Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Minister, for appearing and providing us testimony on the estimates.
I first want to correct the record that there's been some huge sea change in levels of higher education funding in Canada. While I acknowledge that the current government has somewhat increased funding for the four granting councils, if you look at the OECD's measures on higher education expenditures on research and development, they actually haven't changed much in the last 20 years. In 2005 it was 0.67% of GDP. In 2012 it was 0.7%. In 2013 it was 0.67%. In 2014, it was 0.65%. In 2015, it was 0.67%. In 2016, it was 0.68%. In 2017, the most recent year for which OECD has figures available, it was 0.65%. It's not as if there's been a massive sea change in levels of funding for higher education expenditures in this country. I think that's important to note on the record.
As far as being a world leader on higher education expenditures on research and development goes, while we place in the top 10, we're certainly not a world leader. We are behind countries like Austria, Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden, which spend considerably more than we do on higher education research and development. In fact, in the United States, the National Institutes of Health alone spend the equivalent of $49 billion Canadian a year on research, each and every year. Even on a pro rata basis, that dwarfs the budgets of the four granting councils in this country.
My question for you is quite simple. The Naylor report recommended increases to funding. The current government has spent considerably more than it had projected when it took office some four years ago. Why hasn't the government increased funding levels for the four granting councils to the levels recommended in the Naylor report?