Thank you so much, Madam Chair.
I'm delighted to be here on behalf of my wonderful colleague, Mr. Cannings, who's an actual scientist and would probably be much better suited to this discussion than I am, but I'm going to do my very best.
It is an interesting conversation. I've appreciated all of the insights that our witnesses have shared with us so far.
I'd like to start with Dr. LaMontagne and pick up on some of these questions around support for graduate students. This was brought to my attention in an article in The Globe and Mail from May 12, regarding scholarship amounts in Canada for science graduates. I'll read the first sentence. Some of the witnesses are probably familiar with the article. It says, “Federal scholarships intended to support some of Canada’s most accomplished graduate students in science have become so devalued by inflation that those who receive them are effectively earning below the poverty line absent any additional means of income, a coalition of senior researchers has warned.” Obviously, they're looking to the government to increase these scholarships.
Dr. LaMontagne, as someone who's worked in both Canadian and American universities, can you talk a bit about how the low value of these scholarships and the fact that they haven't gone up in 19 years impact graduate students, and how things might differ between Canada and the United States?