I've really enjoyed the conversation today, because we can look at the landscape over a decade or two and see that it was really a bold work of parliamentarians to create organizations like Genome Canada and CFI.
One of the more recent ambitions and investments made has been in making sure that our institutions and researchers fully reflect the diversity of Canada, to promote equity, diversity and inclusion. There have been some real strides made there, but the pandemic risked undoing decades of progress in that regard. It had that risk because, particularly for women researchers and researchers from minority communities, the added burdens of managing through the pandemic have interrupted and postponed the trajectory that many of those researchers were on.
There is outstanding research being done by researchers of all kinds in Canada, but one of the things we have conversation with the granting council and others on is how we recognize that two, two and a half or three years out of a researcher's prime have been disrupted by the pandemic? That's probably more a conversation we have with the granting councils than with members of Parliament.
We have made progress on equity, diversity and inclusion. There is more to be done. As we emerge out of the pandemic, this is one of the areas we're going to want to pay special attention to.