Evidence of meeting #45 for Industry, Science and Technology in the 39th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was health.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:35 p.m.
Conservative
12:35 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation
Absolutely.
12:35 p.m.
Conservative
Bruce Stanton Conservative Simcoe North, ON
Good. Thank you very much.
Today we have two NCEs here, which is really appropriate.
I'll go to you, Mr. Yada. Your network is essentially bringing various partners together. One of the partners that both you and Mr. Frise referred to was non-profit organizations. Could you give us a couple of examples of the kinds of not-for-profit organizations those are?
12:35 p.m.
Scientific Director, Advanced Foods and Materials Network
Sure. We're partnering with such organizations as the Canadian Medical Association. We partner with them on a communiqué within their health magazine, which goes out to all members, on using food as a means of preventative health care and on some other research. We also partner with organizations such as the Heart and Stroke Foundation.
12:35 p.m.
Conservative
Bruce Stanton Conservative Simcoe North, ON
I notice that even though the NCEs generally are trying to bring the various partners together—government, universities, industry—you didn't include colleges in that list. We've learned that colleges have a big role to play in applied science and, in fact, in helping at the post-discovery stage of moving a potential product along.
Could you comment on what the role of colleges is in your network and/or on what they could be?
12:40 p.m.
Scientific Director, Advanced Foods and Materials Network
Yes. In fact, that's a timely question.
We're partnering with George Brown College in Toronto, with their culinary expertise. We feel that we can create foods, but if they aren't attractive to the consumer, then they may not be taken up by the consumer, so we're working on various recipes to incorporate some of the bioactives. I think members were out to St. Boniface, as I indicated, to talk to the researchers there on the whole concept of nutraceuticals and functional foods. We're trying to develop recipes that include those entities.
12:40 p.m.
Conservative
Bruce Stanton Conservative Simcoe North, ON
Could I ask the same question of Dr. Frise in regard to colleges?
12:40 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer and Scientific Director, AUTO21 Network of Centres of Excellence, Auto 21 Inc.
Yes, we also have a partnership with George Brown, and they've contributed very strongly on the design of the new car seat that is now on the market. Magna started a new division called Magna Marque. That product is on the market. There's actually a whole new line of car seats coming out based on AUTO21 research, which George Brown contributed to. In addition, we work with St. Clair College in Windsor and with Georgian College in Barrie, Ontario. We're always looking for new partners and areas where they can contribute and so on.
One of the things that have to be said is that not all of the colleges have the correct kinds of accounting systems to be able to receive grant money. They're all eligible for it; they just don't have the internal infrastructure to do it.
12:40 p.m.
Conservative
12:40 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer and Scientific Director, AUTO21 Network of Centres of Excellence, Auto 21 Inc.
It's a bit of an administrative issue. I don't think we need to make too much of it here, sir, but although the colleges are all eligible to receive research grants from federal government organizations like AUTO21 and AFMNet, they sometimes don't have the internal structures. They need a research ethics committee to review anything to do with human subjects, they have to have certain kinds of accounting systems to receive the grants, and so on. It's been our experience that some of the colleges just don't have those internal structures in place, and so the researchers have.... We've gotten around it; they've just become adjunct professors at the local university, and we grant them the money there. It works okay, but it has been a barrier at one point or another.
I don't know if you've found that, Rickey, but--
12:40 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Rajotte
Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Stanton.
We'll go to Monsieur Vincent.
12:40 p.m.
Bloc
Robert Vincent Bloc Shefford, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
My first question is for you, Dr. Frise. I read on your website that you have registered and been granted more than 30 patents. Who owns the intellectual property for those patents? When a product is brought to market, does the money go back to AUTO21?
12:45 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer and Scientific Director, AUTO21 Network of Centres of Excellence, Auto 21 Inc.
No, sir. We don't take an ownership of the intellectual property. That's a choice we made at the outset. Any royalties would be paid to the respective universities where the research is actually accomplished, so the inventors own the intellectual property.
We've found that model works very well. It returns to the public sector the investment that has been made in those projects.
The other thing to keep in mind is that one of the key products of a network of centres of excellence or any academically based research project is the young people who graduate from the research with their master's or their PhD. Those people go on to become employees of companies or hospitals or wherever, and they contribute back to our economy in that way as well.
