Industry Committee on Feb. 12th, 2008

[Etienne Couture]

We are asking the government for a policy on this. We have proposed several solutions. The first consists of subsidies to establish guidelines for corporate research and development diagnostics. Basically, it is not just a question of corporate productivity. That is definitely important, but manufacturing products for which there will be no demand... Engineers believe in efficiency but, above all, we have to produce products that can be sold, can be exported and for which there will be a demand.

We believe that research and development are essential. Innovation will give us an advantage. Demand is high in all countries, both in terms of infrastructure and within industry itself. In Quebec, we particularly need to gain an advantage through innovation of our products. We want our government to support and help us so that businesses are given a clear message. We spoke of developmental projects. We want to hear the messages about which markets and sectors Canada and Quebec will invest in, giving us the advantage, in the long term, over global competition.

[Paule Brunelle, Bloc, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Mr. Turk, you spoke about establishing a specific diagnostic. That presupposes that we have a vision, that we can look into the future a little and envisage what industry will be like and how we can develop niches where we will be in the forefront.

Is that research being done by our universities? Are our governments investing enough in university research? We know that investment in universities is very low in this country. We have been told that we should increase investment to 1994 levels for universities. Thus, there is much less investment. Should we not be using the potential of university researchers to attempt to establish the right diagnostics and to result in development, and change our businesses, so as to ensure a better future?

That is a lot of questions.

[James Turk]

Many questions, and not simple ones.

I regret to say that my own view is that our ability to forecast accurately is much less than any of us would like. The U.S. Bureau of Labour Statistics is probably the best in the world at trying to forecast what kinds of jobs there will be in five years and in ten years. If you go back and look at their forecast from five years ago, they're woefully wrong, despite their best efforts. I think the Canadian occupational projection service stopped making projections some years ago for the same reason. We have to make those efforts, but I think we have to recognize that we have to take those forecasts with a grain of salt and try to make our best guesses, which means having research as good as we can.

I wouldn't say there's not significant investment in research in Canadian universities, nor that there isn't significant funding for Canadian universities, but it's certainly less than we need in order to meet the objectives that all of you as politicians hold for our sector. We have a lot of people retiring, as I mentioned. Our problem is not a shortage of young people coming up to assume those positions, but that the kinds of positions they are being offered do not allow them to pursue a proper academic career, and hence will mean that we'll have fewer researchers and fewer people grappling with these questions in future than we do now. Those are the challenges, and at the heart of them is financial investment. We don't invest sufficiently in post-secondary education and in research.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Merci, Madame Brunelle.

We'll go now to Monsieur Arthur.

[André Arthur, Independent, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

Mr. Turk, after two years in Parliament, I'm still waiting to meet the first witness who will come and say that he doesn't need more money from the government and that the government shouldn't do anything about it.

Considering the fact that the vast majority of Canadian taxpayers have never been to university and that their children won't go to university either, and that those who go to university will end up making vastly more interesting revenue for the rest of their lives because of the time they spent in university and the education they got there and the qualifications they were able to maintain after that, do you think that government funding of post-secondary education should be across the board, or is it time we look for those areas of human activity where our dollar will be better invested in a graduate education?

Isn't it time we realized that an engineer will probably provoke the creation of 100 jobs, and an archaeologist might not, and a sociologist might not? Do you think government money should be across the board in university, or is it time to concentrate on those fields of endeavour and learning that are more useful to the practical life of the taxpayer who does not have the means to send his or her own children to university and has never been to university?

[James Turk]

Well, I would like to be the first witness to come and say that I'm from a sector that doesn't need more money, but I can't do that. It would be a way of getting your attention, were I able to make that claim.

Secondly, when we're talking about post-secondary education, we're not talking just about university, but also universities and colleges, apprenticeship training, and a whole range of adult education that's necessary after high school. In that regard, the majority of Canadians do participate in some form of post-secondary education. In fact, the participation rate in Canada is one of the highest in the world.

The fact that they earn more is a reason we should not try to fund post-secondary education increasingly by tuition increases, because insofar as they earn more, they pay more in taxes. In fact, if you look at analyses that have been done, university graduates pay back far more than the total cost of their education as a result of the increased taxes they pay because of their higher income. So it is an investment, in that sense.

[André Arthur, Independent, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

It's the same thing for those who win the lottery, sir.

[James Turk]

I know, but lottery is the luck of the draw, and 99% of us don't win. With post-secondary education, not only do the participants who go through that, the students, win over the course of their lives, but the rest of the Canadian population does, because the advancements that are made, whether they're by engineers or people in the cultural field, benefit all Canadians. The fact that we have safer roads, that we have a better understanding of our culture, and better health care is something that benefits everyone.

