Industry Committee on May 30th, 2019

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

Good morning, everybody. Welcome to meeting 165 of the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology.

Pursuant to Standing Order 81(4), we're resuming our study of the main estimates 2019-20.

With us today we have the honourable Kirsty Duncan, Minister of Science and Sport.

Welcome, Minister. Thank you for coming today.

From the Department of Industry we have David McGovern, Associate Deputy Minister, Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada.

You have up to 10 minutes to tell us your story.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Minister of Science and Sport]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Esteemed committee members, thank you for the opportunity to be here on the occasion of the tabling of the main estimates for the 2019-20 fiscal year.

Science research and evidence-based decision-making matter. They matter more than ever as the voices that seek to undermine science, evidence and fact continue to grow.

Canadians understand that science and research lead to a better environment—cleaner air, cleaner water—new medical treatments or cures, stronger communities, and new and effective technologies.

Our talented researchers and students are developing robotic devices to help people recover from strokes and injuries, making it easier for seniors and persons with disabilities to lead fully independent lives.

Researchers are also developing vaccines and technologies to combat infectious diseases.

Canadians understand that science and research are essential to innovation and to the foundations of a 21st century economy. At the same time, the world's top economies systematically invest in research for its own sake.

The growth of modern economies has been driven largely by science, technology and engineering.

Investments in fundamental research come back to Canadians in the form of new jobs and higher wages. It's for these many reasons that our government has prioritized science and research since day one. We reinstated the long-form census, encouraged our scientists to speak freely and reinstated the position of the chief science adviser.

I requested that Canada's chief science adviser work with science-based departments to create departmental chief scientist positions in order to strengthen science advice to government and to develop a scientific integrity policy.

We have taken a very different approach in working with the science and research community. We have listened carefully to the community and have undertaken six major consultations.

One of those consultations was the first review of federal funding for basic science in 40 years.

We are committed to returning science and research to their rightful place. Four successive federal budgets have invested a total of more than $10 billion in science and research and in our researchers and students. We are putting them at the centre of everything we do. That means ensuring they have the necessary funding, state-of-the-art labs and tools, and digital tools to make discoveries and innovations.

We invested $4 billion in science and research in 2018.

This included the largest investment in fundamental research in Canadian history. In fact, we increased funding to the granting councils by 25% after 10 years of stagnant funding. The impact of this decision was profound and positive. We are hearing directly from researchers who say that because of increases to NSERC and SSHRC, they are able to hire students who gain the skills they need for the jobs of the future.

We provided $2 billion for 300 research and innovation infrastructure projects at post-secondary institutions from coast to coast to coast. We also invested $763 million over five years in the Canada Foundation for Innovation and have committed predictable, sustainable, long-term funding for the organization.

We also devoted $2.8 billion to renewing our federal science laboratories because we understand the critical role that government researchers play in Canada's science and research community.

In parallel to these historic investments, our government is making important changes to the research system itself. We will shortly announce the establishment of the council on science and innovation to help strengthen Canada's efforts to stimulate innovation across our country's economy. Minister Petitpas Taylor and I have already announced the establishment of the Canada research coordinating committee to better coordinate and harmonize programs of the three federal granting councils—CIHR, NSERC and SSHRC—as well as the CFI.

The Canada research coordinating committee's action over the last year has led to the creation of the new frontiers in research fund, which supports international, interdisciplinary, fast-breaking and high-reward research.

The committee also launched the first-ever dialogue with first nations, Métis and Inuit regarding research. We provided 116 research connection grants to support community workshops and the development of position papers to inform this effort. More than half of these grants were awarded to indigenous researchers and indigenous not-for-profit organizations to help chart a shared path to reconciliation.

As we put into place the foundations for this significant culture change, we vowed that each and every Canadian would benefit.

To achieve our vision, the scientific and research communities must reflect Canada's diversity.

We want as many people as possible experiencing our world-class institutions, but it is not enough to attract people. We also have to retain them. That's why I put in place new equity and diversity requirements for our internationally recognized Canada excellence research chairs and Canada research chairs.

Because of our changes, more than half of the Canada excellence research chairs resulting from the last competition are women. I'm thrilled to say that in the most recent competition, for the first time in Canadian history, we had 50% women nominated for the Canada research chairs, and we had the highest percentage of indigenous and racialized researchers and scholars, as well as researchers with a disability.

Earlier this month, we took the historic step of launching a program that we are calling “Dimensions: Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Canada”.

This is a pilot program inspired by the internationally recognized Athena SWAN program.

We are encouraging universities, colleges, polytechnics and CEGEPs to endorse the dimensions charter to signal their commitment to ensuring that everyone has access to equal opportunities, treatment and recognition in our post-secondary institutions. I am pleased to share that 32 institutions have already signed the charter.

We have repeatedly heard that inadequate parental leave creates many challenges, especially for early-career researchers who are women.

