Mr. Speaker, since the February 1997 budget, there has been talk of the Foundation for Innovation and its magnificent $800 million budget.
Yet we do not know when the Foundation will be truly operational, nor what it has planned for the world of research. According to the information we have available, the funds will be used solely for infrastructure expenditures.
Universities and hospitals are already having to cope with budget cuts, imposed by the cuts in transfer payments in particular. The Minister of Industry must realize that they will have difficulty finding partners who could make contributions equal to 50 percent or 60 percent of the funding from the foundation.
I am therefore inviting the minister to sit down with the Government of Quebec to find the best way to get the most out of these funds while respecting the respective governmental jurisdictions.