Mr. Speaker, to address part of my colleague's questions about the actual year-over-year funding amounts, especially for the tri-council agencies, I was able to find NSERC's budget right off the bat. The 2005-06 budget level was $859 million. In fiscal year 2011-12 it was $1.08 billion. That is the sort of trend that our government has shown in spite of the global economic downturn. Why? It is because we understand that investment in research and technology translates into a more diverse and successful economy.
With regard to some of my colleague's other questions, he also has to understand that in order to develop opportunities for commercializing our research, we have to develop receptor capacity within our country. How do we do this? We attract the best and brightest minds, we fund them through programs such as the Canada excellence research chair programs and we look at additional markets for our products through trade deals. There are a wide variety of programs that we have focused on, not just through funding but in addition to funding, in order to increase that receptor capacity, bring the researchers into this country and keep them here.