Industry Committee on May 28th, 2008

[Richard Florizone]

I haven't thought about that point, I suppose. I think the main thing is that you had that infrastructure, so it was the right place to plug in.

If I could just draw on that quickly, there is a broader point there that really what you're seeing is how these investments take place and how they build scale over many generations. You have a history of nuclear physics research at the University of Saskatchewan that goes back many decades and that ultimately led to the synchrotron.

[Raymond Simard, Liberal, Saint Boniface, MB]

Okay, thanks.

Mr. McCulloch, actually I was very happy to hear you speak about the aboriginal communities. It was the first time today. I'm from Manitoba, so we share some of the same challenges and same opportunities with the aboriginal community, and I think we agree that the way out is probably through education. So I was very happy to hear that.

Is your institute a community college? Could we compare it to that?

[Dr. Robert McCulloch]

The organization that we belong with is the Association of Canadian Community Colleges. There's a different nomenclature. There's an interesting discussion occurring across the country. Within the terminology now, the terms “polytechnic”, etc. are being used. We're a part of that family, with the CEGEPs, the community colleges, and so on.

[Raymond Simard, Liberal, Saint Boniface, MB]

But you're training people to be tradespeople?

[Dr. Robert McCulloch]

We have 160 programs, so we do the full array from trades to technologists. We do a lot of work in health care: X-ray technologists, laboratory technologists, right through to degree nursing, in partnership with the University of Saskatchewan.

[Raymond Simard, Liberal, Saint Boniface, MB]

One of the challenges we're having in Manitoba is that contractors and business people are actually hiring a lot of young people to do their apprenticeship program, but the problem with it is that there are no spots in the community colleges. Do you have the same challenge here?

[Dr. Robert McCulloch]

We're being pressed significantly. The expectation, for example, moving in 2008-09, is for a 20% increase in trades training. That's the kind of demand we're looking at, and we're trying to make sure we meet that demand. We're renting space all over Saskatoon. We're now in six different facilities across the city. Trying to find teachers is a challenge, but so far so good on that. In the wintertime, working inside with the students rather than being outside is a little easier to sell in Saskatchewan and Manitoba, but that's always a challenge.

[Raymond Simard, Liberal, Saint Boniface, MB]

Is there a provincial nominee program here in Saskatchewan to bring in targeted people?

[Dr. Robert McCulloch]

Yes, and frankly, we haven't been able to keep up with Manitoba on that front. They're working on that, I understand. Obviously that's way beyond my purview, but we've been engaged in discussions around that. We have an interesting project that was funded by HRSDC, through which we're working in the Ukraine. We're trying to do some in-country assessment to help with the immigration issue.

So there are lots of activities there. It's another area that requires some focus.

[Raymond Simard, Liberal, Saint Boniface, MB]

Mr. Loeppky, we had the pleasure of visiting Smartpark at the University of Manitoba yesterday. It's a much smaller version of what you have here, and I'm sure they've probably been inspired by what you've done here in Saskatchewan. One of the things that got them off the ground apparently is that WD funded some of the initial infrastructure to keep some of the costs down. I'm not sure how many buildings they have. How many buildings did you say you have here?

[Ken Loeppky]

We have 17 in Saskatoon and five in Regina.

[Raymond Simard, Liberal, Saint Boniface, MB]

So 22 altogether.

I thought it was really interesting, and I'm just trying to figure out the synergies that happen by having a technology park where people are lined up one beside the other. Obviously there are the students, because they're close to universities, but what else is happening there? Are people exchanging ideas, employees? Otherwise, why not have them anywhere in the city?

[Ken Loeppky]

We describe it by using the example of the neighbourhood you choose to live in. You choose to live in a neighbourhood that has like-minded people, and relationships develop. As small as Saskatoon and Regina are--both of them are somewhere in the neighbourhood of 200,000 to 250,000 people--businesses go about their business without understanding each other's capabilities. When they become neighbours they have another opportunity through this social environment, through business activities at the park, to get to know each other in a way they normally may not engage.

We see many examples of situations where companies are worried about the competition in the park and about their employees being taken away by similar businesses, only to find they can work with their neighbours to deliver things they haven't been able to deliver before. That fear of losing their employees to each other soon disappears.

In some respects it helps with recruitment. If you're trying to attract international employees, or even employees nationally, if you have more than one business in a neighbourhood, they see that if they move to Saskatoon because of this business or work opportunity and it doesn't work out, there are lots of other opportunities. They're reassured. It actually helps businesses with recruitment and retention.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you, Mr. Simard.

We'll go to Madame Brunelle.

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

Thank you for being here.

I found Innovation Place interesting too, Mr. Loeppsky. Your evidence clearly shows that research here is booming, to say the least.

What main areas of activity are clustered together? What are the advantages of the clustering? Do you have networking programs for the companies? Is that feasible? Are people close enough together for a supplier or someone to become part of the cluster? Is there a training effect?

[Ken Loeppky]

Thank you.

