Thank you so much. That's such an important question because, as we know, in the Canadian structure, the dossier of building a robust research and innovation system is, in fact, a federal-provincial partnership.
What is so important about the federal role, though, is its leadership role. If you look at the history of Canada, federal initiatives are what sent the message across the country that it is a case of national sovereignty and domestic capability—that we, as a country, are going to move forward. It is federal leadership that has been consistently key. Whether you go back to.... Think about the National Research Council or the creation of the federal granting councils and so on. Those were the ones that started to move Canada from being a real intellectual colony as late as the 1960s.
We've told this story before. In the 1960s, almost all professors—80% of professors in Canadian universities—had been trained outside Canada. We had a relatively small graduate system and so on. It was federal leadership that sent the word to the entire country that we had to change in the later 20th century. That was doubled down on in the mid-1990s and the recent era.
National importance, domestic security, sovereignty and all of that, it's federal leadership that drives those. If provinces see, to some extent, that it's not a top federal priority for making a better future, it is really not going to help us.