Mr. Speaker, I prefer to lay out the five principles that the minister has laid out for the consultations. First, the department's national investment in science will be maintained at its current level or better. Second, research and development activities will be generally maintained in all provinces at current levels. Third, science undertaken will meet the needs of industry and take into account regional variances. Fourth, departmental initiatives will be integrated with the research and development planning and delivery done by government partners, universities and industry in Canada and abroad. Fifth, departmental initiatives will work to ensure synergy between researchers and to create state of the art facilities.
By pooling our resources with other research partners, we will be able to focus and increase the actual level of research activities with similar dollars. The minister's initiative is to move forward and do a better job of doing research.