Industry Committee on Aug. 14th, 2020

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

Good afternoon, everyone. I now call this meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number 30 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology. Pursuant to the order of reference of Saturday, April 11, the committee is meeting for the purpose of receiving evidence concerning matters related to the government's response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Today's meeting is taking place by video conference, and the proceedings will be made available via the House of Commons website.

I'd like to remind the members and the witnesses to please wait before speaking until I recognize them by name. When you are ready to speak, please unmute your microphone, and then return to mute when you are finished speaking. When speaking, please speak slowly and clearly and hold the microphone for your earbuds close to your mouth, if you are using earbuds, so that the translators can do their work. It is also very important that you make sure that your channel is on the appropriate language, the language in which you are speaking. Therefore, if you are speaking English, please make sure it is on English. If you are speaking French, please make sure it is on French.

As is my normal practice, I will hold up a yellow card when you have 30 seconds left in your intervention, and I will hold up a red card when your time for questions has expired.

I would now like to welcome our witnesses.

We have with us Magda Fusaro, rector of the Université du Québec à Montréal, and Denis Martel, rector of the Université du Québec en Abitibi-Témiscamingue.

From the University of Calgary, we have president and vice-chancellor Ed McCauley. From the University of Toronto, we have Matt Ratto, associate professor and Bell University Labs chair in human-computer interaction. From Universities Canada, we have Mr. Philip Landon, vice-president and chief operating officer.

Each witness will present for five minutes, followed by our rounds of questions.

We will start with Professor Ed McCauley, president and vice-chancellor of the University of Calgary.

You have the floor for five minutes.

[Dr. Ed McCauley, President and Vice-Chancellor, University of Calgary]

Thank you.

I'd like to thank the committee for the opportunity to appear before you today.

All aspects of our societies have been impacted by COVID-19. Post-secondary institutions across the country responded rapidly to ensure the success of students. At the University of Calgary, we moved 30,000 students to remote learning, brought home our students and scholars studying abroad, ensured that our domestic and international students were safe, and moved over 5,000 faculty and staff to remote work where possible. This was done in a matter of days. We implemented a decade of innovation in a few weeks.

At the same time, as a great research university, our faculty and students were engaged in national and international research programs to understand COVID-19 and reduce its impact on our health and our societies. We worked closely with all levels of government to inform public health policy. Our spin-out companies rapidly pivoted to supply much-needed products to fight the transmission of COVID-19. Our students, themselves impacted by the pandemic, stepped up to support our community.

I'm extremely proud of how our students rose to the challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic. Not only did they adapt, but they also gave up their time to help those in need.

They supported grocery delivery for those who couldn't get out. They volunteered to conduct contact tracing for the provincial health care system, and over 200 pre-service teachers provided free individualized online tutoring for primary and secondary students. Our staff rallied to produce supports for mental health, up-to-the-moment information and advice on how to deal with the day-to-day impacts of the “new normal”. I'm very proud of how we helped and what we accomplished.

But now is the time to look beyond the immediate COVID-19 emergency and ask how we can support this generation of students and scholars and ensure Canada's future. COVID-19 has shown the crucial roles that universities play to support Canadians, which is why I'm pushing as hard as I can to ensure that we learn from this year's “decade of innovation”.

This fall, we are adopting a hybrid model of delivery. Within public health guidelines, we want to maximize in-person interactions. They are a key part of our student experience and a key component of knowledge creation and innovation. The electricity, the lifelong friendships formed and the excitement of starting a new journey are not easily replicated online.

Canada needs the knowledge our universities create. The world will not be standing still, and our prosperity depends on it.

Our Canadian government can help to ensure the success of students and scholars in the coming months through investments. Investing in work-integrated learning and upskilling is an investment in Canadian productivity. There is also investing in research. Previous investments have paid huge dividends during COVID-19. Continuing this investment will grow and diversify the Canadian economy. Finally, investing in technology platforms will unlock the power of the digital world for delivering advanced education and lead to new discoveries.

