Hon. Stan Kutcher: My question is for Senator Gold.

Senator Gold, it is well known that the federal funding for our health research enterprise in Canada is falling behind our global competitors, and we’ll see if that will be addressed today in the budget. As a result of this falling behind, it will become increasingly unlikely to be able to conduct the research needed to maintain and improve the health of Canadians.

For example, the project grant competition success rates at the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, or CIHR, range between 15% and 20% in the last five years, which means, at best, only one in five applicants are successful. However, in the pre‑screening process at CIHR, at least 50% of the applications are of high quality. Such mismatch between success rates and the efforts needed to do these grants create tremendous discouragement, particularly for our young researchers.

Will the Government of Canada ensure that substantial increases for health research funding through CIHR will be made, and that this amount will be sufficient to not only maintain but also grow our health research enterprise? If not today, when could we expect that to happen?