12:45 p.m.
Bloc
Robert Vincent Bloc Shefford, QC
Let us take a concrete example. Magna International develops a child seat. Is there a way in which the contract to produce that seat can require it to be manufactured in Canada?
12:45 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer and Scientific Director, AUTO21 Network of Centres of Excellence, Auto 21 Inc.
That really would be something between the researcher and the company. That's not something that AUTO21 has taken a role in. We decided at the outset that it would be better to leave that with the researcher and the respective universities or institutions involved.
12:45 p.m.
Bloc
Robert Vincent Bloc Shefford, QC
If the federal government invests in research and a company invests in a product developed by your researchers but manufactures it somewhere else, there is no return to Canada in that case.
When the research and development of a product has been done in Canada, the product should also be produced here. Are there no provisions to that effect?
12:45 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer and Scientific Director, AUTO21 Network of Centres of Excellence, Auto 21 Inc.
In my experience, it's very difficult to force companies to do things like that. Magna has been a very good partner of ours and a very good partner of many Canadian researchers. I think it's really up to all of us, as Canadians, to build the best possible business case to ensure that products are made here.
In fact, I would just say that the auto industry actually produces far more here in Canada than is sold here in general. Now, where a particular product is made is a different issue, and that's not something we really would be able to affect, I don't think, in a realistic way.
12:45 p.m.
Bloc
Robert Vincent Bloc Shefford, QC
Okay.
Earlier, Mr. Julius talked about the knowledge society. How can we keep our good students and prevent a brain drain? How can we get them interested in staying in Canada? Do you have a solution?
I read in an article in the Journal de Montréal that scholarships and salaries to study in the United States are $75,000 per year, free air fare home, cutting edge research equipment, 24 hour room service and all kinds of other perks.
How can we encourage people to keep studying and doing their research in Canada, and stop them leaving for the United States or for other parts of the world?
12:45 p.m.
Chair, Research Canada: An Alliance for Health Discovery
Thank you for the question, Mr. Vincent. It's a very important one.
I think we have made, as a country, an excellent start. We have created salary programs, the Canada research chair program; we have provided magnificent laboratory facilities for those individuals we actually train here; and we are subsidizing their trainings in our universities, in our hospital-based research enterprises. So we now are regaining the capacity to recruit globally, from south of the border, and to retain those individuals we have educated here in Canada. But at the end of the day, if there isn't enough money for them to do their experiments, they will go where there is.
We've made a good start.
12:50 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Rajotte
Yes, that is it. Thank you, Mr. Vincent.
We'll go to Mr. Van Kesteren.
12:50 p.m.
Conservative
Dave Van Kesteren Conservative Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Julius, when the question was raised, I think to Mr. Yada, about pure science, you looked as if you really wanted to respond. Without elaborating or going too long, do you agree with that statement?
12:50 p.m.
Chair, Research Canada: An Alliance for Health Discovery
I don't agree with this statement out of context.
12:50 p.m.
Conservative
Dave Van Kesteren Conservative Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON
We're hearing witnesses, and somebody mentioned Sweden, and then often we talk about Finland and about how these countries have been successful. But this is an extremely difficult country to govern. We have so many—so many—people and groups of people pulling. When I look at the S and T strategy, we've included health, life sciences, environmental sciences, and natural resources.
Let me just throw you a ball. Would you think that we'd be better off to give science a little more licence to develop more pure science and maybe focus on the areas where we're strong, like natural resources? Should we be helping our industries in forestry, for instance, and mining and oil exploration?
12:50 p.m.
Chair, Research Canada: An Alliance for Health Discovery
In short, I have a two-pronged response. I think we need a framework for this investment. We can't be jumping up to lobbying groups, and there are many mouths coming forward to committees like this to make the appropriate asks. We as a country have to understand the role that each one plays and how they align with the priorities in which we have capacity.
So I think we have to turn to the brightest minds in the country to understand where the future is coming from. Our role here is, in my view, to invest in ideas, in the smartest individuals, and yes, I think we have to be building tomorrow's capacity. Natural resources will not be here with us for much longer. So it's tomorrow's industries that we need to be focusing on.