For those readers who regularly follow my columns, they have doubtless noticed that the week of the monthly Perimeter Institute public lecture I typically take the opportunity to write some article related to the upcoming lecture to give the readers some appropriate background and pique their interest. Given that this Wednesday’s lecture, given by the renowned physicist Anton Zeilinger, is dedicated to shedding some light on the mysteries of quantum mechanics – a subject I have written about with some frequency and which nobody really understands anyway, I have decided to switch gears somewhat and talk about a rather different issue: the recent federal budget and its implications for science and beyond.

Astute readers may notice that this, too, is not entirely out of character. I have spent some time in the past examining various speeches and election platforms to try to get a sense of where the relevant political leaders stand on issues related to science. But speeches and election promises are one thing, a budget – with its clear delineation of actual intentions tied to hard figures – is the closest thing to determining where a government’s real priorities lie.

Given that, what does the recent budget imply for the present Liberal government’s priorities in terms of science and research? Sadly, not much. I am assured by Industry Canada that this government is determined to build on past major investments in people, science and research and development, and to prove their case evidence is cited of commitments to the granting councils, universities and research centres.

The difficulty with budgets, however, is that fancy slogans finally have line items attached to them to firmly assess credibility, and in this case the government’s determination looks mighty thin indeed. Out of a $126 billion net spend this year (after a debt servicing payment of $35 billion), the numbers for science and research hardly indicate a priority status. The three major granting councils did get an increase, but only a combined increase of $375 million over 5 years, which is hardly a bold commitment by any stretch of the imagination and likely is little more than an adjustment for inflation. An additional $75 million, again over 5 years, went towards indirect costs for the academic sector while Genome Canada received $165 million and the experimental particle physics facility TRIUMF received a further 5 year commitment of $126 million. Let’s leave aside the obvious question of what a five year commitment means to a minority government which likely won’t last another two, but instead focus on the numbers themselves and one quickly finds that this present government does not really consider science and research a priority.

That is obviously disturbing for those among us who were excited by the substantial accomplishments the previous federal government had made towards rebranding Canada as a research-oriented country and who took seriously their commitment towards bringing Canada into the upper echelon of international research & development (remember the “Innovation Agenda”?), but the truth of the matter is that this budget should bother anyone who is seeking some clear sense of priorities from this government in any direction.

As has been commented on by many, this is a “safe” budget politically, fundamentally motivated to ensure that everyone across the political spectrum received something that would resonate with them: increased defense funding and some minor tax cuts for the Tories, $700 million towards a nebulous national daycare program for the NDP and $800 million for regional economic development agencies in Atlantic Canada, Western Canada, Quebec and northern Ontario, still more money for health care, cities, heritage and foreign aid.

What are the priorities? Last week’s budget is an obvious indication that the one clear and overriding priority of this government is simply to get re-elected. It was no coincidence that this budget was entitled “Delivering on Commitments” – the entire process was a blatant attempt to earn the confidence of the electorate by pronouncing: “See, we can live up to our election promises and still compromise with the opposition enough to govern. Trust us.”

At some point, however, people have to ask: “To do what?”. In order for a country to move forwards, its government must be pre-occupied with actually achieving something. Accomplishing international excellence in any field, be it defence or health care, sports or science, is damned difficult. Successful countries progress and reinvent themselves by focusing on ambitious targets and meeting them - sadly, the only target I see this government setting its sights on is the next election.

And I thought trying to comprehend quantum mechanics was challenging.