Science and Research committee  You're right. In principle, it would benefit the smaller institutions in terms of quality, the environment and cost of living. However, the reality or corollary is that it's precisely in the smaller universities that researchers have to spend more time on things other than research, as was mentioned earlier.

Science and Research committee  Thank you for your question, Mr. Blanchette-Joncas. It's not complicated. Some researchers conduct research in a specific field, but the current ground rules are not in their favour. They do indeed favour research work in English. However that may be, here is one of the things that Canada does well.

Science and Research committee  Thank you for your question. You're absolutely right. That's really the way it is. When you're part of a group that gets preferential treatment from a system, you're not going to complain about it. You'll always want more. The question for the federal government is whether that's good for Canadian society.

Science and Research committee  I believe the main reason for the imbalance is the funding model. The university environment certainly focuses on excellence, and no one can challenge that excellence is essential in higher education. However, excellence alone is not always enough. A critical mass of high-level researchers who can conduct their research in their respective languages is also essential.

Science and Research committee  It's not an easy question to answer. I'll try to be brief. While it's true that individuals are the bearers of quality and excellence, they develop in a specific context, and institutions are part of it. It's an undeniable equation. That said, I'll describe the equation's corollary.

Science and Research committee  I couldn't hear the interpretation properly.

Science and Research committee  If you were to ask us where improvements might be made, I would say it's obvious that something has to be done that would give us an advantage. Money is needed. We are in a research reinvestment phase. It's an opportunity to come up with ground rules that would be more beneficial to small and medium-sized universities and French-language universities across Canada.

Science and Research committee  Okay, thank you. Without abandoning the excellence criterion, the committee should look into new mechanisms for distributing funding, particularly from the standpoint of the Official Languages Act, which acknowledges that French is in a minority position in Canada and North America.

Science and Research committee  Good morning Mr. Chair and members of the committee. My name is Martin Maltais. I'm the president of Acfas, the Association francophone pour le savoir, and a professor of finance and educational policy at the Université du Québec à Rimouski. I am also a member of the Laboratoire interdisciplinaire de recherche sur l'enseignement supérieur.