I'm going to make my presentation in French.
Mr. Chair, ladies and gentlemen members, we would like to thank you for inviting us to make a presentation today.
First, I would briefly like to explain what our organization is. The Conseil national des cycles supérieurs de la Fédération étudiante universitaire du Québec is an organization with a mandate to defend and promote the rights and interests of masters and doctoral students at Quebec university institutions. We represent them to the public and to the principal players in the education and research system. We represent approximately 30,000 members.
We would like to give you our recommendations on employability in Canada. We are going to address this question from the standpoint of highly skilled manpower training and we propose three action approaches. First, we propose that transfer payments for postsecondary education be increased to ensure basic funding for universities, second, that funding for university research be increased in order to train innovative labour force and, third, that university research be fostered by promoting professional employment for masters and doctoral graduates.
The first approach consists in increasing federal transfers for postsecondary education. To place Canada among the top five countries in the area of research and development investment, we think it is essential to invest more in our universities. In the mid-1990s, the government reduced transfer payments for universities, and Canadian universities have since had considerable difficulty bearing the costs of what is called core funding, that is to say for hiring professors, funding libraries — to enable them to buy books — renewing computer hardware and constructing buildings. We propose that transfers for postsecondary education be increased by $4.9 billion, that is to say that they be restored to the levels of the mid-1990s, before the cuts, and that they be indexed to costs and increased university staff. This measure is essential in enabling universities to carry out their mission, which is to train a highly skilled labour force.
The idea is not only to increase transfers, but also to ensure that those transfers are dedicated to postsecondary education. Currently, transfers to the provinces for postsecondary education are included in the Canada Health and Social Transfer. Splitting that transfer and earmarking the portion of the contribution that goes to postsecondary education would make it possible to achieve three extremely positive objectives. The first is to identify the federal government's contribution to postsecondary education and that of the provincial governments. The second is to respect the jurisdictions of the provinces, because education is a provincial jurisdiction, and transferring the money would make that possible. The third is to maintain accountability. At present, since the money is included in a transfer for very general social programs, the provinces can afford to use those amounts for purposes other than postsecondary education. We think these are the main advantages of making a dedicated transfer.
The second approach is to increase funding for university research to ensure the university teaching body is renewed. I'm going to cite an interesting statistic. According to the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada, 34,000 professorial positions will have to be filled by 2010. It is therefore necessary to give our universities the chance to recruit the best researchers to fill those positions. To do that, we think money must be invested in university research. We suggest two ways of achieving that end: increase the budgets of the organizations that subsidize research and cover direct research costs in full. The budgets of the subsidizing organizations that fund researchers could be increased, which would enable researchers to conduct research and train students, and would pay students scholarships enabling them to study at the masters and doctoral levels and to acquire the skills they can use in the job market. We think it is important to meet the demands of these organizations which subsidize research. To that end, we propose that $295 million be invested each year until 2010 to enable those subsidizing organizations to achieve their objectives, which they have set in the context of their strategic plans.
Those subsidizing organizations are the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council and the Canadian Institutes of Health.
We suggest that the research environment of university institutions be reinforced and that indirect research costs be covered. What are those indirect costs? They are the costs arising from the research contracts that the government signs with universities. It signs many such contracts. Currently, the federal government pays the provinces the equivalent of 27% of the cost of such research, whereas, according to a number of estimates, it should be paying 65%. We therefore hope that the government will pay the actual value of indirect research costs, that is to say 65%.
The third approach is to reward university research by promoting professional employment for graduates. In our view, the individuals who have been trained are the main product of university research. It is necessary to help them transfer their knowledge to businesses and the community. To promote and facilitate professional employment for graduates, CNCS proposes that more funding be granted for programs that make it possible to bridge the gap between the universities and the work place, such as the Community-University Research Alliances, or CURA, the Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Industrial Research Assistance Program of the National Research Council of Canada, or NRC-IRAP. Among other things, this will enable small and medium-size businesses that currently conduct very little research and development to hire qualified staff, masters and doctoral graduates who will enable them to develop more innovative, higher value-added products.
That completes our recommendations. I'll briefly sum up our demands: increase transfers for postsecondary education; split off the transfer for postsecondary education to underscore the federal government contribution; reinvest in the three organizations that subsidize research; increase the payment of indirect research costs to cover actual cost; and promote professional employment of masters and doctoral graduates as a way of transferring knowledge from the universities to society and business.
Thank you very much. I'll be pleased to answer your questions.