Science and Research Committee on May 9th, 2023

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

I call the meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number 43 of the Standing Committee on Science and Research.

Today’s meeting is taking place in a hybrid format, pursuant to the House order of June 23, 2022. Members are attending in person in the room, and we have a few who are on Zoom today. There's at least one.

I would like to make a few comments for the benefit of the witnesses.

Thank you to the witnesses for coming.

Please wait until I recognize you by name before speaking. For those participating by video conference, click on the microphone icon to activate your mike. When you're speaking, please speak slowly and clearly for the benefit of our translators.

Thank you to our translators.

When you are not speaking, please mute your mike.

For interpretation, for those on Zoom, you have the choice at the bottom of your screen of floor, English or French. For those in the room, you can use the earpiece and select the desired channel.

This is a reminder that all comments should be addressed through the chair.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(3)(i) and the motion adopted by the committee on Tuesday, February 14, the committee is commencing its study of the Government of Canada’s graduate scholarship and post-doctoral fellowship programs.

It is now my pleasure to welcome our witnesses. In person, from the Canadian Association of University Teachers, we have Justine De Jaegher, director of political action and communications. Online, from the Fédération québécoise des professeures et professeurs d'université, we have Michel Lacroix, president and treasurer.

You will each be given a maximum of five minutes, after which we'll proceed to the rounds of questions. I'll signal to you when you're getting close to that five-minute mark.

We'll get started with Ms. De Jaegher.

[Justine De Jaegher, Director, Political Action and Communications, Canadian Association of University Teachers]

Thank you so much, Chair.

Good morning, everyone.

I would like to begin by acknowledging that we are meeting on the traditional unceded territory of the Algonquin people.

Thank you for studying this issue, which is critical for the future of Canada's success in research and science. I am grateful for the invitation to be here on behalf of the Canadian Association of University Teachers. CAUT represents over 72,000 faculty, librarians and professional staff at more than 125 post-secondary institutions across the country.

We work in the public interest to improve the quality and accessibility of post-secondary education in Canada. Universities, colleges and polytechnics are essential to the preservation, dissemination and advancement of knowledge for the benefit of all.

Today's graduate students are tomorrow's leading researchers and are integral to Canada's research and science workforce. Although Canada and the world rely on this workforce to create the knowledge needed to improve quality of life and to face critical challenges, investment and planning are needed to ensure a flourishing research community today and tomorrow.

The impact of ongoing neglect in this area includes the following:

First is the slowing of Canada's research and science talent pipeline, as low award values make it increasingly difficult for Canada to attract and retain young talented researchers and innovators.

Second, academia is seen less and less as a career. The shrinking number of jobs for highly trained researchers in fundamental science is a deterrent and a brain drain. In the words of one of our members in a recent survey on the state of the academic profession, “I am losing pace with my research because the demands of my teaching intensive contract occupy so much time and any research I do is not allowed on my contract, so I'm always having to find creative ways to stay involved in research and do my own research. If I had known academia was going to be like this, I never would have pursued a Ph.D.”

Third are the delays to achieving greater equity, diversity and inclusion. The limited data that we do have for our sector show that the greatest diversity of skilled researchers is overrepresented in part-time or part-year contract work, and they are therefore less likely to be engaging in research activities at all.

In my remarks, I will focus on the importance of increasing fellowships and scholarships, including the pool of research grants that are used to employ and train the vast majority of graduate students and investing in workforce renewal.

In a recent survey of our members, 65% of respondents rated the level of federal support for graduate student salaries as either poor or very poor. As we saw with the recent Support our Science walkout and various job actions in our sector across the country, graduate students and post-doctoral fellows are at a breaking point. CAUT is in solidarity with these groups, and we echo their calls for more and better scholarships and fellowships.

Research grants must also increase. Most students are not funded via scholarships and fellowships but rather through research assistantships paid for by research grants. To improve student wages, increases are also needed to grant sizes and to the number of grants available.

CAUT to this point supports the recommendation made in the Bouchard report to increase the granting council's core grant programming by at least 10% annually for five years. This would be a first step to improving compensation and giving research funding the boost it needs.

Last, the issue of precarity and the need to renew the academic workforce cannot be ignored. To invest in graduate students, we must also grow our science and research workforce, and we are falling behind. At least one-third of faculty at Canadian universities and colleges are working in teaching-only contract positions.

