I'd like to thank my honourable colleague. He and I have worked together a very long time.
I, too, would like to correct the record. The data that you presented, the latest data, as you pointed out, was 2017, but 2018 was the historic investment in research, $6.8 billion in research, the largest investment in Canadian history, a 25% increase to our granting councils.
My goal was to put our researchers at the centre of everything we do to make sure they had the funding to do their research, that they have the labs and tools necessary to do their research and that they have the digital tools. That meant a 25% increase to our granting councils. It meant a $762-million investment in CFI and then the promise of predictable, sustainable, long-term funding of $462 million annually. Finally, after 20 years, there would be stable funding for CFI and, because so much of research today is big data, the digital research tools, there's an investment of $573 million.
When I go to a G7 meeting, what I hear from my G7 colleagues is that Canada is, and I quote, “a beacon for science and research”, and they are looking forward to collaborating, and because of that new frontiers in research funds, that $275-million fund that will double over the next few years, our researchers are going to have access to international money to be able to collaborate with Europe and the United States, and that really has not existed.