The Agenda with Steve Paikin (Audio) - Could American's Brain Drain Be Canada's Brain Gain?

Episode Date: March 6, 2025

Since being sworn into office for a second time, President Donald Trump has slashed or suspended billions of dollars of funding for research and international aid, and cut thousands of jobs, plunging federal agencies and universities into chaos. This has some researchers considering a career change - and others contemplating leaving the U.S. Could Canada become a haven for researchers looking to innovate? Let's find out from: In Calgary, Alberta, Sarah Laframboise: Executive director of Evidence for Democracy; In Washington, D.C.: Keith Martin, Executive director for Consortium of Universities for Global Health; In Montreal, Quebec, Richard Gold, professor at McGill University's Faculty of Law, and chief policy and partnerships officer at Conscience, a non-profit focused on addressing market failure in drug development; And in Kingston, Ontario: Stephen Archer, Cardiologist and director of the Translational Institute of Medicine at Queen's University.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Renew your 2.0 TVO with more thought-provoking documentaries, insightful current affairs coverage, and fun programs and learning experiences for kids. Regular contributions from people like you help us make a difference in the lives of Ontarians of all ages. Visit tvo.me slash 2025 donate to renew your support or make a first-time donation and continue to discover your 2.0 TBO. Since being sworn into office for a second time, President Donald Trump has slashed or suspended billions of dollars of funding for research and international aid and cut thousands of jobs, plunging federal agencies and universities into chaos. This has some researchers considering a career change and others contemplating leaving the U.S.

Could Canada become a haven for researchers looking to innovate? Let's find out from in Calgary, Alberta, Sarah LaFranboise, executive director of Evidence for Democracy. In Washington, D.C., Keith Martin, executive director for the Consortium of Universities for Global Health. In Montreal, Quebec, Richard Gold, professor at McGill University's Faculty of Law

and chief policy and partnerships officer at Conscience, that's a nonprofit focused on addressing market failure in drug development. And in Kingston, Ontario, Stephen Archer, cardiologist and director of the Translational Institute of Medicine at Queen's University. And we are happy that the four of you could take some time from your very busy days to be with us here on TVO tonight.

I wanna start with a very open question and get one example from each of the four of you. And let's call it this, what are the most consequential moves the Trump administration has made thus far in terms of research and science, and you can define the word consequential any way you like. Let's get an example from each of you.

Sarah, you wanna start us off? Yeah, I think I look at the scientific integrity piece. This is something that has been fundamental to my organization in Canada. We were founded out of the Harper administrations, you know, drastic impacts on scientific integrity and the ability for scientists to speak. So I think in the US what we're seeing is an inability for a lot of scientists in the US to collaborate with international partners. We're seeing a lot of censorship surrounding specific words that can't be used in research grant proposals or in research publications as well.

Keith Martin, what do you say? It's the reduction in what we call indirect costs to 15%, Steve. That's the money that researchers use to be able to essentially fund and support the infrastructure to do research. And that's really caused a wrecking ball through the research community, not only in the United States, but of course, impacting us in Canada. But perhaps the most consequential aspect of Mr. Trump's cuts is really that which is most difficult to get, which is trust and easiest to lose. So he's introduced a huge element of a lack of trust, a lack of security, and a lack of

continuity, which is essential for research to occur. You say yes in Canada, and we just want to remind everybody, you're of course a former member of parliament here in Canada, and now with new responsibilities with your consortium. Richard Gold, what say you? Well, what we heard are great examples, but what I would put on the table is the loss of data, not only historically collected data, but the ability to continue those data sets. We know when, for example, the Harper government changed StatsCan's rules around the data they collect on the census, there was a lot of worry.