These are just three examples of many where the return on investment to Canada could be huge. Such investments will ensure that Canada is equipped to deal with the next major global calamity, because we will have the talent, the creativity and the ability to create new knowledge.

As I wrap up my opening comments, I want to emphasize that the pivots over the last few months have been expensive, but we view these expenditures as vital for our students' success and the prosperity that they will bring to the future of Canada. In a world with such significant uncertainty, investment in post-secondary institutions is both an investment in our future and an investment in preparing for the next unknown.

I'm happy to take any questions you may have.

Should you wish to ask me questions in French, I hope you don't mind, but I will answer in English.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

Thank you very much, Professor McCauley.

We'll now go to Professor Ratto.

You have the floor for five minutes.

[Prof. Matt Ratto, Associate Professor and Bell University Labs Chair in Human-Computer Interaction, University of Toronto, As an Individual]

Thank you very much.

Thanks for the invitation to testify.

I've been going through the transcripts of recent witnesses to this committee, and I was struck by comments by Dr. McDonald, on June 1 of this year, about the development of an emergency ventilator by an international team of scientists and engineers.

My goal today is to highlight those kinds of efforts and tell you a little bit more about research that's ongoing, not just by research scientists and Nobel Prize winners, but also by groups including front-line doctors, local hobbyists, students and even indigenous groups like the Nishnawbe Aski Nation in northern Ontario, who have been leveraging local know-how, digital fabrication and new technologies to produce local solutions to COVID.

In the last few months, millions of face shields have been printed and laser-cut. There are hundreds of different, but often related, ventilator projects, alternative face masks and respiratory technologies, a real groundswell of activity centred on protecting and serving the needs of front-line health care workers and COVID patients.

You probably have heard these sorts of feel-good stories in the media, and they really do highlight the resiliency and capacity of Canadians. But I think they're more than that. They also signal new capacities for innovation and technology development that sit outside the typical mechanisms and provide key capabilities to quickly problem-solve and respond when industrial systems and infrastructures break down as we recently experienced.

I'll give you a little background on me. I'm a professor at U of T, and when COVID hit, I turned my attention to seeing what we might do about it. I got a little bit of money from the University of Toronto to set up what we ended up calling the Toronto emergency device accelerator and brought together a group of faculty, students and staff to work on critical issues.

Since then, we've produced about 10,000 face shields and distributed them to hospitals and long-term care facilities, supported the development of a number of hospital-centred projects and provided essential equipment to assist in the development of a Canadian N95 mask test facility run out of the Dalla Lana School of Public Health.

But really what we did is we supported what has been called community-based innovations focused on supporting communities in need. For example, the face shield project that we built was really part of an open innovation process through which we built on the solutions of others and provided our own solution to others as well using open licensing to support widespread dissemination and quick improvements rather than using patents or other IP mechanisms.

We could, of course, do this because we were leveraging the public infrastructure of the university and funding from this institution with the goal of having a direct and immediate impact rather than generating a financial outcome.

These shields and all the others created by all the other groups served a very important role in the initial months of the crisis, providing safety and protection until the regular private enterprise solutions could spool up. Now that they have, the face shields that we made are not really competitive, costing more to make and being limited by our use of university infrastructure, which has now been returned back to its main role of research and teaching.

These are a feel-good story, but they serve to illustrate my main take-away. Within the university we typically divide innovation up in the following way: as contributions to human knowledge that we publicly share through academic publishing, and then these other types of contributions that typically require patent protections and are focused on economic value.

But I think there's a third way, which, I believe, the above story highlights. It's about innovations that are generated through deep and continuous collaborations with communities in need, and that require open licensing and ongoing support to have impact. Here, I really want to highlight the role that Canadian universities can play, given their centralization of expertise and knowledge, and their focus on the public good.

I'll just end with a couple of quick recommendations. I want to encourage this committee to keep this kind of innovation in mind as they deliberate on related issues such as the role of the new college of patent agents and trademark agents.

