Thank you, Mr. Weir.
There's no question that the cost of education is steadily rising year over year. Our operating costs now are funded by the provincial government. It's provincial funding that supports our operating costs, and roughly speaking 53% to 54% of our operating budget is paid for by the province. The federal funding comes mostly through research grants, funding agencies, and things like that, which of course are very helpful, and other avenues such as the strategic infrastructure fund, from which our university captured $30 million just this year.
In terms of access to education, we see increasing numbers of students all the time, so in a macro sense there doesn't appear to be a huge impediment from in terms of the cost of tuition because enrolments keep rising, but we are fast approaching a point where I think it's not going to be sustainable. If we do not receive adequate public funding from the government, we can't keep turning to tuition to fill that gap. It's just not feasible.
We're definitely facing funding pressures, and anything that the federal government can do to support the university in terms of research and infrastructure capital needs would take a lot of pressure off. We're always hopeful that we're going to see more from the federal government.