Industry Committee on May 6th, 2008

[Raymond Simard, Liberal, Saint Boniface, MB]

Many of our witnesses are telling us that one of the major challenges will be human resources. I think Mr. Corbett spoke to that indirectly. I also read somewhere that NRC has 1,200 guest workers who come from all over the world. Is that correct?

[Pierre Coulombe]

Every year we welcome between 1,200 and 1,500 guest scientists. They are primarily grad students and post-grad students, as well as scientists from abroad.

[Raymond Simard, Liberal, Saint Boniface, MB]

Do we manage to keep some of these scientists from abroad? Do they decide to stay and continue their research in Canada?

[Pierre Coulombe]

Some decide to stay, and some decide to go back to their countries. As you know, more and more countries today want to bring their people back, because they need them, as we do.

[Raymond Simard, Liberal, Saint Boniface, MB]

Mr. Corbett, you were talking about the rate of attrition being 40% to 45% over the next five years. At the government operations committee we were studying that. Is that a higher rate than we would normally see in the public service of the federal government right now?

[Gary Corbett]

I'll let my colleague add to this, but I think this has to do with the fact that scientists or highly qualified professionals actually get their degrees later in life, so they would be in a position now to retire. Most of the scientists are older, so that's critical in this particular community. I think it's a bit higher than the normal rate in the public service.

[Denise Doherty-Delorme]

The public service as a whole is older than the Canadian public, and the scientists as a whole are older than the public service. They start much later and don't stay past the age of 60. We hear about some staying on an emeritus status, but they do not stay.

On the other issue, as Dr. Coulombe has said, a lot of our scientists are world-class and the NRC is a world-class site. But last year they had to let 100 scientists go, and this year they're facing another 5% cut in their budget, so they may have to let another 300 scientists go. That's not just NRC; that's across a lot of the departments. There has been a lot of attrition due to budget cuts.

[Raymond Simard, Liberal, Saint Boniface, MB]

Monsieur Coulombe, what percentage of research is done in Canada by your organization compared to other countries in the world? How does Canada compare worldwide? Are we doing enough of that? Are we doing more than the average country?

[Pierre Coulombe]

It's difficult to answer your question. I'd like to look at the data. As output per dollar invested in R and D in an organization like NRC, we like to benchmark ourselves against others. I can tell you that we perform quite well. Some organizations are larger than we are, but their output per dollar invested in R and D is not significantly higher.

[Raymond Simard, Liberal, Saint Boniface, MB]

Are there some things you do better than universities or other research facilities? Are there things you are very good at that people go to you for?

[Pierre Coulombe]

Well, first of all, the mandate of the NRC is very different from the mandate of universities. Universities are very good at HQP, because they are the products--HQP--of universities and knowledge. NRC is a research organization that is targeting its activity to fit the needs of the industry. By doing that, we collaborate quite a bit with universities. In fact, 500 to 600 of our scientists are adjunct professors in universities all across Canada , and we do that because we like to partner with universities, but our mandate is very different.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you, Mr. Simard.

Now we'll go to Mr. Stanton, please.

[Bruce Stanton, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Welcome to our witnesses this afternoon. Again, this is another intriguing chapter in our science and technology study.

Mr. Corbett, you made some...much like Mr. Arthur, who received your comments as a bit of an indictment of Canada's program around science and technology, when in fact what we've seen is probably one of the more robust, if not the most robust investment in science and technology that this country has seen in the last several years. And that's frankly been built on significantly in the last three budgets of this government--some $2.4 billion added to that commitment, and a new strategy, called mobilizing science and technology, part of Advantage Canada's plan. It aligns entirely with our economic policy, Advantage Canada. So I was rather surprised by your concluding paragraph, paragraph 4, where you talk about aligning our S and T strategy with our economic policy. In fact, that's exactly what the government of the day has done.

I take issue with the premise of your remarks today, particularly when we've heard from earlier witnesses and data that show that Canada right now is behind OECD countries in terms of the representation of business and private sector investment. Don't you think that part of the science and technology strategy should be to engage more of that private sector and to continue to do the good things we're doing on our own in-house research, on the good work that NRC and other like companies are doing, but at the same time, to get the strategy to enable that additional pool of research that frankly other countries are doing much better at than we are. In our competing countries, 68% of R and D is from the private sector, whereas Canada is over-represented right now on the government side. What you're telling us is almost exactly the opposite to what we're seeing in the way the data are presented.

[Gary Corbett]

There are a lot of questions in there. I wish I could pick one out, to be honest.

If you go to the laboratories across this country, if you go to those laboratories' science-based departments and agencies and you talk about the issues with my members, you'll know that it's not all rosy. We do agree that, yes, as I mentioned, there are three legs to the stool and industry investment has to be one of them, but it's shifted so far to industry and academia that now government facilities, your own facilities, from Lethbridge to St. John's, Newfoundland, are all struggling and having a difficult time providing science for the public good, for Canadians. And that's the message.

[Bruce Stanton, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Mr. Roberts.

