Mr. Speaker, this is probably one of the greatest tragedies of the budget. If I were an exaggerating individual, I would say it is virtually criminal. Canada dragged itself from being virtually dead last in the G-7 for research and development to number one, and it was done primarily through the funding in foundations for innovation and things of that nature.
This is, at this point, the number one place in the world to do publicly funded research. I will share with my hon. colleague a conversation I had with the former president of the University of Toronto. The University of Toronto in particular, but universities generally across the country have benefited hugely. He said there were two things that reversed the brain drain and made it a brain gain. The first was September 2001 and researchers began to look at Canada as an alternative North American destination. However, the most significant of which was the funding of these foundations, so that researchers had access to a steady flow of capital in order to be able to do their thing. Therefore, U of T was able to be right in the game with the best of them.