Thank you.
Thank you, Minister, for being here today.
I'm going to follow up on what Monsieur Blanchette-Joncas was pressing on.
You spoke at the start about the number of funding applications that had been rejected because of concerns, but I think a more serious concern from Canadians would be.... You know, the fact is that most research in Canada is not funded by the tri-councils, or there is a tremendous amount that is not. It's this research that is of most concern, I think, because there is a concern that this research, in many cases, is funded by outside sources, in some cases, by other countries.
We hear stories of researchers who are caught sending trade secrets or industry secrets to China. There was one from Hydro-Québec a year ago.
What is the federal government doing to prevent those things from happening when there is so much pressure on researchers here, on students coming in from other countries, to be funded from outside? They kind of get entrapped by this and forced to send these results back, send things that really belong here.
I'll just leave it there, but I want to follow up with a question about why we're in that position. Why do we not fund our own research as much? However, first of all, what is the federal government doing to go after those situations where people are getting external funding?