No one should ever have to choose between having a research career and raising a family.

We know that a delay in career progress early on can often mean that women achieve lower levels of academic seniority and earn a lower salary and pension. That's why, in budget 2019, we are doubling parental leave from six to 12 months for students and post-doctoral fellows who are funded by the granting councils.

Budget 2019 also plans to provide for 500 more master's level scholarships annually and 500 doctoral scholarships, so that more Canadian students can pursue research.

Remaking Canada's science and research culture is a huge and complex undertaking, but we are hearing from G7 countries that Canada is now viewed as a beacon for research because of the investments we are making. We saw it first-hand with the international interest in the Canada 150 research chairs.

Obviously, there's still much more to do and it will take time.

Canadians can be proud, however, that in a short period, the landscape of science and research has forever been altered. We want Canada to be an international research leader, continuing to make discoveries that positively impact the lives of Canadians, the environment, our communities and our economy.

I'm sure that all committee members share this goal.

Mr. Chair, I'd like to finish by saying thank you to all the members of this committee for the work they have done over these last three and a half years.

I'd be pleased to answer any questions you may have.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

Thank you, Minister, for your opening remarks.

We'll go right into questions. We're going to start off with Mr. Longfield.

You have seven minutes.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thanks, Minister Duncan, for being here.

Thanks also for visiting the University of Guelph as many times as you have over the last four years.

I was meeting with one of our younger scientists, in fact, one who is being repatriated to Canada thanks to what we're doing by investing in science. In fact, five people on this team have come back to Canada as part of the brain gain. Jibran Khokhar is a neuropsychopharmacologist. He's working on addictions and mental health, studying the effects in mice.

His concern has to do with early stage investment and what we're doing for young scientists doing higher risk science versus the traditional larger investments in science.

Could you comment on the work of the Canada research coordinating committee or any other way that we're doing investment in younger stage scientists?

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Thank you, Lloyd, for being such a strong champion of research.

When I came into this role, I pulled the data. What I found is that, in one of our granting councils, our researchers weren't getting their first grant until age 43. You simply cannot build a research career when you're getting that first grant at 43. I've made a real focus on early-career researchers because if we don't, where will our country be in 10 to 15 years?

You talked about the Canada research coordinating committee. We've developed a new research fund. It's called the new frontiers in research fund. It is focused on international, interdisciplinary, fast-paced, high-risk, high-reward research. It's $275 million and will double over the next five years, and then we'll be adding $65 million a year to it. It will be the largest pod of funds available to researchers. The first stream, the exploration stream, we made available only to early-career researchers. We've announced the award winners; $38 million went to 157 researchers.

As I went across the country 25 years ago when I was teaching, people asked if I had a research career or a child. I didn't expect to hear that as I went across the country. That's why, as another action for early-career researchers, we are investing in extending parental leave from six months to 12 months. You shouldn't have to choose between having a research career and a baby. You should be able to have both, and we need to make it easier to do that.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

I'll pass that on to Jibran. All the young researchers are connected—it's not a surprise—and they're all looking for these new avenues.

I also met with Dr. Beth Parker, who is the Canada research chair for groundwater. She's doing some work on groundwater, on geothermal, and what that could do in terms of climate change mitigation; working on urban buildings that could get heating and cooling from geothermal. She's a water research scientist.

You mentioned in your presentation the connections with Environment and Climate Change Canada. Could you expand a little bit on how Dr. Parker could connect with the programs around environment and climate change for retrofitting buildings, as an example?

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Lloyd, please pass along, first of all, my best wishes to Jibran. I know his work.

If you have specific questions, they should absolutely go to Environment Canada.

One of the things I've brought in, though, is that we want.... Traditionally, academic science as the outside research community and government science have not worked together. There is some crossover and there are some research institutes on academic campuses, but we need to do a better job of doing this.

I've been very focused on government science. On day two of our government, we unmuzzled our scientists. It's one thing to say and it's another thing to create a communications policy to remind colleagues and other ministers that we want our scientists speaking freely and we want them out collaborating. We're also investing $2.8 billion in government science infrastructure to cut new labs. Many of our labs are 25 years of age. With these new labs we're not going to build them the same old way where you have one discipline, a weather lab, for example. We're going to bring environment and fisheries labs together. We're also going to have increased collaboration with researchers, universities, colleges and industry.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Along that line, I was in the Arctic last summer at the PEARL research station. Environment Canada has a weather station there, and there are about seven universities doing atmospheric research looking at climate change. In our budget we had $21.8 million for PEARL. I believe most of that came through Environment and Climate Change Canada, but we still have to do the science there.

Can you comment on the connection between our investments? I know Environment and Climate Change Canada isn't your file, but how do we keep that research centre going, doing important work that it's doing?

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Thanks, Lloyd.

