Mr. Speaker, I thoroughly enjoyed the minister's speech and I look forward to supporting his work, of course, as his parliamentary secretary.
Earlier today, I stood up in the House of Commons for an S.O. 31 to highlight some of the work being done by my alma mater, McMaster University. It is establishing Canada's global nexus for pandemics and biological threats. It is especially significant work in this day and age and it is so important to ensure that all of the experts in Canada and around the world are focused on ensuring the protection and resilience of our countries against emerging variants.
I was wondering if the minister could talk a little bit about whether the COVID research fund could support this initiative and how the research of our universities and institutes of higher learning has been tremendously valuable throughout this pandemic.