Thank you for that question.
I am, in fact, currently the interim chair of the governing council of the CIHR, which was the first granting agency to declare that 4% of the funds would go to indigenous researchers because 4% of the population of Canada are indigenous. They were the first ones to make that sort of equitable statement. I believe that has worked very well. It's not only 4%, but a minimum of 4%.
In the last budget, we saw money specifically for Black Canadian researchers. I believe it was $24 million, but you would know better than I. I think actually having population-based targets for research funding is one of the measures that can be taken.
Where I think we still struggle as a country.... It's nobody's fault, but we saw during the pandemic that women were really disproportionately affected. It was in all areas, but really in research it was quite astonishing. The number of publications submitted by women researchers dropped and the number of publications submitted by male researchers skyrocketed. That's true in most disciplines.
The number of grant applications we saw from women was substantially reduced and the number for men was increased.
While we thought we were making good strides as a country generally, I think that really shone a light on areas where we perhaps aren't as equitable as we think we are. I would love to have that answer for you, but I don't. I do think it is something that we as a country really need to come to terms with.