I also want to encourage the continued funding of research grants and other forms of funding that encourage universities and researchers to set up hubs that focus not just on the creation of new private companies, but also on new organizational forms to support innovations of the kinds I described above.

These innovations really helped us solve a problem in this PPE emergency, and I believe these offer us a model for continuing strategic and critical capacity.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

Thank you very much.

We'll now go to Professor Landon.

You have the floor for five minutes.

[Philip Landon, Vice-President and Chief Operating Officer, Universities Canada]

Thank you very much.

Thanks for the invitation, and thanks for conducting this study and for the extraordinary work that all parliamentarians are doing during this very challenging time.

Universities Canada represents Canada's 95 universities nationally. Taken as a whole, our universities are a $38-billion enterprise and are significant drivers of economic prosperity. They provide employment for over 300,000 people, and they are anchor institutions in the communities and often the largest employer in the communities, all of this while more than half of their revenues derive from non-governmental sources.

Canada’s universities are an integral part of the team Canada approach to the COVID-19 pandemic, from mitigating the risk to finding a cure and accelerating Canada’s economy into recovery. We appreciate the challenge now facing the government, and all of us—that of restarting the Canadian economy while continuing the health measures necessary to keep COVID-19 at bay.

We have also greatly appreciated the steps the government has taken to date, including the $9 billion in support measures announced for students, flexible rules for applicants to the post-graduation work permit program and funding to restart on-campus laboratories.

While these measures are essential to helping young people and universities through the pandemic, I want to highlight three key areas today. The first is around international students; the second is around infrastructure; and the third is around research and innovation that will be vital to supporting Canada through the pandemic and beyond.

International students are part of the rich and diverse fabric of institutions and their communities. They're also one of the biggest sources of revenue for Canadian universities and their communities. They contribute $22 billion to the Canadian economy, more than softwood, more than wheat and more than auto parts. This includes $6 billion in tuition revenue. With the closed borders and with the pandemic, we can anticipate significantly lower international student enrolment this fall. This loss will directly impact all students and the ability of universities to meet the needs of Canadian students. We've been working very closely with federal officials to develop supports for international students to study either online or in person, and we continue to emphasize the need to ensure that international students can continue their studies, stabilize university operations and contribute to economic recovery. We're very keen to send a strong signal to the international community that Canada is open to international students.

I should also highlight the need for federal assistance should institutions see a significant loss in revenue as a result of the drop. A direct federal transfer will help universities bridge their operations until borders are open. Furthermore, federal investments in regaining Canada's market share in key source markets and international students, along with diversifying source markets, will be important for stabilization and recovery of the sector.

Around infrastructure, and looking forward to our recovery from COVID, Canada's universities can be partners in accelerating our economic rebound.

Canadian universities have $7 billion in shovel-ready infrastructure projects, the majority of them focused on building green, digitally enabled and accessible campuses that will reduce the country's carbon emissions.

Investments in digital infrastructure in particular will rapidly expand access to post-secondary education, upskilling and re-skilling even as the country reopens. These investments will also ensure that students can attend regardless of disability, physical distancing, or work or family requirements.

Then finally around research and innovation, a huge opportunity for economic recovery is investing in our universities in research and innovation. The time is right now to harness the co-operation of the last five months to build a comprehensive idea-to-innovation strategy. Such a strategy would leverage existing investments in research into concrete solutions for emerging national and local challenges in a post-pandemic Canada. It would include support for institutional knowledge mobilization strategies and regional innovation adoption hubs to connect university research with local needs across the country.

We appreciate the work of all the members of this committee to help Canada recover from COVID-19. Thank you very much for having us here today.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

Thank you very much.

I will now turn the floor over to the representatives of the Université du Québec system.

You have five minutes. Please go ahead.

[Denis Martel, Rector, Université du Québec en Abitibi-Témiscamingue, Réseau de l'Université du Québec]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Members of the committee, thank you for inviting us to contribute to your work in such an extraordinary way. We are here on behalf of the Université du Québec, or UQ, system. I'd like to give you a brief overview of this unique university model in Canada.

