Industry Committee on June 12th, 2008

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

I'll call the 46th meeting of the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology to order.

I apologize, first of all, to the witnesses. We had votes, which delayed us in the House for at least half an hour, so we will unfortunately have a shorter time period.

For the first panel, we have three organizations. First of all, from the Coalition for Canadian Astronomy, we have the co-chair of industry, chairman of the board, and CEO of Empire Industries Ltd., Mr. Guy Nelson. We have the co-chair of the Association of Canadian Universities for Research in Astronomy and past-dean of arts and science for the University of Toronto, Dr. Pekka Sinervo.

From SNOLAB, we have the director, Mr. Tony Noble. We also have the director of the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory Institute, Mr. Art McDonald.

Our third organization is the University of Victoria. We have Martin Taylor, who is the president and CEO of Ocean Networks Canada. We also have Cindy Paquette, the executive director of government relations for the university.

Welcome to all of you.

We will start in that order, with the Coalition for Canadian Astronomy. Please limit your opening comments to five minutes from each organization, and then we'll go immediately to questions from members.

Mr. Nelson.

[Guy Nelson, Co-Chair, Industry, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer, Empire Industries Ltd., Coalition for Canadian Astronomy]

Thank you.

We'd like to thank the committee for this opportunity to appear today. The Coalition for Canadian Astronomy was formed in 2000 and is unprecedented in the Canadian science community because three partners voluntarily joined together to form the coalition: professional astronomers, academia, and industry.

The coalition is a unique Canadian response to the challenges posed by the globalization of astronomy. The massive engineering scale and technological sophistication of the next-generation telescopes requires the intellectual and financial resources of the international astronomy community to plan, design, and construct them. Canadian astronomers, leaders in the global astronomical community, knew they had to change to be part of this new era or be left behind. After lengthy debate and discussion within the astronomical community, a set of priorities was identified that would form the basis of a long-range plan for astronomy and astrophysics.

In short, the LRP was the community's strategy to adapt to and thrive in an era of globalized astronomy. We're aware of no other sector where a scientific community, academia, and industry work so well together to ensure the success of the plan. Our plan is working. The priorities identified in the LRP are providing Canadian astronomers with the opportunity to work on world-leading projects so they may continue to rank as the world's best in astronomical research.

Astronomy is also unique in that it has a rich history of creating commercial benefits from its scientific research. We not only benefit from the scientific achievements and discoveries resulting from astronomical research, but the research generates economic revenues through the knowledge gained in developing the tools and equipment needed for astronomy projects.

The company I run, for example, has completed over $300 million worth of engineering and construction work building telescopes around the world. As a direct spinoff, we've also completed $300 million worth of work in the amusement ride industry. We're currently in the design phase to put over $300 million towards building the world's largest telescope, and we're currently designing and will ultimately build over $300 million in amusement rides that will be exported around the world. And our company is only one example.

Previous federal government investments in astronomy have generated hundreds of millions of dollars in business for a wide range of Canadian companies. Past economic analysis and experience has shown that Canada receives at least a two-to-one direct benefit for every federal dollar invested in astronomy. The indirect return is as high as ten to one, since the knowledge gained working on astronomy projects leads to new business opportunities in sectors far removed from astronomy.

There are three primary areas in which astronomical research has contributed to the Canadian economy: through direct contract awards to Canadian companies, through the development of spinoff technologies, and through skills development. The first economic impact consideration comes directly from the astronomy projects themselves, which today can run into the hundreds of millions of dollars.

While the direct return on investment in astronomy is impressive, the return generated from the development of spinoff technologies is phenomenal. The contracts and work experience that have come from astronomy projects have generated new knowledge and technological developments that produce a variety of spinoffs and market advantage for Canadian industry that weren't understood at the time the first investment was made. The knowledge gained leads to new business opportunities in sectors far removed from astronomy. Examples of spinoff technology include digital cameras, technology for MRIs, and theme park rides.

