I do believe that for the money we're currently spending in these areas of science, technology, research and development, we need to get a better bang for the buck. Some of that was discussed in the first hour.
Beyond that, I think we have to recognize the fact that we're one of the only OECD countries that has been reducing year by year, to some extent, our total investment in research and development and science and technology, whether that be from the higher education side, the government side or the business side, but particularly on the business side. Our total investment, if you like, is around about 1.6% of GDP. The OECD average is something like 2.6%. That's a 1% difference, which represents something like $26 billion.
It's not that the government funds that, but the government has to create the environment where that sort of money is spent on higher-value products. Only when we have high-value products are we able to have the productivity and the amount of revenue that's coming in at that particular time.
I do think that, first of all, we need to get more bang for the buck in the money that we're spending. Second of all, I think we have to make sure that we bring together government, academia and industry into centres of excellence. In my reports for the B.C. government, we talked a little bit about some of the recommendations of how to actually do that within a province and encourage the active participation of not only universities but also the colleges, the communities in business and government and others in centres of excellence that would be able to compete on the world stage.