Yes, I'm happy to do that.
In this policy area, Canada's policy community has peddled myths that there's a complacency, lack of competitive intensity or weak receptors for the business community. You have to understand that research by government leads to research by business in the traditional production economy, but when you go into the intangibles economy, research for government must then translate into what's called freedom to operate or owned intellectual property, which naturally then drives corporate investments. We missed the middle step in the changed economy.
For instance, if I say that I want to make the next Google and here's $5 billion to go build a data centre, of course that's not going to work. If you wanted to be a brick manufacturer 100 years ago, it would work because you don't own the ideas. The reason we lose the translation from GERD to BERD is that we missed the institutional middle piece of freedom to operate. That's the foundational flaw of our public policy.
If we had expertise in the civil service through a new economic council and a proper analytical framework, that would snap that issue forward right away. That's precisely what the provinces are doing to address this and the ISED pilot. Let's see what the real issue is and focus on it.