Evidence of meeting #57 for Finance in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was knowledge.
A video is available from Parliament.
6:10 p.m.
NDP
Murray Rankin NDP Victoria, BC
You said “better resources”. Do you mean to suggest financial resources?
6:10 p.m.
Professor, University of Alberta, and Member, Executive Committee, International Arctic Science Committee
Well, CHARS does have a budget for research, yes.
6:10 p.m.
NDP
Murray Rankin NDP Victoria, BC
Consequently, you've been advised that the budget envelope will not decrease as a consequence of these amendments?
6:10 p.m.
Professor, University of Alberta, and Member, Executive Committee, International Arctic Science Committee
My understanding is that the commitment, for the next four years at least, is to maintain those priorities and the resources, yes.
6:10 p.m.
NDP
Murray Rankin NDP Victoria, BC
Right.
You talked about the whole-of-government and whole-of-Canada mandate. You didn't mean to include these university research centres or other northern research centres. They'll continue to be autonomous, do their work, and feed into anything that CHARS undertakes. Is that the model?
6:10 p.m.
Professor, University of Alberta, and Member, Executive Committee, International Arctic Science Committee
I think the whole-of-government coordination is required from a federal perspective. The whole-of-Canada perspective is needed so that all of these pieces are working effectively together.
6:10 p.m.
Conservative
6:10 p.m.
Conservative
Mark Adler Conservative York Centre, ON
Thank you very much, Chair.
Thank you to all the witnesses for being here this afternoon.
First of all, I have a question for Mr. Scott.
I was just curious. You mentioned “knowledge creators”. Could you explain that for me?
November 17th, 2014 / 6:10 p.m.
Executive Director, Canadian Polar Commission
Thank you. I will.
There's a range of knowledge and there's a bit of debate between traditional knowledge held by aboriginal folks and western scientific knowledge. I think the answer is really that there are many ways of knowing. In fact, there's an area of scholarship about ways of knowing.
So for “knowledge creators”, there are many ways to define it. It really is anyone, whether it's a university professor, a research scientist in a government organization, or an aboriginal individual who has gained experience travelling on sea ice in the springtime and is still alive. There are many ways to create knowledge. In fact, there's a real challenge to share various types of knowledge for a common purpose or common benefit.
6:10 p.m.
Conservative
6:10 p.m.
Executive Director, Canadian Polar Commission
Some of them are semantic. Lining up data from similar machines across the country is fairly straightforward, but lining up observations made by individual observers with perhaps different reference frames is a bit more complicated. A western-trained ice scientist may want to know how thick the ice is and what its physical strength is and has some tests to do that. An aboriginal individual is perhaps more concerned with simply whether the ice is safe enough to go across on foot or on a snow machine and would have different ways of determining that.
There are different ways of understanding the same physical phenomenon, and quite often there are linguistic or conceptual barriers that prevent that knowledge being shared for a common purpose.
6:15 p.m.
Conservative
Mark Adler Conservative York Centre, ON
You talked about northern governments being knowledge creators.
6:15 p.m.
Executive Director, Canadian Polar Commission
Yes. Many of the territorial governments, in terms of their responsibilities to their citizens, undertake research to monitor physical environment, wildlife, and those sorts of things. They too are conducting research on the health and wellness of polar bears and the state of contaminants in their physical environment. There are many levels of government, as well as industry and the private sector, that create knowledge about the northern environment.
6:15 p.m.
Conservative
Mark Adler Conservative York Centre, ON
What are the applications in terms of academia, academic, commercial...in terms of a variety of different applications?
6:15 p.m.
Executive Director, Canadian Polar Commission
Often, and in fact ideally, there are many applications to a single body of knowledge. It should in fact have multiple purposes.
6:15 p.m.
Conservative
Mark Adler Conservative York Centre, ON
Are we making enough effort in knowledge creation? Do we have enough resources committed to it in the north?
6:15 p.m.
Executive Director, Canadian Polar Commission
Yes, thank you.
I think any individual involved in creating knowledge would say there's always more we could do if we had more resources. I think realistically the first step is to ensure that the existing resources are being efficiently used, and often that is simply a matter of coordinating among groups working in the same area technically or the same geographic area.
6:15 p.m.
Executive Director, Canadian Polar Commission
Specifically in the Arctic, yes, I do.
6:15 p.m.
Conservative
6:15 p.m.
Executive Director, Canadian Polar Commission
I'm sorry, I missed the beginning of that question.
6:15 p.m.
Conservative
6:15 p.m.
Executive Director, Canadian Polar Commission
Reasonably well, yes. I wouldn't suggest there's any real wastage, but there's always room to improve by sharing of logistics, better sharing of data. Particularly when the area of inquiry is broad and complex in a subject like climate change or the security of a food supply, if individual research organizations or individuals are not sharing their learning as collectively as possible, some of the bigger, more complex issues may not be adequately addressed.
6:15 p.m.
Conservative
Mark Adler Conservative York Centre, ON
You know our Prime Minister has committed himself and our government to the north. What more could we be doing that we're not doing right now, in your estimation?
