The indirect costs of research are something that we have been long advocating as needing some overhaul. One of the key players in that has been the Canada Foundation for Innovation, the CFI.
The report recommends more matching ratio funding and more reimbursements for universities that are based on smaller sizes to larger sizes so that they are able to maintain the investments the government has made in the past. Right now, what we're hearing from the universities is that these wonderful investments were made and that they don't have the funds, either as universities or from further funding, to maintain these facilities, so these facilities are going for naught. It's essentially becoming wasted money.
There are recommendations in the report that do recommend these. One, for example, was the $143 million, which would bring it to a certain percentage. There were also other cost estimates in the report. Our recommendation is to at least start with the lowest amount the report recommended, the $143 million, to start assisting with some of those indirect costs.