House of Commons photoWon her last election, in 2021, with 60% of the vote.
Science and Technology March 10th, 2009
Mr. Speaker, according to the OECD, Canada lags behind other G7 nations in investments in science. We have all seen how President Obama has made research and development a key plank of his stimulus package. So why are Canada's three granting councils--social science, natural science and health--coping with extreme financial shortfalls following January's federal budget?
Why has the government turned its back on knowledge?
Business of Supply March 9th, 2009
Mr. Speaker, I believe we are debating the current time and the need for research funding.
I would just like to point out that the United States has a long-range plan, and it never lets funding drop for the National Institutes of Health or the National Science Foundation. We need to do the same here.
Business of Supply March 9th, 2009
Mr. Speaker, I would like to repeat the comments of my hon. colleague. Absolutely, a decade ago we had scientists leaving Canada. They started coming back.
In the last month we have already lost a number of key scientists, for example, in climate change.
Business of Supply March 9th, 2009
Mr. Speaker, absolutely, the government has invested in infrastructure and that is appreciated. However, research cannot be undertaken if there are no operating funds, and there are no funds to people and the research. By cutting $148 million from the three granting councils hurts our competitiveness when the U.S. is giving $10 billion.
Business of Supply March 9th, 2009
Mr. Speaker, I am glad the hon. member brought up the economy.
Over the last month our focus has been a stimulus package for the economy. Universities contribute $15 billion per year, 2% of GDP.
The question I have, then, is why would we cut back on funding to this fundamental research, $148 million cut back to our three granting agencies, when the U.S. is investing $10 billion? This will surely hurt Canada's competitiveness.
Business of Supply March 9th, 2009
Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for St. John's South—Mount Pearl.
Just before death, Sir Isaac Newton described how humbled he was to have glimpsed a fraction of the coming research revolution. He reflected, “I seem to have been...like a boy...whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me”.
Today that truth is better explored. Gravitational wobbles detect new planets. Probes land on Mars and show us that it once teamed with organisms. Hard physics and complex optics make objects invisible. Ordinary skin cells behave like stem cells, with the possibility of new treatments and cures for diseases as deadly as ALS.
Only through research can Canadians carry on longer and more productively, even with a cancer diagnosis, and ensure our food and water supply is safe for consumption.
Research improves the lives of Canadians and our economy through exciting discoveries in aerospace to astronomy and biotechnology to nanotechnology.
Sir Joseph Rotblat, 1995 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, recommended that researchers formally commit to serving society. Scientists should work for a better world, where science and technology are used in socially responsible ways. Scientists should consider the ethical implications of research before they take any action.
President Obama understands that research is fundamental to meeting America's needs. During his inaugural speech he promised:
We'll restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology's wonders to raise health care's quality and lower its cost. We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories
What is even more exciting is that President Obama is backing his words with action and money. He appointed top scientists to key positions, including Nobel Prize winning physicist Steven Chu as energy secretary and Harvard physicist John Holdren as head of the White House Office of Science and Technology. Moreover, the Obama administration is adding $10 billion to finance basic research in the United States. In stark contrast, the three agencies that fund basic research in Canada must cut spending by $148 million over the next three years.
It is my fervent hope that President Obama's research appreciation and optimism will spread to Canada, as last year an editorial in Nature criticized our government for closing the office of the national science adviser, scepticism about the science of climate change and silencing federal researchers.
It is time to realize that when it comes to finding solutions to our common problems, research matters. For example, 10 year cancer survival rates have doubled over the last three decades because of painstaking scientific research. In Canada the benefits of university research and development are $15 billion, or about 2% of Canada's annual GDP, and 150,000 to 200,000 jobs.
Research matters more than ever before because the challenges we face are greater, climate change, emerging diseases, shrinking biodiversity, the potential benefits are larger and because we are at a turning point in history. Canadians will make an historic transition from the age of discovery to the age of mastery. Biotechnology and genetics, for example, will allow for DNA screening and gene therapy and a future of unprecedented health and longevity.
The Conservative government is unfortunately attempting to direct research toward subjects its perceives as priorities. The federal budget identifies temporary increases in graduate scholarship funding, but SSHRC scholarships will be focused on business-related degrees. This is a flawed strategy, as no one can predict with any certainty what the most successful innovations in technologies will be in the future.
As Canada's best-known scientist and Nobel laureate, John Polanyi, wrote almost a decade ago:
We have struggled for a long time to come to terms with the fact that our universities serve the public interest best when free of government interference in academic affairs.
During an economic downturn, it might be tempting to direct funding to projects that appear likely to provide early returns, but support for wide-ranging untargeted research has time and again proven to be the better investment. Countries and companies that maintain and increase their investments in research and development during difficult times emerge stronger and more competitive when the recovery begins.
Criticism of this government's budget has come from the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, the Canadian Medical Association Journal, and the French Canadian Association for the Advancement of Science.
The Canadian Association of University Teachers, representing more than 65,000 academics and general staff across Canada, wrote an open letter to the Prime Minister. Researchers are worried that attempts are being made to specify what scientific studies are undertaken and funded, or rather, underfunded.
Targeting research funding is not a new issue for the Conservatives. The 2008 federal budget pre-set that increased funding for NSERC could only be spent on research in the automotive, fishing, forestry and manufacturing sectors. SSHRC was limited to spending new funding in two areas: environmental impacts on Canadians, and economic development needs in northern communities.