Perhaps the most significant knowledge advantage comes from the number of highly skilled young people trained in LRP projects. Here the impact of the LRP has been very significant, as the number of advanced master's and doctoral students have doubled in astronomy and astrophysics over the last decade.

The coalition has been working closely with the National Research Council to secure the necessary capital funding for the remaining ground-based elements of the LRP. The NRC has the mandate to operate and administer Canadian astronomical observatories, but does not have enough A-base budget to support the LRP. In fact, there's no single agency that can fund our projects. This has forced us to deal with a myriad of agencies with different mandates and reporting requirements. This is not conducive to long-range planning, especially with international partners.

Overall investment in the LRP to date has totalled $85 million. This government investment has enabled Canada to go forward on the LRP, with the Canadian companies involved in these projects developing world-leading technologies. This continued financial support is necessary to ensure the continued success of astronomy in Canada.

If the private sector benefits so much from these projects, why are they not making these initial investments? In other words, why does government always have to foot the bill? The short answer is simple. There is no business that would support investing in an astronomy project given private sector timelines and risk tolerance. In addition, there's no commercial value per se in designing and building the next-generation largest telescope at the outset. We recognize that there are limited government dollars to go around; therefore, we believe the government needs to invest strategically in scientific research and disciplines that clearly lay out plans for excellence and have a proven track record of impressive financial returns.

The Coalition for Canadian Astronomy feels strongly that strategic investments in scientific research will help improve Canada's global competitiveness. When carried out in a coordinated way, federal government investment in scientific research will improve Canada's competitiveness and economic growth.

We strongly encourage the committee to address scientific funding in its final report, and to do so in a way that recognizes the realities of big science. Investments in science are delivering tremendous benefits to the Canadian economy and to our competitiveness globally. Those benefits will continue with a coordinated Canadian approach to scientific funding. As such an approach is developed, sciences like astronomy that have a clear plan that involves all relevant stakeholders, a demonstrated record of delivering scientific excellence, and proven economic returns should be supported with continued funding.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you very much, Mr. Nelson.

We'll go to Mr. McDonald.

[Dr. Art McDonald, Director, Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO) Institute, SNOLAB]

Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you about the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory and SNOLAB.

These facilities give Canada the best underground laboratory in the world and provide the lowest-radioactivity location ever created. The experiments conducted there are the world's best basic science and are attracting top international scientists and very large-scale new experiments. Many young people are associated with this frontier science and technology, including five new Canada research chairs.

In pushing these technology frontiers, we involve Canadian industry to our mutual benefit. You see some examples here on the page: Vale Inco; Petresa Canada; and BTI, Bubble Technology Industries. We also work extensively with AECL and Ontario Power Generation in our extensive use of heavy water in the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory.

Results from the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory have really made a substantial impact on the world scene in terms of basic science. They were cited as one of the top two scientific breakthroughs in the world in 2001-02 by Science and Discover magazines and by the American Institute of Physics. We were able to change our understanding of the basic laws of physics in a very fundamental way and we were able to confirm in great detail how energy is generated in the sun.

The new SNOLAB facility, which is an extension of the two-kilometre underground location in Vale Inco's Creighton mine near Sudbury, is largely complete, and it's poised to make further high-impact discoveries, such as determining the identity of the dark matter particles known to make up 23% of the universe but whose express identity is not determined as yet, and also the origin of matter in the early universe. According to a recent high-level international review committee, “For the next 5 to 10 years, SNOLAB has a special window of opportunity: With its great depth (significantly greater than any other underground laboratory) and the proper infrastructure it is uniquely positioned to make Nobel Prize winning discoveries.”

NSERC is providing operating support for Canadian scientists developing new experiments to be sited in SNOLAB, and there will be substantial international contributions to the capital and operating costs of experiments. But the international standard for such basic science laboratories is for them to concentrate on the cost of experiments and for the host country to provide the operation cost for the facility itself, giving our scientists equivalent advantages internationally.

