Mr. Speaker, the minister will be familiar with this because he was the secretary of state for science and technology. As he knows, Western Economic Diversification partly funds the synchrotron at the University of Saskatchewan, something my two colleagues have supported very strongly. It is a very good project. It is $174 million. It is about to come on stream. It has an $18 million operating budget.
First, how does the Government of Canada intend to support the operating budget?
Second, I posed this question to him before. Does he agree with the Auditor General and many scientists, including at the University of Saskatchewan, who say that the Government of Canada must change the way it funds big science projects, that it needs to fund it though one funnel, in a much simpler fashion, rather than funding it through the NRC, through Western Economic Diversification and through Industry Canada?
Does he agree that it is about time for the Government of Canada to show some leadership and fund these big science projects through one funnel rather than make these scientists go to five or six government departments to get their funding?