Well, that was only a short period. We're talking about the loss of multiple data sets, and that could cause really substantial harm to those doing medical research, cancer, climate change, a whole bunch of other things. Stephen Archer, you're batting clean up here. Okay. Well, I spent about half my career in the States and wasn't an NIH funded researcher until recently. So this is very close to home. And I mentor many scientists in the United States

right at the present time. I think the fact they've stopped funding research, the study sections where you actually apply to get a grant have been closed. So that's not happening. There's been across the board cuts to the direct costs, the money that the researchers get of 10% that's being administered in addition to losing indirect. On Saturday morning when I was online trying to write an article, PubMed

was down. PubMed is where 38 million articles, virtually all the world's scientific knowledge in the biomedical sphere is placed and it's funded by the NIH and the American government. So those are just three examples of things that affect not only American scientists but also Canadian scientists. Let's go back around here. Keith, what impact do you think on global health, the things that you referenced, what impact will those have down the road? So our organization, the Consortium of Universities for Global Health, Steve, we're located at about a kilometer north of the White House. And we just had our annual meeting a little over a week ago with 1,300 scientists from around the world. And this is really destroying people's will

to do research. It's stopping their life-saving research that they're doing. Some of that research has a direct implication upon patient care. So the cuts that Mr. Trump is introducing is really directly going to cause a loss of life. And furthermore, it's severing the relationships that have been occurring between researchers. And there's one thing that researchers rely upon, and you've heard it from everybody here, it's collaboration. It's one of those things where stronger we are together, individually we are weaker. And Mr. Trump's cuts are severing and destroying the ability of researchers to collaborate

and therefore generate much better research for everybody. Sarah, as you look two, five, ten years down the road, what do you think the impact of the decisions being made right now will be? Yeah, I mean, we've seen similar impacts in Canada. We can even look at our own country for examples of how scientific integrity and the inability for scientists to speak out publicly impacts things like collaboration with other countries. You know, when we're starting to limit what type of science we're allowing to be released out publicly, we start to censor the level of information that's been going out publicly. And as mentioned, I think this is really fundamentally important for building trust with the public. So I see a big impact here on

the ability for science as a institution to continue to serve the public. And I think, you know, from the piece of censorship, when we start from the piece of censorship, when we start to ban words like gender, female, race, these words are a fundamental part of research and the way that research works in Canada. And so this is setting a precedent that could really impact the way that we're having research

on marginalized groups in future years. So I see these as kind of large effects here. Richard Gold, can I get you on that long-term impact that you see down the road? It really depends on how the rest of the world responds. Do we step up now, hire some of those researchers, increase our funding? Canada, if we use the same dollars throughout the last 25 years, we're at our lowest. If we don't pick up and Europe doesn't pick up and others, then there's gonna be a substantial loss of research. Will we have money that goes into partnerships

because we know partnerships, especially between industry and academia actually produce results that are more likely to increase lifespan, new drugs, etc. Will we lose that? So I'm quite concerned that we're taking out a substantial piece of the global research budget and we all work together. There's no such thing as Canadian research, American research, European research. We all work together. We work with firms. And so unless we step up, we're looking at not being able to follow climate change and

coming up with new technologies that will be essential to fighting climate change. We won't have the drugs that we need. We won't have a data set to help us figure out what's happening in the population. We also know that diverse teams actually produce better results. You can get the five smartest people, we're all the same. They are less likely to produce breakthroughs than if you have a team made up of diverse views, simply because they challenge each other.

I mean, that's one of the strengths of Canada, right? We have English, French, we have indigenous people. When you put them together, they actually produce better results. Stephen Archer, if these decisions that have been taken by the Trump administration are all, as you say, unambiguously negative and stupid, what do you think is motivating them to make these decisions? Well, I didn't say stupid, but if you asked me, I could expand on stupid and

get out my thesaurus and add you some more interesting stupid, but if you asked me, I could expand on stupid and get out my thesaurus and add you some more interesting words. But I think the implication, first thing I would say is that the United States, much like in the war in Ukraine, can't be replaced, whether we like it or not. The NIH is a $48 billion funding agency. To put it in perspective, we're one and a half billion dollars for CIHR. So we're small even relative to our population. So we need them to be involved.

