Thank you so much.
Let me raise two points. You mentioned two things that I think are so key.
One is how access to funding for graduate students, through the research grants or through graduate scholarships and fellowships, is really the way we're going to pursue an inclusive society. As you know, those from disadvantaged families and those from disadvantaged backgrounds are going to be the most easily discouraged by not having access and not having that support.
Clearly, we don't want a system in which the only Canadians who are able to continue into graduate school are those who come from advantaged families. We want to tap the entire pool of talent. In fact, that was why the scholarship and the fellowship programs were created—to really level the playing field and to give everyone the chance.
In building an inclusive society, we have to understand that being able to make it financially viable for the talented students is absolutely key. We can't make it an elite kind of preordained system. That is not what Canada is trying to do.
The second thing you alluded to is the added advantage for our students to be able to work in research projects. There are many things in that, quickly: learning about how to pursue original thinking; learning about creativity; learning about critical thinking; how to actually assess whether different strategies work in terms of advancing knowledge; sophisticated research skills; how to deal with obstacles when you meet them in your work; how to work in teams, which most of them will do when they finish graduate school; how to manage projects; how to balance accountability and efficiency, and so on, with the kind of discovery impulses that are needed—that creativity piece.
It's that rich array of those deep competencies that I think are required that explains why we need to financially ensure that talented Canadians have a chance to pursue graduate work and that we can become a magnet internationally, and thereby, we can build Canada as a successful 21st-century country.