Mr. Speaker, it is certain that in this time of economic crisis we must put a great deal of emphasis on the importance of science, research and innovation for the future of our country.
The Liberal Party, back in the 1990s, under Mr. Chrétien and Mr. Martin, had the foresight to put into place some extremely important programs, such as the Canada Foundation for Innovation, the Canada research chairs, Genome Canada, which we have spoke of lately, and also the very important program to fund the indirect costs of university research. Those programs were far-sighted, at a difficult financial time, I might add, in the mid-1990s, and have been acclaimed by our universities and our research hospitals as providing that necessary support from the federal government to re-invigorate research in our country.
As we have seen in the past week or so, a number of these organizations, such as Genome Canada and, more recent, the three national funding research councils and our scientists have all decried that the programs I just mentioned are not continuing to receive steady support, particularly at this time when it is crucial for us to continue to build on that capability.
I hope and I pray that the government will take note of this and realize that science is something that we must support for the long run. It is not something that we address on an ad hoc basis when we decide it is time to make a small injection to turn on the tap and turn it off. We must realize the importance of steadily supporting scientific research in our country.