And the consequences of this will be losing people from science in the States. And that might not seem to be a problem for Canada. But it is. Many Canadian physicians, for example, train in the United States. I know I certainly did. And I learned a lot.

And I think it's important not to demonize the people of the United States who are being run by a government that's sort of disconnected from many of them. But losing that chance to partner with the United States both clinically and research-wise is important. And I would also add that what NIH funds is clinical research that affects patient health

as well as fundamental research. And the people that do that research are often the professors of medicine and surgery and other advanced professions that run academic health sciences centers. So the woman that does your transplant or your advanced surgery may well be an NIH-funded researcher. That's also true in Canada. So in Canada, we had the NAILA report that advised us to significantly increase our research funding. We did not do that. I have four CIHR grants. That's what it takes to actually keep my laboratory running. I spend most of my life writing

grants to get funding for research. So, interestingly, we could take advantage of the U.S. brain drain, but if they moved to Canada, they would still only have less than one chance in five of getting a grant. So, first, we would need to write our own ship. So many analogies to how we need to address the United States by being better in Canada in science as well as in other venues in life. Okay, Keith Martin, maybe you could pick up on that. So the notion that we're going to be the recipients of a brain gain as opposed to a brain drain, which we often talk about in Canada, the notion that we could experience a brain gain, what?

Might not be all that helpful because we don't have the money supporting them here in the likes of which we need to do, is that fair to say? No, I think it's a once in a lifetime opportunity, Steve. I mean, if you look at our country, one of the things we know we need to do is we need to increase our productivity. And research and science are one of the things we know we need to do is we need to increase our productivity. And research and science are one of the ways to do that, along with infrastructure and

education, of course. There's an opportunity now to be able to capture some of the best and brightest in the United States and attract them to Canada. If the U.S. is willing to slam the door on some of their smartest people in this country, Canada should open its door to be able to say, come to Canada. It means that we have to invest in our research enterprise. We have to put a significant investment in that. Some may argue, well, we don't have any money to do that.

But I would argue that this is an investment in the future. It's an irreplaceable investment. And think about this, those scientists, it took millions and millions of dollars to train them. Imagine what we're going to get with a very modest investment to attract individuals who come with them a lifetime of skill and experience and expertise to our borders.

It would be a win-win situation for us. It's not that we're poaching people from the U.S. It's that the U.S. is actually slamming the door on their own best and brightest. So I think we should capture the opportunity and we should be able to say we're going to invest significantly in Canada's research enterprise and attract these people to our country, which are going to massively improve our productivity and international competitiveness. Sarah, based on what you know, do they want to come here? Yeah, I mean we've started to learn a lot more about why PhD graduates are making the decisions to move abroad than we've known in the past. So my

organization that I've worked with at that Ball Ross Science Policy Network, we know that people are leaving because of financial reasons. They want to go to the best place that will give them the most money. And people are staying because of family and connections to people and friends. So, you know, we can start to dive into that a little bit. I think the industry lens is really interesting here because I think no matter what the changes that are happening right now in the US for post-secondary, the industry side is always going to be a continued flow into Silicon Valley, especially with the revived interests in that industry and in the tech field. So I think that's one area where I think there's lots to discuss on how the brain drain will go to to Silicon Valley. But in terms of here in Canada, I tend to agree that you know, this is a really great opportunity for, you know, taking this very seriously, but it does require intention. It requires intentional funding opportunities.