However, there is no current federal program available to us to provide long-term operating support for a major basic science international facility like SNOLAB. Before operations started in 2007, we sought support from Ontario's ORF-RE program and the new CECR program from the federal government. We did receive positive response from the provincial program and we have six years of support there, but we were told that as basic science we did not qualify for CECR without having a substantial commercial objective, and we also did not fall in the four restricted categories of activity for that program.

The level of yearly operating support we're talking about here is about $6 million, of which we have about $3 million secured, assuming we're able to get matching for that. NSERC and CFI councils therefore took immediate ad hoc action in November to provide matching funds for a two-year period in order that we would be able to proceed in a steady way, but we have an immediate challenge in that we must obtain federal support immediately for long-term operating beyond 2009 to match the provincial and the university commitments. The uncertainty of our long-term funding in this situation is making it difficult for us to deal with international experiments wishing to come to the laboratory.

Such uncertainty is a real problem for major facilities like this. Of course we're not the only ones facing this problem: NEPTUNE, the Amundsen icebreaker, the Canadian Light Source at Saskatoon, and, on a somewhat smaller scale, major facilities like HPCVL for large-scale computing have similar difficulties. Combined, the order of magnitude of the required operating support is such that it is far beyond the capacity of granting councils such as NSERC to handle without a significant incremental increase in their yearly funding. In fact, when we originally submitted our application, NSERC was identified as a potential source of operating support. It has sought additional funding for this, but its recent budget increases have been targeted for other things. CFI does provide short-term operating support for their capital projects, but this is for the long term.

If NSERC were to fund these projects from their base budget, it would have to do so at the expense of funding for the research being done at these facilities, creating a situation that would penalize Canadian scientists in their own laboratories for their great ideas.

This is an example of how major science facilities are an important part of the scientific landscape in Canada. These facilities in general have been selected as the best possible. They are partnerships between universities, industry, and government, and they attract Canadian and international scientists and the very best students, preparing them for eventual influential positions in industry and academia.

An overall governmental policy for major science facilities is badly needed to provide a full overview and funding approach from the initial proposals through the life cycle of the projects, including construction, operation, and of course decommissioning when the projects have fulfilled their mission. With such a policy and such facilities as have been put forward so far, Canada can lead the world in these important areas of research.

Thank you for your attention.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you very much, Mr. McDonald.

Mr. Taylor, go ahead, please.

[Dr. Martin Taylor, President and Chief Executive Officer, Ocean Networks Canada, University of Victoria]

Good morning. I welcome this opportunity to speak with you today about the exciting opportunities for Canada created by our country's major science facilities.

I speak as the president of Ocean Networks Canada, the not-for-profit organization created by the University of Victoria to administer NEPTUNE Canada. NEPTUNE Canada is the world's first regional cabled ocean observatory. It's located off the Pacific Coast on the Juan de Fuca plate, one of the world's most active tectonic plates.

NEPTUNE Canada is one of several major science facilities in Canada, made possible by over $100 million in capital funding from the Canada Foundation for Innovation, with matching funding from the Province of British Columbia and from industry.

NEPTUNE Canada is truly transformative. In contrast to traditional ship-based observation, continuous power and communications to suites of instruments connected by submarine fibre optic cable systems allow continuous measurements of ocean processes and events of profound importance for the future of our environment and society.

The eyes of the world are literally on NEPTUNE Canada as the first in a new generation of ocean-observing systems that provide for the remote control of instruments and the streaming of real-time data to Internet web platforms. The research enabled by NEPTUNE Canada's leading-edge engineering and communications technologies puts Canadian scientists in a lead position internationally by allowing for integrated studies of the ocean's physical, chemical, and biological processes in ways not previously possible. Not only is NEPTUNE Canada supporting transformative research and attracting the best ocean researchers, technical staff, and students in the world, it also has profound importance for public policy, commercial opportunities, and public education and outreach. The results from NEPTUNE Canada will inform some of our most important public policy issues: hazard mitigation, including earthquakes and tsunamis; ocean climate dynamics and climate change; resource assessment, including fisheries, gas hydrates, and oil and gas; and the sovereignty and security of our ports and ocean shipping lanes.

