Finance committee  In terms of 2009, we were reasonably happy with the results of that budget. We definitely were looking for the grants that were going to disappear when Millennium left to be reinvested into students. And we were glad to see that happened on an income-based system, though we do believe there needs to be more work for more needs-based funding.

Finance committee  Yes, and that's included in my remarks.

Finance committee  Yes, you are correct. There is no accountability framework right now.

Finance committee  I think you would have to recognize that there have been substantial hits to endowments across the country. Some have gone down by 30% or more. I think you have to recognize that there are the oncoming demographic difficulties that we need to prepare for. So you'd have to be working on both at the same time.

Finance committee  I would not suggest that there should be cuts in the other areas, but I think it's important to increase money through this envelope, primarily because it is money that can go to operational spending. The importance of that is that when a university is essentially forced to go down a particular path because there's an envelope of money for that, say for research or building research infrastructure, etc., that limits the kinds of diverse education we can have.

Finance committee  I'll just be highlighting some of the key points. The first is about the Canada social transfer. The federal government announced in Budget 2007 an $800 million envelope within the Canada social transfer for post-secondary education, but we continue to have what we estimate to be about a $3 billion funding gap from cuts that were made in 1995, in real terms, not accounting for increased numbers of students in that time.