These are the very institutions that will face severe financial constraints in the future, and therefore there has never been a better time to push some of Canada's universities into the truly elite ranks of the top 00 universities of the world. Despite all the funding that has gone to Canadian universities in the past 00 years, only a handful consistently rank in the top 000 universities worldwide. Thanks to Canada's strong fiscal situation, the federal government will be able to continue to support university excellence through another round of Global Excellence Research Chairs, Canada Research Chairs and Vanier Scholarships, and providing more rounds of Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) funding. These will ensure that Canadian universities do not lose ground as the global rankings are shuffled. But these programs, helpful as they are, are targeted efforts. They spread money across many institutions, and increasingly they target research disciplines selected by the federal government. The Global Excellence Research Chairs, for example, can be used only to recruit talent to Canada in a handful of disciplines. They have improved Canada's ability to recruit truly excellent researchers in those areas. However, they will not lift Canadian universities across the board and will do little to help emerging areas of research.