Science and Research committee  Right. I mean....

Science and Research committee  I can't comment on details of how they're funded, but I certainly know that we partner with labs at Ny-Ålesund in Norway and Sodankylä in Finland. They have funding through Europe-wide and national programs that they can tap into. Obviously, we don't have access to those. That's the short answer.

Science and Research committee  That's a good question. PEARL is quite useful as a site for testing instruments, particularly under fairly harsh conditions. For example, we have been testing solar panels for a Canadian solar panel company. They're very interested in seeing how well they perform, and will then perhaps deploy them elsewhere in northern Canada.

Science and Research committee  It comes back to my earlier answer. The initial equipment was bought with CFI funding. Then we had the six-year project grant from the Canada Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences, which is an organization that no longer exists. Then we had a six-year grant from the climate change and atmospheric research program at NSERC, which was kind of a follow-on from CFCAS, and that program no longer exists.

Science and Research committee  It's funding for research facilities. I know there's work going on in the government right now to look at major research facilities, very large ones like TRIUMF, SNOLAB and Ocean Networks Canada. I just finished a five-year term on the SNOLAB board a few weeks ago, so I'm well aware of how that works.

Science and Research committee  I certainly agree with what David said. Long-term measurements are the lifeblood of understanding what's happening in the Arctic. We've recorded some long-term datasets. I started doing measurements in the spring of 1999. This is the 25th anniversary of measurements of ozone and some gases and of ozone depletion.

Science and Research committee  My translation is not working. Could someone have a quick look at this? I just want to make sure I understand properly.

Science and Research committee  Maybe you could repeat that. I'm sorry.

Science and Research committee  No, it's not working. Maybe I'll try plugging it over here.

Science and Research committee  Thank you, Mr. Longfield. Our current ask right now, our submission to the pre-budget consultations, was $15 million over six years. That's about $2.5 million a year to do the science and also to give us the funding to be able to resume the program that we had with some Nunavut communities.

Science and Research committee  With PEARL, we really got started back in 2003, 2004 and 2005, when we got funding from the Canada Foundation for Innovation. That allowed us to install the equipment at existing Environment and Climate Change Canada buildings and then bring up some containers and set up two other facilities.

Science and Research committee  Thank you. I thank the committee for undertaking this study and for inviting me to speak to you about science and research needs in Canada's Arctic. My name is Kimberly Strong. I'm a professor and the chair of the department of physics at the University of Toronto. I'm also an atmospheric scientist and the principal investigator of PEARL, the Polar Environment Atmospheric Research Laboratory.