It requires intentional changes to policy. You know, we just saw this week that there was changes to the Express Century visa requirements where it no longer includes STEM fields and STEM professions. So, you know, these are really simple policy changes that could be intentional and allow us to kind of structurally be able to take in some of this talent. Richard Gold, if memory serves, when Donald Trump was first elected back in 2016,

we did experience in Canada what they called a Trump bump because many people from the States moved up here, seeing as they didn't want to have to deal with what he was about down there. Well, here we are again. Do you think we're going to get another Trump bump? Yeah, I was talking to one of my colleagues in the states who's well connected within the research sector

and government, and he said, this is the best time ever for other countries to poach. He was talking to his European colleagues and saying, this is the time to come in. And I agree with Keith, it's not really poaching, we're saving research, right? These researchers come not only with all the knowledge that and money that we spent training them,

but they come with data sets and they'll be able to bring it here and we can build on it. So this is the time, but the big barriers are their university positions, right? Ontario and Quebec have been cutting back. My own university is facing a $45 million deficit. That means they're cutbacks.

This is the time when we need to invest in actually hiring more people, not only the professors but the support staff, the technicians. The federal government has to come through with funding for the research. So if we just open our doors, but don't create the positions, these people will have nowhere to go. And we know from US research that for every dollar put in, we get $6 to $11, $6 direct,, eleven indirect in economic benefit and even the last dollar put in gets back two dollars and fifty cents. So this is not an expense, yes it will appear as an expense in the budget, but this is really an investment in our future

and if you don't invest in healthcare and you don't invest in the climate and you don't invest in all the other fields, not just them, then you are basically promising a future of lower economic growth at a time where we're already facing the pressure from the United States. This is the time to be bold. Well, you've anticipated my next question, which I'm going to put to Stephen Archer, which is, is our post-secondary system able to accommodate a potential Trump bump right now, given what a financially damaged state it finds itself in right now?

I'd like to say yes. And we certainly, in my past job as head of medicine, we certainly recruited people from the states, but we have to be honest. I mean, the universities in Ontario are reeling because of the Ford government's populist move to first freeze tuition and then actually roll it back. So I can't argue that universities are the best-run organizations in the world, but what I can say is they are sort of a proud investment in society's higher aspirations. And because of universities, we grow industry, we invent things, we do important things for society, including providing healthcare. And

the fact that we are in financial distress across all universities, I'm just trying to imagine, let's say a thousand people wanted to cross the border and they each wanted a laboratory at a Canadian university and they each needed a million dollars in startup money and they each needed a faculty position and they were not all women. They were not of any ethnic or gender group, we would not be able to accept them. I mean, I hate to say that. I moved to the states out of frustration with the complacency of Canada. I moved back out of frustration with the harshness of America. I think many people are like me. They flip back and forth across the border.

According to my wife, I'm not going anywhere, so I'll have to just stay and do my part. But I think the short answer is no. And I think populism in Ontario, unfortunately, while it may win elections, is devastating for our capacity to absorb these talented people. And I just want to point out that many major American universities are getting cuts of $100 million a year by losing this funding. And places like Pittsburgh and Vanderbilt are shutting down their PhD acceptance. Many universities have rescinded offers for MD-PhD students. So I agree with the other guests. Right now, we could sweep up a lot of people.

The last time Americans left America in number was not Donald Trump, it was the Vietnam War when there's a draft. So this is as bad as the draft, and people are frightened to speak up in the United States and they would probably move. If we could launch emergency funding for this and open up faculty positions I think we get a ton of interest now. Keith Martin maybe I could get you to speak to that

given your political background because there have been two significant political decisions made at both senior levels of government in the last several years. The first was the tuition freeze by senior levels of government in the last several years. The first was the tuition freeze by the province of Ontario, and the second was the cutting back of foreign affairs, foreign student visas rather, for international students to come here. They, of course, pay significantly more than domestic students, and the universities were depending on that money to keep themselves in business.

What message would you send to political decision makers in terms of this moment in time and trying to take advantage of what could be a second Trump bump, but one for which it appears we may not actually have the capacity to exploit? Well, I think we do have the capacity to exploit, Stephen, and it's a matter of uniting.

