Thank you very much.
Honourable members of the committee, my name is Rees Kassen. I'm the chair of PAGSE. With me is Denis St-Onge.
There's a natural tendency during times of crisis to retrench and wait out the storm. But taking this approach to the current global recession will not promote sustained economic recovery, largely because the nature of the global economy will change in the meantime. The Canadian science and engineering community feels that Canada must not only be ready to accommodate these changes but lead them as well.
How do we do this? Canada must nurture and promote a culture of discovery and innovation. It is only through new ideas and new ways of seeing the world that we will be able to identify opportunities and ensure economic prosperity for the future. Just like Wayne Gretzky did for hockey, we will lead by being the ones to change the way the game is played.
Economic recovery therefore requires a toolbox of sorts that contains, on the one hand, a mixture of short-term stimulus measures and, on the other, longer-term investments to support and promote a culture of discovery and innovation. In this light, PAGSE makes three recommendations.
The first is that government increase productivity by improving Canada's research and technical capacity. The simplest way of doing this is through a strong federal commitment to funding basic and applied research. Investments made now will translate into economic productivity in the future.
President Obama, for example, recently committed the United States to investing 3% of GDP for research, an amount that exceeds that spent during the golden years of scientific and engineering research during the space race. By contrast, Canada invests just 1.9% of GDP.
This, taken together with the increase in competition for talent from abroad, means that Canada is in danger of reversing the gains in our capacity for research and innovation that we've made in recent years. Indeed, there's some evidence that this reversal may have already started. Star young researchers have recently left Canadian universities for academic positions in Australia and the United States. They've cited the loss of funding for key climate change research programs as a major reason.
Stemming this impending tide requires increased federal investments in research, ideally to at least the level committed by President Obama. This can be accomplished through support for the federal granting councils, key agencies, and government labs.
Our second recommendation is that the government provide long-term support for major research facilities and collaborations. These initiatives play a vital role in generating knowledge and training students. This knowledge is crucial to well-informed policy and regulatory decisions.
We can take as an example the experimental lakes area, or ELA for short, in western Ontario. Since the 1960s, this facility has been playing the role of laboratory mouse, if you like, allowing us to study the health of our freshwater resources directly through experiments. This work at the ELA has led to regulations that have helped stave off the massive die-offs in fish populations in the Great Lakes that were due to acid rain and phosphorous coming from detergents and sewage. Continued support for this and comparable facilities across the country, especially in the Arctic, is essential to sustaining both a healthy environment and a vigorous economy.
Our third recommendation is that the government create a prestigious research fellows program for post-doctoral researchers. Canada continues to export its best and brightest Ph.D. students abroad to complete their training post-Ph.D. Let me share with you an experience of my own in this regard.
I recently lost a star student, one who had published a paper in Nature after completing just one year of his degree. To put that into context, that's probably the equivalent of winning the Stanley Cup or a gold medal as a 15-year-old in hockey. I lost him to a major U.S. school simply because I lacked sufficient funds to keep him here in Canada.
Furthermore, Canada is not looked upon internationally as an attractive place for post-doctoral studies, especially next to competitor countries such as the U.K., the United States, and Australia, which all have prestigious post-doctoral programs designed to help young researchers establish their careers.
We therefore strongly urge the government to create a premier post-doctoral fellowship program aimed at young Ph.D. graduates. This program would fill the gap in training for Canadian students and attract outstanding international graduates to Canada. It would also constitute a major injection of intellectual capital into our system--if you like, an ideas-ready program that would complement and capitalize on the investments created by the shovel-ready stimulus projects of last year.
To sum up, let me reiterate our three recommendations. One, increase federal investments in research. Two, ensure long-term support for major research projects. And three, establish a premier post-doctoral research fellows program.
These recommendations provide the tools necessary for economic recovery. They would constitute a strong federal commitment to discovery-driven research and the people who do it.
Finally, I would like to add that one of the activities of PAGSE is the Bacon and Eggheads breakfast series. Our first one for the new session is September 29. Frank Plummer is coming, and we hope to see you there.
Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak.