Thank you for the question.
I'm really delighted. We have a new chief science advisor. I'll let you know a bit of the process we took to get here.
It was the first major science consultation in 10 years. We wrote to the research community, we wrote to stakeholders, and we wrote to all parliamentarians so that people could feed in on what this position should look like. It came back very clearly that this should be a chief science adviser. Then we contacted the chief science advisers in Australia, Israel, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States, and we built a made-in-Canada position. Remember, this was a position that was cut by the previous government. We launched the search for the chief science advisor in December 2016.
Through our new, open, merit-based, transparent process, we have a new chief science advisor, and she's terrific. She is a prominent heart researcher. She's a former vice-president of research at the University of Ottawa. She has provided advice nationally and internationally. She's a member of the Order of Canada.
Her job is to provide the Prime Minister, me, and cabinet with scientific advice—to collate the best known information of the time, to bring it together, and provide that advice. It's our job to consider the science, evidence, and facts along with the other evidence we need to make decisions—regional development, economy, diversity, equity, and so on. It's an advisory role.