I mean, I know, of course, political parties have their differences. That's natural. But what's happening now from here with this government towards Canada is really an assault on our country. And I think that, of course, it's united our country more so than we've ever seen. So I think we need to capitalize on that single mindedness. And as the other speakers or other guests have said, we have to invest and capture this moment.

I mean, if we look in the future, part of what we know we need to do is expand the tax space, right? And part of that's an important part of that is increasing our productivity. And as I mentioned, a part of that is having the research agenda to be the research capacity to drive new discoveries, to be able to scale that up to market and generate a lot of new jobs and funds. So I think we need to need to double down. And it's important to move quickly, because this moment is not going to last as was mentioned. If we don't capitalize it out now, we will miss an incredible opportunity

to regenerate, rejuvenate our productivity in the country and be able to provide the tax base to provide the public goods that our citizens require. And we really cannot miss it and get stuck into picking even smaller conflicts that really do not help our country at all. Sarah, maybe I could get you to build on that answer in terms of the kinds of changes we need to make in Canada to boost research and innovation in the country. What do we need to do? Yeah, I might take the lens of early career researchers here.

They're the building blocks for our research ecosystem. We have already seen a significant brain drain in our own PhD graduates going to Europe and to the US. So if we can think about what that would be changing like in this current environment, you know, people are making decisions every day about whether they're going to go on to do a postdoc to continue on that professorship journey, or if they're going to go into industry and try to get a job. So, you know, I think if we can humanize it into that as well of what decisions are made during times like this,

you know, decisions are made from a scarcity mindset and they're made from trying to do the best with what they possibly can. And so, you know, we can put ourselves into those shoes of students in the US who are, you know, getting not a lot of clarity on admissions to their PhD programs. What are they going to do?

I think some of them who are financially able will chase higher salary in another country. But here in Canada, we have to reflect on what type of supports we have for international students, especially in the graduate and postdoc level. Currently, graduate students who are international students don't qualify for any federal scholarships or fellowships. And so, you know, this is an opportunity for us to maybe open up some of those doors where

we're going to get really high skilled talent coming right in. And, you know, they will stay. They'll stay and continue their journey into the sciences and research sectors here in Canada. Stephen Archer, if this is a moment to exploit, what do we need to do to boost research and innovation prospects in the country? Well, there are several simple solutions. Most of them are in the NAILA report.

For example, if we increase the funding in CIHR, there would be grants. Whether there are American immigrants coming here getting those grants or Canadian citizens, it wouldn't matter. But that's one key thing. The second thing is to invest in CFI, the Canada Foundation for Innovation. They provide the large tool. I'm sitting in a research centre called the Translational Institute of Medicine team at our time, which we built here at Queen's University, and that's $25 million of money from

the Canada Foundation of Innovation on the province of Ontario. It supports the activity of 90 scientists. So if we build these platforms, people can come. So we fix CIHR by funding it properly. We fix CFI by funding it properly and having them fund the people that run core centers. And then I just roll back to my time at the University of Alberta. They used to have an amazing thing called the Alberta Heritage Foundation.

And people did come from all over the world because there was money in the millions that would fund scientists coming from Canada to Canada from any country. So if we recreated a heritage foundation for Canada to have a heritage of scientific discovery, we would get people from around the world, not just the United States. But we've got to fix our funding agencies. And ideally, the provincial government needs to take its foot off the neck of tuition and allow universities to actually breathe

Universities are well, I was I was going to say universities, but let me say governments as well. They are not renowned for spending The way you're talking about quickly these things take time. How fast do we need to move here in your view Steven Archer? Well, the the nail report came out I think in 2022 and there have been incremental changes but we need to move quickly but it's not so much that we're going to recruit a ton of Americans. We need to make our own country as they say proud and free and we need to be free from relying on other countries for our enterprise and yes collaboration is important but if you want to collaborate you need to have something to share, which means you come from a position of strength into that collaboration. So I think if we forget about the United States and the Trump crisis,

