Thank you very much.
Just to come back a bit, you mentioned the $70 million that is there as far as added research is concerned. As I mentioned in my last question, we have $59.6 million that is from the National Research Council of Canada's numbers. Mitacs is down $7 million, and there is a cut of $1.7 million to the centres of excellence for commercialization and research program. You start to get into real money there as well, things that are in the main estimates and get moved around.
As someone who has a base in agriculture, I'm extremely happy to see the research dollars that are there. I disagree vehemently with the suggestion that those kinds of dollars and that kind of research and the research clusters were not there in the previous government. I think it's unfair to make those types of statements, in so many ways.
In your presentation, you talked about joining with the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food at the Central Experimental Farm to announce $70 million to support agricultural discovery science and innovation in the country. Included in that then, we need to have some real discussions on agriculture about things like GMOs. Health Canada has to be taking a look at things like gluten-free diets, whereas 0.7% of the population has a problem with gluten, yet there is a fad such that 2% to 3% of people believe that they should be taking on these kinds of diets. Therefore, you have 1.3% to 2.3% of the population that is not benefiting from gluten.
Take a look at some of the science and some of the decisions that have been made regarding neonicotinoids. These are the kinds of things that make me a little bit concerned when I hear people talk about agricultural discovery science who don't live out there on the farms, on the ground, or see exactly what this does.
Yes, it's important, but where are the researchers? Are there researchers out there in western Canada who can take a look and actually talk about what neonicotinoids do and why it is that the guys who have bees want to make sure that their bees aren't out there where the canola is that is treated with that substance? There are reasons there, but we get caught up in a bunch of rhetoric that comes from people who just don't want to have a dandelion sprayed on their lawn in downtown Toronto.
Those are the concerns that I have. I really want us to make sure that when we talk about agricultural discovery science, it goes back to agriculture and the people who really recognize what is there. I see too much of, “Here's this fad. Here's that fad. Let's talk about this. Let's satisfy some other group,” whether it be in Europe, the U.S., or China. In reality, all that is happening is they're using these for trade irritants and causing problems there.
How can we be assured that our scientists are going to pay attention to the real part of science instead of getting caught up in this social science aspect of things?