To try to target, are we prepared to say culture is of no concern, knowing our history is of no concern, having political scientists study is not of concern because it's not churning out more jobs in the way of training? Any society needs a broad range of expertise, some of which brings back benefits economically, some socially, and some culturally. So I think it would be a serious mistake to try to target. We'd pay an enormous price as a society were we to do that.

[André Arthur, Independent, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

Mr. Couture—

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Monsieur Arthur, Mr. Gehrke did want to comment on that as well.

Be brief, Mr. Gehrke.

[Richard Gehrke]

Pardon me, sir.

Considering how well you articulated the question, it possibly makes me a little jumpy to butt in, but we're not asking for money. We're simply asking for an opportunity to prove our worth.

[André Arthur, Independent, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

That's why my question was directed to Mr. Turk.

Mr. Couture, there are two ways of producing engineers in Quebec. Some faculties offer academic teaching and others, for example the Université de Sherbrooke, have developed a co-op model, with time spent in industry and the offices of engineers who will hire them in future. They offer training sessions that are directly related to their academic education.

Can you tell me that both these methods of producing engineers are equivalent or is it time to shake up the universities that have not yet adopted this method?

[Etienne Couture]

I would say that very few universities are not doing this or are not in the process of doing this.

[André Arthur, Independent, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

That has been in place at Sherbrooke for 40 years.

[Etienne Couture]

The Université de Sherbrooke, with its cooperative program, has been leading the way. I would say that the others are catching up. We believe that practical experience is almost indispensable, at least in engineering. That is the direction being taken by engineering.

[André Arthur, Independent, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

That is probably the best way to ensure that engineering graduates will not just turn to teaching engineering.

[Etienne Couture]

If you say so. It is difficult to comment on this, but you do need experience to practice engineering.

[André Arthur, Independent, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

How do you explain that it took so long for Quebec universities to understand that this is the best formula and continued to turn out less qualified engineers than did Université de Sherbrooke? Why was there this delay.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

That is the last question.

[Etienne Couture]

I do not know why there was a delay. However, I can say that every engineer qualified to practice the profession will have the necessary qualifications...

[André Arthur, Independent, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

Will they be the same?

[Etienne Couture]

They will suffice.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Merci, Monsieur Arthur.

We'll go to Ms. Nash, please.

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

I'd like to pursue the idea of our tax dollars paying for post-secondary education.

One of my grandmothers lived until she was 99. She regretted all her life that she couldn't get past high school, because our family didn't have the money to send anybody to university and my parents never had the opportunity to go to university. I think it's fair to say that for many people in Canada, the post-war generation was the first to be able to go to university. To me, it was a great democratization of our learning, which unleashed a lot of creativity and a lot of value to us, not only as an economy but also as a society.

I know that even though tuition fees have risen dramatically, so has registration at universities and colleges. It is higher today, I understand, than ever. I do have a concern about the squeeze on affordability. And Dr. Smith raised the issue of dental fees. Yes,I guess a student will earn all of those back once they are in the workforce, but boy, oh boy, together they're like a house mortgage when you start off your career.

At what point do you lose that balance between affordability and the democratization or accessibility of post-secondary education, so that the average family can aspire to have their kids go to post-secondary education?

[James Turk]

I think most families in this country aspire to have their children go on to some form of post-secondary education, whether it be university, college, or another kind of training.

As the proportion of government funding has decreased, the principal replacement has been increased tuition fees. That's having two kinds of consequences. Remember that in Canada the principal source of assisting students is through loans. We're one of only two major industrialized countries that does not have a national needs-based grant system for funding post-secondary education students. So one of the consequences is substantial student debt. But the willingness to take on debt is also something that's socially and culturally variable.

In families that have historically been poor, are risk-averse, and don't have some experience that there's life beyond debt, the children don't even go on because of the formidable financial barrier that seems to be in front of them. We see that most strongly in the professions. You heard from the Canadian Dental Association about dentistry. In medicine there was a study at the University of Western Ontario where before tuition fees started going up dramatically, the average income of a family of a medical student was $80,000 a year in the mid-1990s. By 2002, the average income of a family of a medical student at the University of Western Ontario was reported to be $140,000 a year.

We simply can't have a situation in which family wealth rather than the individual's ability is the determinant of who goes on to get an education. We're at that stage in various ways. We need to find other ways to fund it, and we've proposed some in our finance brief. I won't go into them here for time reasons.