Canadian science is already in crisis. There aren't enough faculty positions. There's not enough funding. And there are lots of bright minds. And the United States has been our pop-off valve. So gratitude to NIH because they've taken Canadians in by the thousands and helped them when they moved to the States. So I think we just need to spend this money and realize that when you build a road, you don't make money for society. When you fund a researcher, the money, as was said, comes back tenfold. And so this is a great way to invest in society, even while the government is being pressed to invest in the military, which was said, comes back tenfold. And so this is a great way to invest in society, even while the government is being pressed to invest in the military, which is important, and other important things. But investing in research gives you better health care,

gives you a smarter population, it gives you new products, new businesses, and it grows the tax base. It's win-win-win-win-win. So that's what we need to do. And I think the politicians need to hear from the public that they are supportive of this and not engage in kind of anti-intellectual populist movements. Richard Gold, there's every indication that the federal government is going over the next little while to be prepared to spend billions upon billions of dollars to protect people from the worst ravages of whatever these tariffs wreak in terms of the havoc on our economy that is coming. How confident are you that in all of those billions being spent

there's going to be something for the issues that we're talking about here tonight? I guess it depends on who gets elected in the next election and their platform. What we don't need are just tax breaks. That's the wrong way to go. We need investment. And we need smart investments, which is not only the universities, but the links between the universities and industry. Universities don't innovate.

We come up with, we train the students, so we need to be able to attract those students and fund those students, both in Canada and from around the world. We need to create the knowledge base that industry uses and be able to communicate it with them well. And we talk to them about what's most important for industry, what kind of needs do they have. And we have some special advantages in Canada that we don't talk about.

We have a public healthcare system. We've been talking about creating these open digital e-health records for decades. That is a tremendous advantage that Canada has, the United States does, because they have a system with private insurers. Imagine if we collected data and we made it available to Canadian AI firms and Canadian AI researchers, what they could do with that.

And so we need to think about not just the university, because obviously we have to fund those at a much better level, but we also have to recognize that universities make more money when they partner with an industry partner than when they sell patents usually to a US firm. So we have to change the business model. We're trying to copy the United States. We're not the United States. Let's build on our strength.

We believe in working together. We can create data that could power a whole bunch of different industries. So if we do all that, I think we have a chance. But if all we do is take that money and lower taxes or, you know, don't invest but, you know, help people, which obviously you have to do in some measure, then we will just fall further and further behind. Well, let's follow up on that with Keith Martin. We've talked about the federal role here,

we've talked about the provincial role, and now we've had a reference to what the private sector is able to do in terms of these issues we're talking about tonight. What would you like to see in terms of more private sector involvement here? Well, so many great suggestions, Steve, were made. And I think Richard did a very good job of outlining a number of those. But you have to partner with the private sector. We have to look at not only using them for assets, but also how do we reduce the speed between discovery and market? That's

extremely important. The training, the research collaborations need to happen. And this has to happen not only between provinces and the private sector within those provinces, but also we need an all of country approach. The feds need to work with the provinces, the provinces need to bring in also the the cities where the big action takes place, right? And we need to look at a larger issue of how do we reform our education system and that needs to be, the private sector needs to be involved in that too. If you look at, and we've got colleges in all of this, if you look at a country like Switzerland, which has a very high GDP per person,

they have a relatively smaller number of people going to universities, but they have a robust college system, which is more affordable, shorter training, but they impart and they focus on skills needed in the 21st century economy. So any province, the provinces should come together and try to establish better relationships with the private sector so that the training is integrated with the private sector. And young trainees, I'm glad Sarah brought up that really

critical point, they can have real time training on the job in the private sector. So it's really building relationships up. But, you know, to do that, you've got to have a larger strategy to come together that has to be realistic, affordable, effective, and deals with the challenges that has been mentioned by Richard Stephen and Sarah today. If we do that, and we can, then we will dramatically address the clunky productivity that we suffer from today. We'll have a whole new opportunity for our country in the future and for the young people in our country. Well, Keith just put an interesting challenge out there. If we can do this. So Sarah, why don't you start us off in our remaining moments here on

