Bill C-2 (39th Parliament, 1st Session) Committee on May 29th, 2006

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Your time is up.

Thank you very much. You've had a rough go tonight, and I thank you very much for putting up with us. We appreciate your coming and giving your comments. Thank you kindly.

We'll break for a minute before our final witness.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

We're going to start.

This is our final presentation this evening. We have two representatives from the Canadian Federation of Students, Angela Regnier and Ian Boyko. Good evening to both of you.

You can make some preliminary comments if you wish, and then members of the committee will have questions for you. Thanks for coming.

[Angela Regnier, National Deputy Chairperson, Canadian Federation of Students]

Thank you.

My name is Angela Regnier. I am the national deputy chairperson of the Canadian Federation of Students. This is our government relations coordinator, Ian Boyko.

I'd like to thank the committee for the opportunity to speak today about this legislation and about the academic community.

Our federation unites over one-half million university and college students from coast to coast. That membership includes over 60,000 graduate students. These graduate student numbers are in part why we requested to testify this evening.

Graduate students and faculty researchers receiving federal grants are excluded from Bill C-2, an oversight that we strongly recommend be considered by this committee. The federal government allocates well over $1 billion a year to researchers at universities and research-affiliated institutions every year. Canadians know the value of world-class research as they see the short- and long-term dividends of research every day--better and safer medication, made-in-Canada technological innovation such as the Research In Motion entrepreneurial success story, and as a result of social science research, the general public and its policy-makers obtain a deeper understanding of the social, economic, and cultural forces that shape our world.

Canadians are making a large investment in knowledge, and in most cases they are enjoying a wonderful return. Unfortunately, there are many examples of federal research policy that have distorted the development of university-based research. Increasingly, a narrow view of commercialization, bringing new products to the market, is becoming the predominant mission for federally sponsored research. Tying university research outcomes too closely to short-term, private sector needs is not only bad for innovation, it's simply bad science.

We are hearing more and more first-hand accounts of researchers who have had to alter their results in reporting in order to satisfy their industry sponsors. One example that comes to mind involves a public drinking water experiment in which a graduate student made efforts to expose data suppression and falsification of research results. Two researchers allegedly misrepresented results of the drinking water study to yield favourable results for the sponsor. Health Canada guidelines are being updated using these allegedly falsified conclusions. What is astounding in this case was that the university did not stand up for good science. Instead, the university attempted to shut down all efforts to shed light on the interference, including threatening the graduate student with a defamation suit.

Canada lacks a federal watchdog for research integrity. While the federal granting agencies have a policy on ethical guidelines for research that regulate the institutions they fund, they have no mandate to protect whistle-blowers. Sometimes universities have been complicit in research misconduct, especially when students have come forward with allegations. Other countries have implemented federal agencies to oversee public research. For example, the United States Office of Research Integrity explicitly states that the whistle-blower is essential to protecting the integrity of government-supported research.

The Federal Accountability Act provides the structure and the opportunity for the government to ensure research integrity through the following simple amendments: extend the protections offered by the proposed Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act to researchers, including students in public, post-secondary, and research-affiliated institutions. To reflect this expanded scope, the act should be renamed the Public Interest Disclosure Protection Act and the commissioner should be renamed the Public Interest Integrity Commissioner. We propose that a deputy commissioner on research integrity be established to work closely with universities, research institutions, and the federal granting agencies to promote research integrity. We further propose amendments to the lists of reprisals and wrongdoings to greater reflect the realities of research misconduct in universities as well as expansions to the remedies available to the tribunal.

Also, as a student, I would like to congratulate the government on putting the Millennium Scholarship Foundation under the bright light of public scrutiny, since soon after its inception, students have had concerns with the foundation.

Thank you for the opportunity.

I look forward to your questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Mr. Tonks.

[Alan Tonks, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

I don't have any questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Monsieur Sauvageau.

[Benoît Sauvageau, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Thank you and congratulations on the high calibre of your presentation. It was really very interesting.

Bill C-2, in its current form, enables so-called ordinary citizens who are neither government contract workers nor public servants to lodge a complaint through their member of Parliament. We would like to replace this provision with a complaint procedure similar to the one used by the Official Languages Commissioner. I find it difficult to imagine who, aside from a contract worker or a public servant, would file a complaint. However, your presentation enabled us to understand that you were part of a large and significant category of individuals who could lodge complaints of this type.

Are you satisfied with this part of the act, which would enable you to file a direct complaint with the Integrity Commissioner? I thought I understood that you would like to benefit from the same protection against retaliation that is afforded to the people covered by this act. Is that correct?

[Angela Regnier]

Let me just get the question straight. The question is whether we would want academics to be able to have the same opportunity to come forward, as listed in the act. Is that correct?

[Benoît Sauvageau, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Under Bill C-2, citizens, students and public servants can whistleblow. However, only contract employees and public servants are protected against retaliation. You are asking that students be protected as well. This is a very interesting amendment.

[Angela Regnier]

On what we're concerned about, first of all, we think that universities are public institutions with a great deal of public funding, and the work that's being done there is in the public interest. People who are working in that field need to be afforded the same kind of protection from reprisals as public servants under the act. Currently there are certainly mechanisms for making complaints, both at the university level and at the granting agency level, but we don't feel there's enough teeth there to really provide students and researchers the opportunity to come forward.

