Thank you for your question.
French-language research—creation, publication, dissemination and popularization—is a hot topic in the public discourse and in the academic community in Canada. French is on the decline around the world. Last fall, I attended the Semaine mondiale de la Francophonie scientifique in Quebec City, and we discussed it for a week. So it's a shared challenge in the francophone space.
Our members in particular face additional challenges. The research granting councils in Canada often have practices and programs that are better suited to large research institutions that have extensive research infrastructure and well-established research traditions. Consequently, it's hard for researchers at our small institutions to be competitive in the major competitions. We've also observed linguistic and institutional prejudices in the peer review of grant applications within granting councils. Efforts are being made to correct those prejudices, but much remains to be done on that score.
I encourage you to read the report that the Standing Committee on Science and Research prepared last year on French-language scientific research and publication in Canada. It contains a host of recommendations that are consistent with what the various actors are demanding. However, the government's response to that report was very disappointing. It more or less denied the issues that the actors sought to bring to light. Many aspects of that report could be developed to address the concerns raised by those actors as a whole.