Yes. Thank you, Mr. Mulcair.
One of the difficulties with the federal government's last budget was that while there was a good deal of money, it's not being spent wisely. I think that is, as I mentioned at the end of my comments, the result of lack of adequate consultation with the scientific and research community. A good example of that is an actual reduction in the money for the granting councils that fund the researchers who do the research, as well as a desire in earlier budgets to target the granting councils, so there's a restriction on the people, funding for the people to do the research.
The response the government gives us when we're critical about that is to say, well, there was $2 billion in a knowledge infrastructure project, which there was indeed. There are two problems with that. We've tracked every announcement by the federal government of infrastructure funding, of which there have been quite a number. Only about a third are actually for research, interestingly. Of the total that's been allocated so far, according to our calculations—and I have a copy of this detailed analysis for members of the committee—only 36.6% has actually gone to research.
The related problem, however, is in talking with our members who are scientists in various places. I'll just give you two quick examples. One is the National High Field Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Centre at the University of Alberta. It's the one centre in Canada that has a magnet that's 190,000 times the magnetic field of the planet. It's essentially a microscope to look into the nucleus of atoms. It's the one centre for the whole country. They're running out of money to operate it. So they have the equipment, but they can't run it. The other would be the Polar Environment Atmospheric Research Laboratory. One of the prize gems of Canadian science in Nunavut is going to have to close up on March 31, 2010, because while they've got new money for equipment, they have no more operating money. They have no source to turn to for operating money.
What we're urging the government to do, and urging this committee to recommend to the government, is to have more consultation with us so the money can be spent in ways that recognize that science requires physical infrastructure, absolutely, but it also requires human infrastructure. Without the money for the scientists and for the operational expenses, we have shiny equipment in plastic wrap that can't be used.