In the last decade, the number of university professors working part time or part of the year increased by 79%. In our survey of the state of the academic profession, the majority of these would like to work in a position that also supports their research. Moreover, the number of assistant professorship or early career research jobs in Canada has shrunk by 18% over the last decade.

A workforce strategy is needed to support and nurture our next generation of talent. Canada is 26th in the OECD for graduate degree attainment. Without a strategy, it will be difficult for Canada to improve our standing and compete globally.

It is time to act on the clear and plentiful evidence and expert recommendations that have been made on Canada's research funding ecosystem. To support the next generation of academics, thought leaders, researchers and drivers of Canadian innovation, we urge the Government of Canada to increase the number and value of graduate student scholarships and post-doctoral fellowships, to increase research funding through the tri-council agencies and to take a leadership role to work with provinces to address the lack of renewal of our science and research workforce.

Thanks so much. I look forward to your questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

Thank you, Ms. De Jaegher. You were right on time.

Mr. Lacroix, it's now your turn. You have six minutes.

[Michel Lacroix, President and Treasurer, Fédération québécoise des professeures et professeurs d'université]

Thank you.

I would like to thank the Standing Committee on Science and Research for inviting me. It's an honour to come after our colleague and friend at the Canadian Association of University Teachers, so I would like to say hello to her.

The Fédération québécoise des professeures et professeurs d'université, or FQPPU, is the voice of 19 university teacher unions and associations across Quebec, representing nearly 95% Quebec's university professors. In addition to defending the interests of its members, the FQPPU advocates for universities as an accessible public service dedicated to the production and dissemination of critical knowledge. Those principles will inform my remarks today.

University teachers have a keen interest in bringing graduate students into the world of creation and research. First, those students are the teachers of tomorrow, who will take on the responsibility of supporting universities and other institutions in their pursuit of invention and the promotion and dissemination of knowledge. Second, those students will become the vehicles for the transmission of knowledge in their professional lives, regardless of the setting.

The federal government has an important role to play, specifically through the scholarship programs administered by the granting councils as well as programming for research grants and chairs. However, a number of statistics and recent statements are a clear sign that federal support is out of sync with today's challenges and opportunities. Accordingly, we agree with the positions expressed by CAUT, the Advisory Panel on the Federal Research Support System, which released the Bouchard report, as well as the Support Our Science group, just to name a few.

We want as many graduate students as possible to be able to focus fully on their research and to overcome the socio-economic barriers they face in accessing knowledge and joining the scientific community. That is why we are calling on the government to significantly increase scholarship awards for master's and Ph.D. students and to index the funding regularly. We have told you this time and time again: scholarships and fellowships have been stagnant for two decades, so much so that it is now impossible for a single person depending on that money to live above the poverty line. What does that mean in an economy marked by a shortage of workers and inflationary pressures? Structurally, it pushes people towards what is known as survival work and may force them to give up their graduate studies. It also puts those who come from modest means at a further disadvantage.

Furthermore, the government needs to give the granting councils the capacity to provide significantly more scholarships in all fields. Canada will need more people with the skills to replenish and disseminate knowledge in order to face the cultural, environmental, economic and social challenges that lie ahead.

Lastly, the government must increase its overall research grant budget for the granting councils. As CAUT just highlighted, much of the financial support students receive is in the form of grants. As one of our members pointed out, research grants and assistantship contracts come out of professors' funding, but the amounts are not enough.

In closing, I'd like to mention a couple more things, if there's time. It's necessary to promote greater access to the research community, distinguish more clearly between support for the next generation of talent and recognition of the rarest achievement in excellence, build the largest possible pool of researchers and leverage prestige. To do that, the granting councils should provide similar-sized grants to master's and Ph.D. students, no matter the field of research, and use awards to recognize exceptional applicants and research achievements.

We submitted a brief to the committee in December, and it ties in with this study. Supporting the next generation of researchers also means implementing a range of measures to promote the dissemination of French-language research.

The last point I want to make is this: it's important to come up with some way to work with the provinces so that the funding leads to more teachers and a more supportive framework. The number of teachers has not grown at the same pace as the number of graduate students, and the gap is significant.

