Thank you, Mr. Chair.
My colleague, David Robinson, and I are pleased to be here with you.
We don't envy the job you have. You listen to hundreds of groups come to talk about their needs. We suggest there are some sectors and some needs that undergird virtually everyone else: health care, post-secondary education, and social services. And we want to speak about post-secondary education.
We feel there are some serious difficulties in post-secondary education in this country. We'd like to highlight three of those, talk a bit about the problem in each, and suggest some solutions.
The three problems are what we see to be a misguided approach to research funding, inadequate federal support for post-secondary education, and restricted accessibility to universities and colleges.
With regard to a misguided approach to research funding, the problem starts if one looks at the 2009 federal budget, where the three federal funding agencies, which provide the bulk of the money for basic research and applied research in this country, had their budgets reduced by $147.9 million over three years.
Budget 2010 increased core funding by just $32 million, which wasn't even enough to keep up with inflation much less offset the previous year's cuts. At the same time, there were dramatic increases in funding to the American granting councils.
As well, in last year's budget there was $45 million for five years given to the granting councils for the creation of the Banting post-doctoral fellowship program, which, unfortunately, only rewards a small handful of researchers and institutions that house them, leaving the vast majority of Canada's post-doctoral scholars and postgraduate institutions with no benefit whatsoever.
At the same time, the federal government, beginning in 2009, rolled out a $2 billion knowledge infrastructure program, which has created enormous building and construction, and further infrastructure, but it's been done at the same time as the operational side has been starved.
Finally, part of the problem is the cuts to Statistics Canada. All of us in the research sector rely very heavily on data from Statistics Canada. The $6 million reduction, as part of the government's strategic review, resulted in the elimination of a number of important surveys, and the elimination of the mandatory long-form census is going to have a devastating impact on our ability to have data that is only gathered through that survey. As well, it undermines other sample surveys because the long-form census was used to benchmark those.
The solutions are to increase basic funding for research for Canada's three funding agencies over the next two years proportionally to what the Americans have put into theirs. After all, we lose scholars to the United States when the money isn't available here and it is in the United States. Based on the relative size of the Canadian economy, that would require an increase of about $1 billion over two years to be matched on a proportional basis to what the Americans are providing.
We also have to ensure that the research funding provided through the federal agencies is provided through them and not around them to ensure that decisions about what is funded are based on peer review based on merit, as determined by the scientific community.
Finally, the base budget of StatsCan should be increased by 10% and the long-form census should be restored.
The second problem is the inadequate federal support for post-secondary education. Funding transfers for post-secondary education, on a constant dollar basis and recognizing the adjustment for inflation, are now about $410 million less than they were in 1992-93.
On public funding for universities and colleges, government operating grants used to make up 80% of total university operating revenues in 1990. Today they make up only about 58%.
The Canada social transfer is set to increase by 3% this year. The Council of the Federation is telling the federal government it has to go up by at least 4.5% to more accurately reflect the projections.
The solution is to bring the funding for post-secondary education at least back to the level it was at in 1992-93, which would mean a $410 million increase in funding in this budget year.
We think the long-term solution is to tie it to the GDP, to say that we can afford to invest one-half of one penny of each dollar created by the Canadian economy in our post-secondary sector, which all of you have acknowledged is key to the future of the country. That would require, over the next three years, an increase of $4.8 billion to get us back to half of 1ยข of every dollar created by the economy. The method for doing that should be through a Canada post-secondary transfer governed by a Canada post-secondary education act, to ensure the funding the federal government provides is provided through a mechanism that ensures the money goes for post-secondary education in a way that's agreeable both to the federal government and to the provinces.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.