In academia, the UQ system is a tour de force, and so is its contribution to Quebec and Canada. Ten separate and independent university institutions spread across urban and rural Quebec offer more than 1,300 undergraduate and graduate programs. Over 100,000 students enrol each year. We believe access to higher education is a core value. That belief governs our approach to students with unique needs, ranging from first-generation students, indigenous youth and student parents to those already in the workforce and, of course, graduates straight out of CEGEP. They are all part of our student population.

In a half-century, we have handed out more than 750,000 degrees in an effort to improve quality of life for those who live in the areas we serve, as well as for a number of populations in Canadian society. With 2,700 active professors in the knowledge field, we have developed niches of excellence all over, in each institution, and we have found solutions to big challenges facing modern society, as well as current challenges related to COVID-19.

Collectively, the system is first in the country when it comes to research volume. Researchers build projects rooted in the communities they serve. They work with a wide range of partners, from community groups, business people and companies to cultural communities, health agencies and international organizations. Naturally, they also work in partnership with nearly every university in Canada. Our technological, scientific and social breakthroughs and innovations contribute to the economic growth of both Quebec and Canada, as well as the well-being of all citizens.

My colleague, Ms. Fusaro, will now take over.

[Magda Fusaro, Rector, Université du Québec à Montréal, Réseau de l'Université du Québec]

Thank you.

I'm going to touch on the examples my colleague just mentioned to highlight the powerful impact the system has through its community-based research across the province. I will also illustrate how those institutions can serve as incredible levers for invention and innovation. Before I go on, I truly want to commend the Government of Canada for its recent efforts. It's worth mentioning how quickly it deployed programs and how much financial support it provided. Nevertheless, as you will have noticed in our brief, we condemn the fact that a handful of universities in Canada receive the bulk of research dollars. That is essentially the point we'd like to make today.

Canada has a hundred or so universities across its vast territory. My colleague talked about diversity. How is it, then, that research funding is concentrated solely—or rather, mainly—in the university collective known as U15 or universities with faculties of medicine? We can have a full discussion on the subject afterwards, I have no doubt. It's unfortunate because, today, universities are so diverse that a phenomenon like COVID-19 involves not just epidemiology, but also society, the environment, the economy, social factors and gerontology. The impact on senior centres is proof of that. The examples go on and on and on.

Even though our university system does not include a faculty of medicine, we have more than 800 researchers—notably, across all disciplines—collaborating on projects as we speak. If you look at our brief, in boxes 2 and 3, you'll find a list of all the initiatives and studies our researchers are carrying out. You'll see that it's possible not to have a faculty of medicine, but to have, as we do at the Université du Québec à Montréal, a P3 laboratory, a fairly sophisticated epidemiology laboratory. Canada is privileged in that it can count on an amazing academic system. Half of all students enrolled are trained in universities that, combined, receive barely a quarter of research investment. I'm going to run out of time, so I won't go over our three main recommendations. I have no doubt we'll have a chance to talk about them.

I'll conclude on this note. A different funding allocation scheme would help the UQ system achieve its objectives: contribute to pandemic response—because there will indeed be others—strengthen the resilience of populations and organizations and, above all, support a green economic recovery.

We would be pleased to answer any questions you have.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

Thank you very much.

We will now move to our rounds of questions.

Our first round is for six minutes. I turn the floor over to MP Rempel Garner.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I have talked to members of all parties about this, so I'll be starting my remarks with a quick notice of motion. Today CBC News reported that Canada's Competition Bureau is investigating Amazon's online practices in Canada with a focus on potential abuse of dominance as it relates to the potential treatment of their independent sellers. I'm providing the following notice of motion:

That, pursuant to standing order 108(2), the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology invite representatives from the Competition Bureau as well as Amazon.ca, to appear regarding reports of anti-competitive behaviour on the part of Amazon.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Madam Chair, I would ask if we could maybe quickly deal with this through unanimous consent. I have a small amendment but I think we could get this motion passed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