Thank you. I would be happy to answer your questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

That's terrific. Thank you.

To both witnesses, thank you for your presentations. I know we'll have lots of questions.

I was remiss in not welcoming Eric Melillo from the Conservative Party, who is visiting us today.

It's always good to have you in the room.

We'll start our questions with the Conservative Party.

The first speaker is Mr. Soroka for six minutes.

[Gerald Soroka, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for coming today.

I'll start off with you, Ms. De Jaegher.

We know that we're lacking in funding here in Canada. I'm just concerned, though. Are we able to still attract enough students or researchers into a field in Canada, or are they just going abroad seeking greener pastures, so to speak?

[Justine De Jaegher]

That's absolutely one of the concerns, the brain drain factor. You look at, for example, funding for research in Germany, which is two percentage points higher than in Canada.

Yes, we are seeing researchers move abroad for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is, of course, lack of funding. I cited that OECD statistic. We are low ranked there in terms of graduate degree attainment and also in terms of retention.

Of course, feeding all of this is the cost of education generally, which is why indexing graduate scholarships to inflation would be at least a first step in addressing that gap that's created, but there also needs to be an injection of funds to play that catch-up from 2003.

[Gerald Soroka, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Do you feel that, because of this, universities are partnering with companies such as Huawei, where there's a potential security risk depending on the research they're doing? Are they looking at this simply as funding just to survive versus flourishing?

[Justine De Jaegher]

Again, that's concerning, because over the last three decades we've seen the progressive public underfunding of post-secondary education. In the early 1990s, it was about 80% of revenues for post-secondary education that came from public sources. Now that number is less than 50%. Institutions are making up those revenues however they can, predominantly through tuition fees and predominantly through what are generally deregulated international student tuition fees, and, as you said, through private partnerships in many cases with corporations either in Canada or abroad.

It's really threatening the public nature of our institutions, the ability to protect academic freedom and a number of the other values that we hold to heart in our current system.

[Gerald Soroka, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

I'm not disputing that we need more funding; that's not where I'm going with this. I just want to find out what other opportunities are there, such as patents, licensing or contracts with the private sector. Are those opportunities or are we beyond that because companies have gone to other countries to get that type of research because there just aren't as many dollars or potential researchers in Canada?

[Justine De Jaegher]

In terms of applied research with a particular kind of commercializable outcome, certainly there are better and worse ways of doing that in terms of partnerships. Certainly, we'd want to see partnerships that protect academic freedom and protect scientific inquiry as distinct from the aims of the private company.

I think a bigger issue in terms of our need for research funding is that we're seeing basic investigator-led research really dwindle in favour of this more applied research. This is not to say it's not needed, but we're seeing a shift in the balancing of those two streams.

Obviously, we're coming out of a pandemic, and it's often been said that if we funded only applied research, we might have the best iron lung in the world, but we wouldn't have a polio vaccine. That's really a good point for where we are now. We want to look to solutions and partnerships with industry, and sometimes that can be part of the solution, but it doesn't make up for the gap in basic investigator-led research.

[Gerald Soroka, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Would you say that we're getting to the stage where we can do the research, I'll say fairly well even with the lack of funding, but that you can't take it to the next step for commercialization or work with a company because there just isn't that opportunity to go that much further? Is that what you're saying?

[Justine De Jaegher]

No, I think we've seen more funding, the proportion of total research funding, go towards applied, commercializable research efforts. I think what's lacking in our ecosystem research-wise is funding for both applied and investigator-led, but in particular, basic investigator-led research. That's where we're really lacking. Some of that research will result in commercializable outcomes, but by funding only, or increasingly only, research with what is purported to have a clear commercializable aim, we are lacking some of that basic innovation.

[Gerald Soroka, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

That's been a prime example during COVID. We saw a lot of times when, instead of going with researchers right here in Canada, we go abroad for our own needs. Do you feel that we're going to be losing out in the future to such opportunities where even Canadians don't even look to Canada to solve their solutions any more? Is that a potential?

[Justine De Jaegher]

Absolutely, that's a concern, yes. It's getting harder and harder to imagine the incentive for really smart, innovative researchers to want to stay in Canada, given the fact that we haven't seen an increase to their basic funding packages since 2003.