When we first started working with companies we thought there was an advantage to interdisciplinary clustering. We thought the different technology companies would complement each other. It was through circumstances that we ended up clustering a group of our biotech companies, and a synergy started taking place. There was a perception that the biotech industry all of a sudden emerged. We realized that by clustering similar groups, they seemed to benefit from each other better than trying an interdisciplinary approach.

With respect to the focus in Saskatoon, we have information technology, process engineering. We have biotech in Regina. We have petroleum and enhanced oil recovery. We have environmental sectors clustered, and we have information technology. We haven't tried tying suppliers together to any degree.

Our philosophy is that bringing technology companies together is part of the formula, and the other part is bringing together organizations that support them. For example, we have a lawyer's office in Innovation Place that specializes in patent law. We may have human resource offices that help with recruitment and retention. We have done some tenant mix adjustments to try to build stronger clusters.

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

Thank you, this is interesting.

Mr. McCulloch, I found this very interesting. We can see how the boom in the natural resources sector here leads you to identify the increased demand. People need to be trained, so I would like to know how you go about it.

You told us about aboriginal students and I would like to share a story from my region. There are students at the Collège Shawinigan in Shawinigan in Maurice—I do not know if you know it. There were problems. Aboriginal students living in more northern communities were asked to go to Shawinigan for their studies. At certain times, the classrooms emptied because they all went hunting. Everyone would leave, because the college had not adapted to their way of life. So a college was opened in La Tuque, further north and closer to their home, and the training was tailored to their needs. Perhaps you know that, but there it is for your information.

I would like to know how you go about training all the young people you need as quickly as possible.

[Dr. Robert McCulloch]

Thank you very much for the question.

We have to be reminded that, particularly for our northern folks, coming to Prince Albert is a big move; I hope everybody is familiar with that. If we were to ask people to come from a northern reserve to Saskatoon, it probably would be comparable to any of us moving to New York.

We try to make sure that we deal with support at a number of levels. First of all, at each of our campuses we have aboriginal support centres and we try to make sure that students can get help as they're moving through the program. But we've also found it helpful to set up transition programs for particular areas in which there is a large demand, so that students aren't just forced to walk in on September 1 and be expected to run with the program. We're trying to make sure that students get an orientation. We found it particularly helpful in some of our health sciences areas to do some advanced prep work, and that's been really helpful as well.

But as you point out, there are still many challenges, and we need to consider and have been trying to consider some particularly targeted programs whereby we would take the education on reserve. We're really proud that with the Kawacatoose First Nation we offer a licensed practical nursing program right on reserve. We've done similar work with Montreal Lake Cree Nation.

These are the kinds of efforts we need to undertake. We need to be more flexible. I think you'd find that at the institutions across the province, the enrollments are increasing because we are starting to pay attention to the importance of education.

I'm sure Richard may want to comment on the number of aboriginal students at the University of Saskatchewan. Our numbers are going like this...and I think that's very positive for all of us.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

I'll let you have a brief question.

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

Mr. Meldrum, we know how important telecommunications are. How do you assess access to telecommunications in Saskatchewan in comparison to other provinces, specifically high-speed Internet access?

It seems to me that the debate about broadband and access in rural areas already took place in Quebec a number of years ago. We have almost finished getting it organized. Do you feel that you have to make up ground? Is this a big challenge for you?

[John Meldrum]

Still about 10% to 15% of our population don't have access to high-speed Internet in Saskatchewan, so there is still a challenge before us. It's very uneconomic to get there. Today we provide service to most communities of 200 people and more; we're now getting to the point where those remaining unserved are fairly widely dispersed customers, and it's very uneconomic to serve them. We're currently studying how to get at that and hope to be talking to the provincial and federal governments about what opportunities there might be to get close to 100%. That would be our goal, to get to 98% coverage.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you, Ms. Brunelle.

We'll go to Mr. Stanton, please.

[Bruce Stanton, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Welcome to our witnesses.

I want to start with Mr. Florizone, picking up some of the things he spoke about with respect to the funding question.

You said that right now there was about $140 million in research revenues. I assume that's the revenues coming in from all sources. Do you have a quick breakdown on how much of that is the federal government's share?

[Richard Florizone]

I'd hazard a guess that the majority—I don't have the exact breakdown—would be federal. The CLS, the Canadian Light Source, funding would be a large portion of that. Another significant portion of it, though, would be agriculture research, which is quite significant for us, and a lot of that would be the Province of Saskatchewan. But federal funds as well; the majority of it would be federal dollars.

[Bruce Stanton, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Picking up on some of the questions we had this morning when we were at the synchrotron, I know we are looking for that more stable.... You mentioned today, in your presentation, about getting that stable five-year base of funding that at least is predictable for you.

When the synchrotron project began, what was the expectation in terms of what the operating cost component would be? This project began in 1998, so we're going back almost a 10-year span, roughly. When the government of the day invested in this program, was there an expectation that at some point the Government of Canada wouldn't be part of the operating cost equation?