put into the leaders of society we need for the transformational change that our society is undergoing.