Madam Speaker, the member is absolutely correct. This is not really about saving money. It is about following an ideology.
The government does have absolute contempt for basic research and for investigator-driven research where people have a hunch that a return on investment might not be tomorrow with a new drug, but that it will be in saving lives and actually improving the quality of life.
That institute has paid for itself time and time again. It is this very linear thinking by the government that the savings must be found in the same department or in the same part of a department. Whole of government approaches or how this country works is just of no interest to the government.
The government just wants to know how it can cut, and particularly cut the stuff that will find things that might be embarrassing and that it might have to act on.