I know you did visit PEARL, the Polar Environment Atmospheric Research Laboratory. It's our most northerly lab in Canada. It studies atmosphere and the links between atmosphere and ocean biosphere. We believe it's an important lab. It was going to be shuttered under the previous government. That is why our government has committed to keeping PEARL open. Environment Canada will be keeping PEARL open.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

But they'll have to keep reapplying to NSERC in order to do the science. Is that what I'm understanding?

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

It's important that the researchers apply for research funding just as any of our researchers across the country do. They can apply to NSERC. They can look at other funds. We're of course always happy to put our officials in touch to see what funding might be available.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

I'll pass that on to Pierre Fogal, who comes from Guelph and runs that research lab.

Thank you very much, Minister.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

Thank you very much.

We're going to Mr. Chong.

You have seven minutes.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister, for appearing and providing us testimony on the estimates.

I first want to correct the record that there's been some huge sea change in levels of higher education funding in Canada. While I acknowledge that the current government has somewhat increased funding for the four granting councils, if you look at the OECD's measures on higher education expenditures on research and development, they actually haven't changed much in the last 20 years. In 2005 it was 0.67% of GDP. In 2012 it was 0.7%. In 2013 it was 0.67%. In 2014, it was 0.65%. In 2015, it was 0.67%. In 2016, it was 0.68%. In 2017, the most recent year for which OECD has figures available, it was 0.65%. It's not as if there's been a massive sea change in levels of funding for higher education expenditures in this country. I think that's important to note on the record.

As far as being a world leader on higher education expenditures on research and development goes, while we place in the top 10, we're certainly not a world leader. We are behind countries like Austria, Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden, which spend considerably more than we do on higher education research and development. In fact, in the United States, the National Institutes of Health alone spend the equivalent of $49 billion Canadian a year on research, each and every year. Even on a pro rata basis, that dwarfs the budgets of the four granting councils in this country.

My question for you is quite simple. The Naylor report recommended increases to funding. The current government has spent considerably more than it had projected when it took office some four years ago. Why hasn't the government increased funding levels for the four granting councils to the levels recommended in the Naylor report?

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

I'd like to thank my honourable colleague. He and I have worked together a very long time.

I, too, would like to correct the record. The data that you presented, the latest data, as you pointed out, was 2017, but 2018 was the historic investment in research, $6.8 billion in research, the largest investment in Canadian history, a 25% increase to our granting councils.

My goal was to put our researchers at the centre of everything we do to make sure they had the funding to do their research, that they have the labs and tools necessary to do their research and that they have the digital tools. That meant a 25% increase to our granting councils. It meant a $762-million investment in CFI and then the promise of predictable, sustainable, long-term funding of $462 million annually. Finally, after 20 years, there would be stable funding for CFI and, because so much of research today is big data, the digital research tools, there's an investment of $573 million.

When I go to a G7 meeting, what I hear from my G7 colleagues is that Canada is, and I quote, “a beacon for science and research”, and they are looking forward to collaborating, and because of that new frontiers in research funds, that $275-million fund that will double over the next few years, our researchers are going to have access to international money to be able to collaborate with Europe and the United States, and that really has not existed.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

To be fair, the funding levels have increased, but the 2018 figures will not be much off from the 2017 figures.

What I hear from researchers is that they feel that they are at a competitive disadvantage when competing against the funds available to American researchers through the National Institutes of Health, for example.

I think that, while funding levels have increased, they still have not increased to the levels that the Naylor report recommended, and that's clear.

The other question I had—

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

I will respond to that. I was very pleased to commission the fundamental science review of which Dr. David Naylor was the chair. It was a blue ribbon panel. We had former UBC president Dr. Martha Piper. We had Nobel Prize winner Dr. Art McDonald. We had the chief scientist of Quebec, Dr. Rémi Quirion. It was the second consultation we had done. They listened to 1,500 researchers. It is a really important report. The first—

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

I agree, but the funding levels—

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

I do want to respond.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

I don't have a lot of time. I'd like to move on to my next question.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

I do want to respond to you.

It was the first review of federal funding in 40 years. We took that report very seriously, and it led to the $6.8-billion budget, the largest in Canadian history. My last sentence—

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

On a nominal basis.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Under the previous government, your government also asked Dr. David Naylor to do a report. There was to be a press conference on a Friday and that report was buried.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Moving on to my next question, I have a question about the chief science adviser, Minister. The position of chief science adviser was created with a lot of fanfare but, frankly, a lot of people have been wondering why she wasn't given a sufficient mandate to do her job. A lot of people have been watching her try to fulfill her role to the best of her abilities but without any support from the government.

One of the questions that has been asked is: Why hasn't she been appointed to head up the coordinating council rather than the presidency, the chairing of that council, to rotate the presidents of the various granting councils?

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

First of all, let me say that we decided to bring back the position of the chief science adviser, a position that was abolished by your government. We appointed Dr. Mona Nemer, an internationally renowned cardiologist with many awards. Your party's former INDU critic said it was an excellent choice, and we agree.