In terms of commercial opportunities, NEPTUNE Canada is a test bed for the next generation of ocean-observing system technologies and instrumentation; for the development of new ICT for massive data management and archiving solutions, which have applications well beyond ocean science; and for the creation of web- and print-based knowledge products about the ocean. We are already partnering with Canadian industry and with international companies to capitalize on these opportunities.

Public education and outreach is another major focus for NEPTUNE Canada, recognizing the importance for K to 12, for college and university students, and for the public at large of expanding our understanding of the oceans at a time when they have never been more important to our national and global futures.

Implicit in all of these strengths, applications, and opportunities is the close alignment of NEPTUNE Canada with our federal S and T priorities in the areas of environmental S and T, energy and natural resources, health and life sciences, and information and communication technologies. In each of these areas, NEPTUNE Canada contributes directly to our national S and T agenda by promoting our country's knowledge, people, and entrepreneurial advantages by translating excellent research into applications and action.

Canada is now in an impressive position in international S and T through the capital funding of these world-leading major science facilities, including NEPTUNE Canada. And yet for NEPTUNE Canada and for Canada's other major science facilities, including the Canadian Light Source, SNOLAB--which you've just heard about--and the Amundsen icebreaker, there is a vital missing ingredient, which puts seriously at risk the international leadership and national advantages and opportunities I have spoken of so far. While our country has a strong suite of programs to fund the capital infrastructure, direct research costs, and human resource costs, we lack a mechanism to make effective funding decisions regarding the operating costs of national science facilities.

Our current leadership position is precarious given global competition and plans in the G8 to invest in S and T and given the massive investments under way in China and India. Achieving the benefits of our investments for Canada and Canadians requires that we find a way to bring predictability and stability to funding the operations of these facilities.

To date, ad hoc arrangements have been made to provide short-run operating costs. In the case of NEPTUNE Canada, we have two years of one-time funding to mid-2010 from NSERC, CFI and the Province of B.C. Why was the provision of operating funding not planned for at the time of committing the capital funding to build these facilities, as is the case in other countries such as the U.S., Australia, and the U.K.? Lead universities for the major science facilities were informed, as you've heard in the case of SNO and us at NEPTUNE Canada, that funding would be provided through NSERC programs. But the reality, as you've heard already, is that there is no NSERC program to fund the annual operating costs level required by these major science facilities. There is a major and serious gap in the system.

If NSERC were to fund the operating costs through existing programs, it would in fact so seriously erode the capacity of these programs that it would be entirely counterproductive to the overall mandate of NSERC to support the brightest and best researchers and students in the sciences in Canada. Within their major funding constraints, the universities—in our case, the University of Victoria—have made substantial contributions towards the operating costs, but these can never be at the level needed on an annual basis.

A new program is therefore urgently needed, which the major science facilities could apply to on a competitive, peer-reviewed basis. It should be a program that makes a sustained commitment. The five-year funding cycle in place with the TRIUMF laboratory for particle nuclear physics at UBC is a good one, as it has built-in international peer review of performance as the basis for funding renewal.

This is an exciting time for Canada, because of the leadership position it has gained through the CFI and other federal investments in S and T. But for this position to be maintained, and for the economic, environmental, social, and health benefits for Canadians to be achieved as the return on those investments, the major science facilities' operating funding challenge has to be met.

I thank the committee for the opportunity to share this urgent concern, and I welcome the opportunity to respond to your questions. Thank you very much indeed.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you very much, Mr. Taylor.

We'll now go to questions from members. We'll start with Mr. Eyking.

[Mark Eyking, Liberal, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

Thank you, Chair.

I'd like to thank the presenters for coming here today and highlighting Canada's accomplishments. Whether under the water in the Pacific Ocean, under the ground in Sudbury, in outer space, or out on the icebreakers, it's quite amazing. Also, you mentioned quite a bit about the funding required and that more was needed.

