Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to ask my colleague a question on probably the sidebar of the impacts of the changing environment on the Arctic, and that is Arctic research.
There was a story in the press today containing commentary by the executive director of the International Polar Year. He spoke about the excellent work that had been done by scientists in accumulating data over the past year under an International Polar Year convention but went on to say that it was in some jeopardy because there was no further funding to do the analysis, to do the research and to carry on with the collection of data.
This is a moving target in the Arctic and we cannot be satisfied with one year. We must continue the programs of research and development, research in the Arctic and the development of strategies to combat the changing climate conditions there.
How does my colleague see, within the Conservative mentality within the budget that we are seeing now, the required direction to researchers to continue the very important work that is going on now and was going on in the past in the Arctic?