[Ian Boyko, Government Relations Coordinator, Canadian Federation of Students, Canadian Alliance of Student Associations]

May I add to that?

University research is a fairly specific field that would require some degree of expertise on behalf of the commissioner, which is why we're calling for a new office to strengthen the act that way. We also want to look at the bill as an opportunity to begin a dialogue about how we can establish an office for research integrity--like many other countries already have and that Canada is lacking totally--along the lines of what the United States or the U.K. have done. We want to see this legislation go beyond creating some space for citizens at large to file complaints and actually create a specific bureaucracy for public research.

[Benoît Sauvageau, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Thank you.

I will be splitting my time with Ms. Lavallée.

[Carole Lavallée, Bloc, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

I listened to your comment, observations and request with a great deal of pleasure. In my opinion, it is important that we take time to review this bill. My question is addressed primarily to Mr. Poilievre, who seems very anxious to be finished with this. More than anything, he wants to give the public the perception that this is a bill that is cleaner than Mr. Clean. However, we have to give this bill some depth. We must therefore take time to analyze it, take a good look at it and determine whether or not other measures that may be beneficial to society can be added to it. You have just shown us that such an approach is relevant.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Mr. Dewar.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Thank you.

Thank you for your presentation. You've kind of illuminated a couple of issues. I'm going to start with perhaps an observation. When we look at the role that researchers play and people who innovate, really, in our society and in our economy, it's at the graduate level in universities, not exclusively but certainly primarily. I think getting at the source of a problem would help, obviously, and your analysis provides that.

I think of the three people who are sitting in the audience here, Monsieur Lambert, Ms. Hansen, and Mr. Chopra, who prevented many things, the least of which is the bovine growth hormone in our milk. As the father of two kids, I'm really glad that happened. They did that because they were at the table being vigilant about our health. If we had been listening to them, we could have avoided the BSE crisis, and I say that in all seriousness. I think what you're identifying is an issue that most people here wouldn't know anything about, and that's the drinking water example you provided for us.

You have amendments, and I think they are sensible, common-sense ones, certainly with extending whistle-blowing to people who are touched by federal dollars. Why not? I'd like to know a little bit more about the example you provided us, because I didn't know about it. I'd like to know what exactly happened? How much money, roughly, was being afforded? Also, what was the outcome? These people, you were suggesting, basically had duct tape put on them and they were told to be quiet. I'd like to know what happened. What was the case scenario, and where is it at right now?

[Angela Regnier]

We were approached by a former graduate student about two years ago who had been trying to expose this particular experiment that was done in a small town in Ontario, where he and other graduate students had witnessed research misconduct throughout the process.

The experiment happened in Wiarton. What they were doing was trying out a new chemical in the water distribution system as an alternate disinfectant to chlorine. After about two months of testing this new chemical...the residents of the town did not know there was an alternate disinfectant being tested and they started discovering a number of irregularities with their drinking water. There were bleach stains on their laundry; the odour and taste of the water had changed; and a number of them had immediately, of their own volition, gone to boiling all their drinking water. The residents actually demanded the termination of the study and asked for a door-to-door survey to be administered. That door-to-door survey was designed by the researchers who had been funded to do the project. The results were overwhelming that the residents had discovered all sorts of problems with their drinking water, including significant odour and taste complaints, despite the fact that this was not even a question asked on the survey. This all came out in the “Comments” section.

It's important for me to flag that specific complaint because further publications--academic and otherwise--that came out of the study called it a “novel success” and explicitly stated there were no odour or taste complaints throughout the course of the study.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Mr. Dewar, this is an interesting topic, but I'm wondering what it has to do with Bill C-2.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Oh, I'm sorry. I think it has everything to do with Bill C-2. What's being explained here represents a concrete example of public health being put in jeopardy because there was an oversight and there wasn't, from what I'm hearing in this example, a concrete example--

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

So you're talking about whistle-blowing. That's really what you're getting at.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

That's what their presentation...that's why it's connected.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Okay. Then we'll go on a little more.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Thank you for your indulgence.

[Angela Regnier]

I'm sorry; maybe I'll just move forward a little more quickly.

There was federal granting agency significantly funding both the graduate student, at one point, and the process. NSERC could have actually awarded this study a Synergy Award, which is one of their very reputable awards. All attempts for the graduate student to request an investigation, both at the university level and to the granting agency, were denied. He was never afforded an opportunity to even make any kind of testimony to any sort of committee, and at one point the university's senior legal counsel also wrote to him and threatened him with a defamation suit if he was going to be talking to any more third parties regarding the case.

We find this really problematic. Health Canada has now made reference to some of these publications for their review of their drinking water quality guidelines on the byproducts of this particular chemical. Approximately a year ago we stepped in to try to, first of all, take the granting council to task for the fact that a proper investigation was in the public interest. We felt frustration that there really hasn't been any kind of mechanism to address the fact that the student has been threatened and that this research continues to go on without any kind of scrutiny.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Okay.

Monsieur Poilievre.