But my question is about how we can reach out to Canadians, especially young people, to show them what we're doing, so they can be proud as Canadians that we're leading the world with this technology, and to show them where we're going and to encourage them to get into this field. I'm wondering if we can make a better connection there. How can we reach out, from your groups' perspective and that of universities, to get right into the classrooms and somehow get them engaged and excited about what we're doing, showing them that we can do just as well as anybody in the world?

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

We'll start with Mr. Taylor, and then go to Mr. McDonald.

[Dr. Martin Taylor]

Thank you for the question. I think it's a terrific question, because it gets to the root of where the science culture is in this country and where it is going to come from, in terms of enthusiasm to support all of the things the three of us have talked about.

In the context of NEPTUNE Canada, I mentioned briefly in passing the fact that public education and outreach is a key component of what we're committed to. Just to give you one example, we've recently been recipients of a grant from CANARIE that will allow us to build the new generation of web-based platforms, Web 2.0, with the explicit intention of reaching the K-to-12, post-secondary, and general public audiences. This will essentially bring a new “world” to the world, and expose all of us to what's happening under the oceans, for all of the reasons we are increasingly aware of as key.

So thank you for the question, because I don't want to leave you with the impression that what we are developing here is something that is just for a select group of scientists. It isn't.

[Mark Eyking, Liberal, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

But on that, how can we get right into the classrooms? I'm assuming that in many of these classrooms, in grade 3 or 4, or 8 or 9, maybe they are talking about the science that we were doing 10 or 15 years ago. How do we get in there with up-to-date stuff to make them proud and engaged? Is there a way?

[Dr. Martin Taylor]

One of the wonderful things in this country is the collectivity. We are admired internationally for the collectivity in our classrooms, even with our remote geographies. As a consequence, with web-based Internet platforms, for example, we're streaming our data to them, and then we'll obviously create, and are already creating with our VENUS observatory, knowledge packages, for want of a better term, that can be used by teachers directly in the classroom. That is a key piece of it. We're already moving on that front.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Mr. McDonald.

[Dr. Art McDonald]

I would like to expand on that.

We have had a tremendous advantage from the outset in being close partners with Science North, the science centre in Sudbury, and we have had exhibits there from the very beginning. They have 300,000 people a year going through there. We have classes of younger grades, the very ones you're speaking about, coming there and working with people to understand what is happening right there in the community as well, in terms of personal interest. We have a similar exhibit at the Canada Science and Technology Museum here in Ottawa.

We are also now in high school textbooks. The Sudbury neutrino results are in the grade 12 textbooks in physics. We set out to do textbook science, and we in fact are doing it.

We've recently partnered with Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in the development of a CD and associated teaching material on dark matter, for high school teachers. The Perimeter Institute brings in the best grade 11 students, many of them from across the country, and international high school students on a yearly basis. We're working with them on expanding the program to include SNOLAB, now that we're in this area.

We're continually looking for the opportunity to do it. It is non-trivial, I think, that in fact, at the time of our discoveries, we had substantial press coverage of our discoveries, and that's ongoing on Discovery Channel and so on, on a regular basis. So we do reach the public in general on what we're doing. It's very high on our agenda.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Just before I go to Mr. Sinervo, members, I think there's a vote in the House at 12:30. We're just trying to clarify that. I don't know exactly what it's on, but we'll try to clarify that as well.

Mr. Sinervo, we'll go to you.

[Dr. Pekka Sinervo, Co-Chair, Association of Canadian Universities for Research in Astronomy (ACURA) and Past-Dean of Arts and Science, University of Toronto, Coalition for Canadian Astronomy]

Let me just fill in a little bit on the astronomy side as well.

