Exactly.
Anyway, I just get excited when I talk about the Semiarid Research Station in Swift Current, because it has had a tremendous history over the years of developing varieties and products that have made a huge difference for western Canadian producers in particular.
If you were reading the news about three weeks ago, you would have seen that AC Barrie, which is one of the varieties that was developed in Swift Current, is up for an award for being one of the most influential varieties that has been developed.
Every one of us here, I think, would agree that the science and research opportunities are extremely important. We want to try to build relationships between government and the private sector and academics in order to try to support a profitable agriculture sector and agrifood sector.
To do that, we've invested $22.1 million in 230 research projects across this country that are going to bring some of that forward. It's important that they're right across the country, of course. My area.... I'll just talk a little bit about Saskatchewan, because I'm sure people are familiar with the projects in their own areas. There was $3.7 million given to 27 projects that will be developed in Saskatchewan, dealing with various research projects. So that's a program that has been available across the country, in each of the research areas that we find to be important.
We've also given $2 million to the National Research Council for nutrisciences and health, biosources research, and that's a capital contribution towards developing a national council institute. Actually that's in Wayne's part of the world, on the University of Prince Edward Island campus, another important initiative to show that this government is reaching out to producers and researchers across the entire country.
We've created 17 new scientific professional positions. Half of them will focus on new science, supporting new opportunities and new markets.
We have a $134-million agri-opportunities program, which is a five-year program that provides funds to try to accelerate commercialization of new agricultural products and services. This is an important thing. When you travel around the world, you know the importance of each country being able to promote its own products. Canada is no exception to that. We have begun to do that. We need to focus on that, of course, in order to brand our products as the safe and healthy food products that they are, so that we can then compete and sell our products around the world.