Yes, and hopefully he gets more of a chance than when that's reversed and I'm sharing with him.
Thank you all very much. Considering the timeframe, I think the presentations were all very useful.
I would particularly like to chat with Monsieur Vinet--nice to see you again--and Mr. Brimacombe.
Some of the recommendations you are calling for were in fact introduced into Parliament less than a year ago. For example, the indirect costs going to 40% was part of the economic update in the fall. I hope the new government does something to follow that.
Monsieur Vinet, the last time we chatted, we were having lunch a couple of days before a big football game between your team and the Saint Mary's Huskies in Halifax. Considering the lack of time I have, I don't want to talk about that, but I do want to follow up on a different issue.
You've talked a lot about research. In the last five years, Canada has invested a lot in publicly funded research. We've gone from the second lowest in the G-7 to the highest, and we are very high in the OECD nations--I think second in publicly funded research. We've done a lot, and we've done a lot of it directly to universities.
You call for what I refer to as the “dedicated transfer”, which is a concept that I think has a lot of merit and which I think all the parties have considered. I just wonder, though, considering the success the federal government has had by investing directly in universities--notwithstanding that tuitions at the University of Montreal for first year students are around $2,000, compared to $6,000 or $7,000 in my province of Nova Scotia--do you see a role for the federal government in directly investing in students, particularly those students who are unable, for cost reasons, to go to university now?