Public outreach and broad education of the Canadian public have been a priority in the astronomy plan right from the outset, and significant resources have been allocated towards that. The long-range plan, in fact, made a proposal that approximately 2% of all the funding would be put toward directed efforts to engage the public through outreach activities, as well as targeting the science education efforts. Some of that is already going on, even without that targeted funding. The reality, of course, is that to make this really work, you have to put your money where your mouth is, and that's one of the challenges, that we don't have a national science education plan—and I speak as an educator now. We actually really don't have that particular vision in mind.

That said, 2009 is the International Year of Astronomy, and the professional organizations, the Canadian Astronomical Society, as well as the several amateur astronomical societies are very strongly engaged, working collaboratively on actually using that as a platform in which to bring the excitement, the research results, and what the future of astronomical research will be to people in the classroom, our young children who are going to be the next generation of scientists.

[Mark Eyking, Liberal, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you very much, Mr. Eyking.

I have some more information. The vote is at 12:30. The committees are supposed to officially stop when the bells start.

As chair, I need unanimous consent. I'd like to get at least two more members in for questions—

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

—Madame Brunelle and then a Conservative.

We'll start with Madame Brunelle.

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

Good day, sirs. It is a pleasure to meet you. We feel somewhat pressured, like we're in a submarine, with the lights flickering on. It's a little worrisome.

My remarks are directed to the various groups. I read your briefs and I would like to discuss financing with you. I see that 3% of Canada's science budget goes to “Big Science” projects such as yours. In your submissions, you all mention that when it comes to financing, the decision-making process is not always effective in terms of investing in Canada.

You note that in the field of astronomy, per capita investment in Canada is eight times below the level in the United States, and five times below the level of European countries with comparable GDPs. If we look at what's being done overall, we see that some of the financing is international in scope and that there is a significant level of collaboration.

I would like to hear more from you about financing.

Those working in the field of astronomy maintain that they have found a new way of funding big science projects. The Coalition has set up a task force.

How would you propose that these big science projects be funded? There appears to be a problem. I'd like to hear your views on the subject.

Would you care to go first, Mr. Sinervo?

[Dr. Pekka Sinervo]

Let me start by noting that these projects are all international in scope. In fact, all of the projects the witnesses have spoken about require significant international partnership. That means there is a significant engagement and collaboration internationally right from the outset in terms of identifying what the scientific priorities are, coming to agreement on who is actually going to participate at an international level, and then working to acquire the resources from within each of the appropriate jurisdictions that the scientists are coming from to bring their share of the project to the table. It requires a significant amount of collaboration and coordination.

It also takes a significant amount of time. We're talking about bringing together, in some cases, hundreds of millions of dollars of capital funding, plus long-term commitment for operational support--typically anywhere from 10 to 20 years of support, which together equal approximately the total capital investment.

In my view, Canada has done quite well in this particular arena; however, we have suffered from the fact that we don't have a big-science strategy. We don't have a single port of call or a single organization within the country that takes a leadership role in identifying where Canada should put its resources to most effectively leverage its impact internationally.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Mr. Taylor.

[Dr. Martin Taylor]

Perhaps the issue is to distinguish between the three types of funding. The first is capital funding, and I think what you've heard from each of us, certainly in the case of SNOLAB and NEPTUNE, is that the capital funding is in place and we're well through the building of those facilities.

The second category is the operating funding, which is the annual money that's required to cover the basic operations of the system. That's the missing piece.

The third piece is what I would term generally the experimental funding--in other words, the funding that the individual researchers or teams of researchers bring in from NSERC and other agencies internationally to then conduct the experiments on that system. There are programs in place for that funding to be drawn down.

It's that middle piece that is absolutely vital. And the rule of thumb, which I think has been validated by CFI, is that the operating funding--that core operating funding, if you'd like to keep the heat and light on in these facilities--is at about 10% of the capital. So if you've built a $100 million facility, you're looking at $10-plus million a year to support that basic operation and maintenance cost.

That's the missing piece, and without that, the rest falls apart. The capital investment comes to naught, because you can't operate the facility and the experiments can't be conducted even though the researchers could, in principle, draw down the money to conduct those experiments.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Mr. McDonald.