Thank you, Mr. Chair, and my thanks to all the witnesses for your thoughtful presentations. They were convincing presentations, by and large.
I'd like to begin with Mr. Lee of the International Association of Fire Fighters, and I'd like to say that in particular I strongly agree with two of your proposals. First is the public safety officer compensation benefit. It's $300,000 and I think it is overdue. I think, in the total scheme of things, it is a relatively low cost. I also fully agree with $6 million annually, I believe you said, as an estimate of that cost. Six million dollars is a lot of money, but in the context of the federal budget, it is not a huge sum. I also fully agree with your proposal for a national office for fire service statistics.
As for the third one, I don't really have the expertise to.... I'm not saying I'm opposed to it; I'm just not knowledgeable enough. But certainly the first two we in the Liberal Party would strongly support, and maybe if all parties support these recommendations, that could provide some pressure in the upcoming budget, whichever party happens to be presenting that budget. Thank you for that.
If I may turn now to the graduate students, as a former professor, I'm naturally sympathetic to that, and as a member of the Liberal Party, our leader has said frequently that to create the jobs of tomorrow, we need research and innovation and brainpower and ideas. Everything you say is highly consistent with that. In that sense, I fully support it. It's true that the Conservatives provided some funding for graduate students and some funding for infrastructure, but they actually cut the funding for the research councils and they cut the funding for science. We, in a sense, are going in the opposite direction.
I have two questions for you.
I agree that two-year funding for graduate students is not sufficient; it should be three to five years. One possible rationale for two years is that it's the period of their fiscal stimulus. But if the idea is that we only need funding for graduate students during a recession, and it's right to cut it off after that, that's a very misguided view of the world. Is it your understanding that the two-year limit on funding for graduate students is—as opposed to three to five years—related to this two-year fiscal stimulus plan, or is there some other reason?