Thanks very much for your question.
The vice-chair for the Canadian Network of Northern Research Operators, Dr. Jim Drummond, is just returning from the PEARL station right now. They're getting ready for the winter season up there when a large amount of their work does occur. The PEARL station is a challenge because it's not located in a community, and it's a very difficult station to access during the wintertime.
As you mentioned, the program that funded it came to an end, and it's really been running on piecemeal funding. I understand some MPs were able to visit the PEARL station this summer, and there has been a push for sustained, direct funding for that particular station to continue to contribute to atmospheric chemistry measurements throughout the polar winter. This is on the order of about $1 million per year that has been requested to keep that station running.
The PEARL station was constructed in 1993 just when I very first started working in the Arctic. I remember visiting the site where they were going to construct PEARL.
The request we're looking for from the CNNRO is to provide that sustained support, not just for PEARL, which is a very valuable station, but to have a sustained fund available for some of these longer-term monitoring stations to be able to have access to so there isn't this last-minute push or trying to find resources to keep these very expensive infrastructures working.