Finance committee  Those are good questions. In the first case, we certainly consult as widely as possible, as they say. For academics and marshalling consensus, the challenge is herding the cats, but we have been around long enough to know that we neglect our members at our peril. We represent 65 to 70 learned societies, and all of those societies have input into all of our briefings and all of our submissions across the spectrum of research issues.

Finance committee  Scientists need lab equipment and they need more money to do the kind of research they do. SSHRC is relatively underfunded. Certainly we'll always probably get less money, because the researcher doesn't need this whole apparatus to do his or her research. But there is, I think, in some sense a kind of false distinction between these worlds.

Finance committee  Child development, literacy, and culture, but I think one very strong, forceful example of the success of the progressive nature of the research that's been going on in universities in the last several years is something called the CURA program or, in English, the Community-University Research Alliance.

Finance committee  Thank you for that very leading question. To respond as diplomatically as possible, it's our view, and the view of, I would say, the 50,000 scholars that our federation represents, that it is really counterproductive to be undermining the vast majority of researchers in this country who are dedicated to doing the kind of research that, as I was listening to the witnesses around this table, informs every single argument that people are making for child development, literacy, cultural health, or you name it, the whole basket of issues that are before you.

Finance committee  Understood.

Finance committee  We have two more.

Finance committee  Wow, I'm talking as fast as I can.

Finance committee  Thank you. Good morning, Mr. Chairman and honourable members, ladies and gentlemen. I might add it is a pleasure to recognize some of the people I've had the opportunity to meet in the past. Thank you for allowing me this opportunity to bring forward the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Science's ideas for Canada's 2010 federal budget.