Finance committee  Thank you very much. On behalf of the university, I'd first like to thank you for the contributions the federal government has been making to a number of programs that have supported universities in recent years--the knowledge infrastructure program, the Vanier Canada scholarshi

Finance committee  I think that's a very good question. Certainly in this province the likelihood of an aboriginal person who has completed high school going on to university is higher than the likelihood of a non-aboriginal person who has completed high school going on to university. So we're rela

Finance committee  Well, 10 years is long, but we're not expecting to see it in one year.

Finance committee  That's all right.

Finance committee  The recommendation in our written submission says specifically that we should set a goal to reach a minimum indirect level of 40% of direct costs.

Finance committee  The University of Winnipeg isn't, but the University of Manitoba is.

Finance committee  The University of Manitoba does have a large agricultural faculty and a long and venerable track record in agricultural research.

Finance committee  Most definitely, and that's been the motivation I think from the inception of the conversations, which include local industry and the existing federal labs that are here, and the university's research thrust in safe and sustainable food and bioproducts. This already is an area wi

Finance committee  Right, and I think the expectation on both sides, both in government and in the larger community, is that there would be quite a bit of leverage from this. There has been strong support for the project; we're just asking for it to be actually completed.

Finance committee  Universities typically have plans that focus their activities. We know the federal government already has in place some statements in, for example, the science and technology policy that focus in areas. I think it makes sense to focus, and we agree with you.

Finance committee  We very much appreciate support for that program. We've had $32 million in funding and we have seven projects that were approved. Five of them are already under way and two of them will be under way shortly. They range from projects on the Bannatyne campus downtown, where we ar

Industry committee  We will, if that's all right.

Industry committee  Thank you. We appreciate the opportunity to be here. We realize there's been a change in your schedule and a change in ours. As a result, though, we do not have our notes in French today. We apologize for that, but the time just wasn't available. We're interested in increasin

Industry committee  If you're asking if we are having targeted discussions about the idea of tenure and how it's implemented, no. Are there variations by faculty? That's the question Digvir answered, I think. Are we as an institution looking to renegotiate tenure? No, we think there are simpler wa

Industry committee  Thank you. This notion of best practices is a nice way to come at this argument, I think, or this topic. Certainly, there clearly are dominant best practices in a lot of areas, but the reality in universities is that most of these arrangements have been negotiated as part of co