The 2009 federal budget provided no new money for Canada's granting councils that fund university research. NSERC had already lost more than 100 jobs in 2007, and now has to cut $27.6 million over three years. The budget also failed to provide funding for Genome Canada, the principal funder of large-scale research projects in areas such as agriculture and cancer.
James Turk, CAUT's executive director, warns that “lack of funding and increasing government micro-management means we could lose a lot of our top researchers”.
James Drummond, chief scientist at the Polar Environment Atmospheric Research Laboratory in Eureka, describes his situation: He will be able to improve the lab through new infrastructure funding but will not be able to afford to operate it, as the Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences received no new money in the budget. Without new funding, the foundation will shut down by March 2010, along with 24 research networks studying climate change.
As a scientist and a former professor, I know urgent action is needed to help safeguard research, keep talent in Canada, and build for a better economy, environment and society. The government must increase funding for Canada's three granting councils and should match, on a proportional basis, the support offered in the United States. The government should ensure that programs and scholarships funded by the granting agencies are not restricted to specific fields and are judged only on the basis of merit by the research community.
If we look at the balance of evidence, the fundamental challenge is that the government does not understand how science works. While it is prepared to invest in infrastructure, it is not ready to invest in people and research.
The challenge to Parliament is to seek to understand science and invest in our children's future. Research is the only way that we can address our most pressing challenges: climate change, disease, economic strife, hunger and poverty. Perhaps one day we will have answers to our planet's and humanity's greatest mysteries.
Infrastructure March 6th, 2009
Mr. Speaker, the people in Toronto have been waiting since 2007 for promised funds for the extension of the Spadina subway line to Vaughan; $700 million announced, but not a penny has hit the ground yet. Given that they are sitting on almost $4 billion, why can the Conservatives not get their act together? Why do hurting Canadians have to wait?
Infrastructure March 6th, 2009
Mr. Speaker, as the recession gets worse every day, the Conservatives are sitting on $3.9 billion in infrastructure funding that has already been approved by Parliament, money that will lapse on April 1 if it is not flowed. Yet, the Conservatives have failed to fund even so-called priority projects like the Strandherd bridge in Ottawa.
Why can the government not get funds already approved into our communities? Why the delay?
Mr. Speaker, the answer is that we do not know what caused the three outbreaks in 2004, 2005 and 2009.
All owners, operators and workers on poultry farms should take steps to protect themselves from avian influenza. Operators should develop a response plan to complement provincial and industry plans and designate a response plan manager. All workers should practise biosecurity and know the plan and their responsibilities.
Flocks should be isolated from outside environments, wild birds and water sources that might be contaminated. All workers should know the signs of avian flu with the highly pathogenic H5N1 and the possible symptoms of avian influenza in humans.
What steps has the government taken to make sure that poultry producers have an avian influenza response plan that complements industry and provincial plans? What percentage of Canadian poultry farms is prepared for the next flu pandemic, and what economic—
Mr. Speaker, during the 20th century, influenza threatened the world, in 1918, 1957 and 1968. The latter two pandemics killed a total of three million people. In stark contrast, the Spanish influenza of 1918 killed upwards of 50 million people.
Today the World Health Organization and influenza experts fear a pandemic flu is inevitable and that we are closer to it than at any time since 1968. As of February 27, 2009, the H5N1 influenza virus had infected 408 people and killed 256. Experts estimate that between 11,000 and 58,000 Canadians could die in a future pandemic.
Given the seriousness of the present threat, experts must determine why avian influenza broke out in British Columbia's Fraser Valley in 2004, 2005 and 2008. Therefore, what regular testing is the government undertaking in wild birds and in what species? As over 100 wild bird species carry low pathogenic avian influenza viruses, is the virus being spread from wild birds to domestic birds?
What might low pathogenic influenza strains found in Canada mean in the long term? Recent research shows that H5 and H7 viruses of low pathogenicity can, after circulation for sometimes short periods in a poultry population, mutate into highly pathogenic viruses. What might flyway data suggest, if anything, for the spread of the virus in North America? Some species of migratory waterfowl are now thought to be carrying the H5N1 virus in its highly pathogenic form and introducing it to new geographical areas located along their flight routes.
These are important questions because when wild migratory birds mix with domestic flocks through the sharing of habitat, there is an enhanced potential for genetic re-assortment of avian flu viruses resulting in novel genotypes which could trigger a human influenza pandemic. Once avian influenza is established in domestic poultry, it is a highly contagious disease. One gram of contaminated manure can contain enough virus to infect one million birds.
Is the virus being spread by airborne transmission if birds are in close proximity and with appropriate air movement? There are 600 poultry producers in the Fraser Valley.
Is the environment serving as a source of infection and what monitoring is taking place? When birds visit lakes along their paths, they shed virus into water, the lakes freeze and thus they preserve the virus for months, years, and perhaps much longer. Or is the virus being spread through trade, for example, from flock to flock by contaminated equipment, egg flats, feed trucks, et cetera?
Finally, what specific measures have been taken to look at the intensity of poultry farming in this region? What measures have been taken to reduce the risk of transmission? What specific measures are being taken to protect producers and the $1 billion industry? Most important, what specific measures are being taken to protect civilians from avian influenza in the Fraser Valley when Canada will welcome the world in 2010?