Thank you.
Thank you both for being here tonight. It is a historic occasion to have a committee on science and research in Canada. It's wonderful to be here at the initial meeting and to have two people such as yourselves before us. I wish we had hours and hours to talk to you.
I met with Dr. Runte a couple of weeks ago, so I'm going to start with Dr. Nemer. I have so many questions here.
Both of you talked about the competition in terms of science and young scientists that Canada has with other countries, the amount of investment in the U.K. and the U.S.A. The U.S.A. is putting out an idea for $250 billion in science and research investment.
When I talk to young scientists, especially in fields that require a large amount of expensive equipment—and this refers to Dr. Runte's field—they are drawn inexorably to the United States because there's just a very limited amount of that in Canada.
Dr. Nemer, you mentioned that Canada had to prioritize science in our economic strategies. I translated that as meaning we have to spend a lot more money. I wonder if you have any ballpark figure there. Would one-tenth of what the U.S. is planning on spending, $25 billion, be what we need to do, perhaps over a number of years? What would make the biggest impact to get Canada on the right track where the federal government is actually putting a good amount of money into science and research that will drive our economy forward in these years?