Anecdotally, I received a Canada graduate scholarship 10 years ago, and the value of that scholarship is the same as someone going to grad school today. Of course, over the last 10 years, we've seen a huge increase in the cost of living generally and perhaps most poignantly in tuition fees, which have outpaced increases to both housing and food.

[Gerald Soroka, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Are there other opportunities? We've talked in the past about potentially assisting students with housing to make it a little more cost-effective for them to attend universities.

What other opportunities are there, besides direct funding?

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

We might have to hold that answer, unless you can give it to us in writing. Maybe there will be another opportunity in the next questions.

[Gerald Soroka, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

I would appreciate it if she could submit that, please.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

Thank you, Mr. Soroka, for the questions.

Next up, we have Ms. Metlege Diab from the Liberals.

[Lena Metlege Diab, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good morning and welcome to the witnesses.

Madam De Jaegher, I am going to allow you to answer that question, because that was part of what I wanted to go with.

I think we on this committee recognize that more funding is needed for graduate and post-doctoral researchers, for researchers in general.

What else can the government do—or other than government—to help them, other than direct funding? Is there anything else we can do?

[Justine De Jaegher]

Absolutely.

We're talking a lot about Canada's research ecosystem. Today, the focus is on scholarships and fellowships for graduate students and post-docs. We're also talking about basic research funding, research funding through the tri-council agencies, to ensure that our members, in many cases, are able to hire graduate students at fair wages on stipends to help conduct their research. That's a big part of the research ecosystem.

Beyond the research ecosystem, we have a bit of a general post-secondary ecosystem. That's where, of course, there can be increased funding, and ought to be increased funding, for things like the Canada social transfer, which is currently how we provide operating funds federally to our post-secondary institutions. We'd like to see dedicated funding to our sector, not unlike the Canada health transfer, dedicated funding beyond the Canada social transfer for operational funds, and, of course, an expansion of student grant programs generally to help with things like tuition fees.

To the point about housing, again, it's things like acting on some of the things outlined in the national housing strategy and ensuring the specific needs of students are being met around shorter-term rentals in the oftentimes very high-rent areas associated with colleges and universities.

I think it is an issue that requires a multipronged approach, tackling it from multiple different angles. Ultimately, it's about cost of living beyond just the need for driving innovation and research.

[Lena Metlege Diab, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

I have a follow-up question and another one. I'm going to ask them both at the same time.

If you had a stream of this operational funding, or if it increased, how would it help these graduate and post-doctoral...?

I also want you to comment on something you talked about. I am extremely interested in this. I wrote it down. It's about the shift in the balancing of the two streams. You described it as “applied commercialization research” versus “basic investigator-led research”. I am extremely interested in the latter.

Can you give us examples of the second one? I think it's valuable and important. Could you talk about those who are doing research and also teaching in our institutions, the value of that, but also the conflict? What can you tell us to help us in this committee?

[Justine De Jaegher]

In short, an increase in public operational funds for colleges and universities ought to result, and has historically resulted, in lower tuition fees, because institutions aren't having to seek out private user fees, private partnerships, etc., to fund the basic mandate of the institution.

To point out basic investigator-led research, the example we like to go to, which is obviously very timely and has been for a long time, is around vaccine technologies. The basic science underpinning mRNA vaccines and all vaccines has been the result largely of research that has been investigator-led, that has not been strictly directed toward a particular outcome. Of course, they have had wonderful outcomes, in this case, vaccines.

We need scientists and researchers to be able to conduct that research in an unfettered manner in order to make the very innovative discoveries that have fuelled things like vaccines, for example.

[Lena Metlege Diab, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

We have a bit more time.

Are these researchers paid the same when it comes to...? You talked about the shift in the balancing. Are you talking about the funding? Are you talking about the value society is seeing in all of these? Are we looking to commercialize everything too much these days?

[Justine De Jaegher]

Yes, in terms of the funding received by researchers, it doesn't necessarily differ too much, whether it's investigator-led or applied. The difference is what strings are attached to receiving those funds.

Are they required to establish a particular outcome that is commercializable or not? Is it narrowly confined to a particular research area or things of that nature?

Again, it's not to say that.... Many commercializable innovations in our society have been the result of basic research, but it's a question of whether we're framing the nature of the research at the outset when providing funding. That's okay in some cases, but we think it's gone too far in that direction.