the issue of what you're hearing from Canadian politicians or what you're hearing from Canadian administrators. Do you get the sense that we are ready to meet the moment here? You know, I think it's a bit of a challenging time right now. I think there's a lot of distractions with a lot of the changes that are happening in the U.S. And I don't think science and research is really a fundamental part of these conversations. We can look at the big investment that we had last year in Budget 2024 for science and research. This was one of the largest investments

we've seen in a long time in science. And I think myself and many included in this field would say that that's not enough. I don't think we're getting to a point where we're going to become internationally competitive. So, you know, while I think it's important for us to reflect on whether we are actually being publicly accountable with our research dollars and things like this, you know, we also need to inspire the public to really believe in the impact of this if we want to see real investments. And so I might end on that note of, you know, the public has to care,

they have to be demanding for how we're going to be investing in science and research. How is this going to be affecting their everyday lives, you know, healthcare, climate, even on the social sciences and humanities side, how is science and research going to help solve a housing crisis, we have to be better at communicating these types of solutions to the grand challenges that we're facing. And I think that is how we then get buy-in from the policy makers on selling this as a solution. Stephen Archer, do you think we're ready to meet the moment here? I think there's some reason for optimism. I think if you look at inter-provincial trade or the war in Ukraine, those are two examples

where Canada has sort of been somewhat passive, especially on inter-provincial trade, where it's such a simple problem to fix, and yet we just haven't for years and years and years. And I think people are beginning to care less whether they're from Quebec or another province or Alberta or another province, and more that they are Canadian. So if we can set aside those differences and focus on our commonalities, we can certainly solve inter-provincial trade. And I think likewise with the war in Ukraine, I think we begin to realize if big brother is not going to step up, maybe little Canada has to do its part

more than just the finances that we sent already. And likewise, as was said, I mean, the public has to believe in science. And the big danger in the States is that 48% of the population that followed Donald Trump is anti-scientific and they really don't trust people like us. Your panel would not be welcome at a Trump rally because we represent egg-headed intellectualism and we're telling falsehoods. So fortunately, it's not that bad in Canada,

but we have our own vaccine hesitant people and deniers, and we have people that don't trust in science. And I agree that to get the government to spend the money, and people and deniers, and we have people that don't trust in science. And I agree that to get the government to spend the money, they have to believe with all these competing interests that the public wants the money spent because it's better health care, it's better business, and it's a future for their children that doesn't involve pushing a shovel into the ground and having to work in manual labor their whole life. There's nothing wrong with that, but it's a hard life.

And so I think we have to get people to believe in the value of research discovery and how that basically is the whole basis of our healthcare system and it's our chance to build a new economy. So I'm reasonably cautious that we can do it. I don't think we can do it in six months, which would be nice because it would be nice to open up jobs for people that really do want to leave America. Richard Gold, I'm going to give you the last minute. You want to make the case? Sure.

I think there is the moment that we're in that people are coming together. But the politicians are running in different directions. Our leadership in universities are frankly weak. They have failed to really make the case or they've made the wrong case. And yet I believe in people. I believe in the researchers. I believe in Canadians. I believe in Canadian industry to come together and tell our politicians that this is a time to invest, to look forward to a future where we get economic growth due to the investments we made in universities,

due to the investments we made in translating that knowledge into industry. So I'm hopeful in that sense. Maybe, you know, I live in a city of diversity where we've had clashes before, Montreal, and we always come out stronger for those clashes. So maybe that's where I get my optimism from. That's a good place to end it. I want to thank all four of you for coming onto our program tonight, sharing your views, and painting a very strong picture of the road ahead. Sarah LaFrancois, Stephen Archer, Richard Gould, Keith Martin. Good of all of you to join us on TVO tonight.

Many thanks. Thank you, Steve. Thank you, Stephen.