[Chris Roberts, Research Officer, Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada]

There are a couple of things about the coherence or coordination between the economic strategy and the science and technology strategy. We know how important manufacturing is to business sector R and D. It performs well over half of business sector R and D. When the economic strategy results in 350,000 jobs lost since 2002 and a wholesale shift in real output and employment to low-productivity services and away from manufacturing, you have a bit of a disconnect between the economic strategy and the science and technology strategy, which is about fostering, encouraging, advancing research and development that's going to result in productivity gains in the economy as well.

[Bruce Stanton, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

So in your approach, the message I took from your presentation was that you're trying to enhance the livelihood of the members who are in your constituency, certainly, and I understand that. But we're also concerned, as public policy-makers, about ensuring that the investments the public sector makes in fact are achieving return on investment, that they're getting the kinds of results that Dr. Coulombe referred to.

As an organization, what undertakings are you putting in place to sell the fact that these kinds of investments in the public sector, the kind of more robust investment that you're asking for here today...? How can we be sure, as public policy-makers, that those are going to be sound and that Canada's economy and its standard of living are in fact going to benefit from that?

[Gary Corbett]

We're not experts on public policy in terms of what the balance is. That's for government to decide. We're simply here today to tell you that from our point of view, the view of our members and what's happening in the scientific community, there has to be a rebalancing of that effort. We're here to say that, because we're looking at what's happening in other countries. If you go to see what's happening in laboratories and you see that there is no investment in science in that particular area, and they can't recruit, they can't retain.... We're here to send that message today.

From our point of view, there has to be a rebalancing and funding going back into intramural. We're not saying that it's not important to have industry involved. Many of the laboratories, including the NRC, have industry and university partners, but these laboratories are facing some crises.

That's what we're saying here.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

I'm sorry, Mr. Stanton. We're out of time.

We'll go to Mr. Brison for a very brief question.

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Mr. Coulombe, in September 2007 you announced that two NRC programs in Halifax were being cut. One was on fish diseases and the other was on shellfish. With those marine sciences division cuts, it disproportionately affected Atlantic Canada.

Now, the rationale at that time was that the program cancellations were due to NRC's restructuring and focus on human health rather than animal health. Given the importance of fish and shellfish to the diets of Canadians, isn't it hard to discern or divide between human health and animal health? How can you say that research was not for public good, given the importance of research in the food and fisheries industries?

[Pierre Coulombe]

Last year the NRC undertook a revision of its research programs, something that we have to do from time to time in order to make sure our activities are aligned with our own strategy. Therefore, we started the revision of all NRC research programs. As a result, as was mentioned earlier, about 100 NRC scientists were laid off because of program cancellation. Programs were not cancelled because they were not good scientifically speaking. This was not a matter of this being bad science and therefore we have to cut it; it was primarily to realign our activities according to the areas of strategy that were defined for us. So as a result of that, we did some cutting in Halifax, but we repositioned that institute to better serve the community there, including the industry community.

We had to abandon some programs, obviously. We did that elsewhere in Canada as well. But it was not a cutting exercise, because we reinvested that money in support of our strategy. It was a realignment. I do believe it's part of sound business to review your programs from time to time to make sure they are connected to some needs expressed by the industry.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you, Mr. Brison.

I'm just going to finish up. I wanted to clarify a couple of points.

Mr. Corbett, in your presentation, on page 3 you state that “Big-science projects requiring large-scale investments and long-term commitments in particular need government science leadership and in-house capacity to succeed.”

I was at the synchrotron earlier this spring. If you analyze that particular big-science project, you have the infrastructure part, which is funded largely through CFI, the institution, the provincial government, and other sources. You have the human resource side, which is funded by the granting councils, by the university. You have the institutional costs, which are funded by the indirect costs program federally as well as the university itself. You have the operating costs, which the university raised as an issue that they want this committee and the government to address. Then you have the industry involvement.

So explain to me from your members' perspective why the synchrotron needs in-house capacity to succeed. Where do they fit in that picture?

[Gary Corbett]

I'm not really familiar with the synchrotron project. I've been at the synchrotron; I should know more about it. But I'll explain it this way.

Some of the major projects in this country have been identified by government scientists. Diamonds in Yellowknife are an example. That would not have happened if it weren't for Natural Resources Canada and the work of the Geological Survey of Canada. That type of long-term research, that type of long vision, needs to be funded so that there will be a consistency and continuity throughout the entire life of the project.

So with respect to the synchrotron—

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

But I'm asking about big-science projects, so with respect to TRIUMF or the synchrotron and so on. Is there another big-science project?

[Gary Corbett]

Well, I'm speaking of big-science projects in the long term, of the synchrotron after 50 years; what can be discovered in 50 years? When we talk about big science, we're talking about long-range science projects, such as mapping the terrain of Canada to figure out where the next ores are, or looking at fish stocks over the long term. A synchrotron is another area for sure, but we're talking about scientific projects with a 50-year lifespan, for example.

To answer your question, there have to be resources committed--long-term, full-time resources--to make sure the project has the committed staff--