Mr. Masse, unfortunately we don't have the 48 hours' notice. Madam Rempel Garner is giving notice of the motion. It's not admissible for debate at this time.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

I think though that you can ask for unanimous consent to deal with the motion, and if we're granted that, then we can proceed quickly to that. I could be wrong, but I'm fairly certain that was the case for procedure unless it's different this time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

It does require unanimous consent, but I can open the floor if there are any members who would like to consider or not consider this. There is now a request to deviate from the motion that was passed in February by this committee to provide 48 hours' notice. I appreciate that Madam Rempel Garner has given us the notice of motion. I'm just going to open the floor, and if there are any members of Parliament who would like to put forth that we maintain the 48 hours' notice, I would ask them to let me know immediately.

Madam Lambropoulos.

[Emmanuella Lambropoulos, Liberal, Saint-Laurent, QC]

I just want to say I think we should keep it at 48 hours, mainly because we have our witnesses here today who are here to provide testimony, and I don't think it would be right for us to move ahead with this and take time away from them.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

Okay, so with that, unfortunately, we do not have unanimous consent, Mr. Masse.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

We can't request a vote for that? This is time-sensitive and I'm kind of perplexed as to why we would show inflexibility, especially given the circumstances we have and what's presented to Canadians. I just hope, perhaps, we can rethink that. I would be willing to give up some of my time to deal with it. It's that critical.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

Mr. Masse, there is no unanimous consent. There is a member who just mentioned that she would like to maintain the 48 hours, so unfortunately we do not have unanimous consent.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

Thank you.

With that, I will start the clock for you, Madam Rempel Garner for your six minutes.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'm going to direct most of my questions to Dr. McCauley.

It's nice to see you. I might call you Ed, and I apologize.

I'm just going to start by recognizing that our community in Calgary has potentially experienced the pandemic in a different way, and experienced an economic shift in a different way, because we were in a pretty bad spot going into the pandemic earlier this year in terms of unemployment numbers and economic downturn. We'd seen a lot of policy changes that were detrimental to the energy sector.

I was just wondering if you could, very briefly because I only have five or six minutes, outline almost in bullet point format some of the challenges that the university has experienced, your asks to both the provincial and federal governments to rectify those challenges, and any observations about how the University of Calgary has been addressing some of the needs of the broader community during this time of crisis. I know that you guys play a really important part in that, but I think, for the record, for committee purposes, if you could do that very succinctly, it would be very helpful for members to hear about that.

[Dr. Ed McCauley]

Thank you.

Yes, undoubtedly COVID-19 and the impacts on industry throughout the world in all the different sectors that are prominent in Calgary, whether it be agriculture, energy, transportation and logistics or finance, combined to really create a very major storm.

What the University of Calgary tried to do right from square one was to maintain business continuity as much as possible. That business continuity included making sure that we were capable of conducting research to help provide solutions for the COVID-19 issue in particular, but also to support our community.

I mentioned that our students stepped up amazingly. They volunteered and very quickly filled out the contact tracing. Our Cumming School of Medicine rapidly upskilled approximately 400 physicians locally to support Alberta during the pandemic.

At the same time, we were providing evidence-based guidance and suggestions to the city, the provincial government and the federal government in terms of how we could deal with the public health issues associated with COVID-19.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Ed, I'm sorry to interrupt you. The time goes so quickly. You have about two minutes. What do you need? What are you asking for? Put it on the record.

[Dr. Ed McCauley]

Support for the international students and clarity in terms of admission for students, I think, are really important. We hope to host around 4,500 international students this year at the University of Calgary.

The research funding continuity is very important. I've been talking to my assistant professors, and their programs have been dramatically impacted, so we really appreciate the business continuity funding from the tri-council, which is important.

Once again, having the capacity to support upskilling and re-skilling to support the Calgary community would be very beneficial at this time.

As I mentioned earlier, technology development and platform development for advanced education and for research would be very generous and beneficial.