Mr. Speaker, with all due respect to my colleague, I think it is very sad when members stand who actually have not done their research.
We already have scientific advisers in this government. In fact, we set up the Science, Technology and Innovation Council, which is made up of 18 of the smartest Canadians to be found. This council has presidents of universities and leaders in the research world. Those 18 people advise this government and that advice is available to anyone in the House. It is not one person, that is what we had before. We have improved on that. Not one person advising the government on every aspect of science, but 18 of the smartest people this country can provide in a council that is available to the Minister of State for Science and Technology, available to the government and its reports are, guess what, published and open to the public to read any time they want.
One of the points my colleague previously mentioned that is worth pointing out is that Canada has 0.5% of the population of the world. We publish over 4% of the world's published articles in the scientific community. We punch way above our weight. A couple of years ago a survey was done with 5,000 of the world's top scientists and they said Canada science and technology is the strongest it has ever been and I totally agree.