International Trade Committee on Nov. 26th, 2013

[Dr. Martha Crago]

Right, that's before Canada.

It's situated in what I think is a very vibrant gateway community to the Atlantic rim.

I'm leaving tonight for Berlin, and on the PowerPoint that I was preparing somebody had written “northwest Atlantic”. He was talking from the German perspective about our northeast Atlantic. We share this ocean.

Dalhousie is Canada's largest, most research-intensive U15 university east of Quebec and west of England. As such, we're enthusiastic partners with Europe and European universities. I want to describe some of the ways this partnership plays out with regard to a Canada-Europe trade agreement.

Dalhousie is one of Canada's leading ocean science universities. We have the largest collection of Ph.D. scientists who do ocean science of any university in Canada. Add to this the 350 Ph.D. scientists who work on ocean-related matters in the federal labs in Halifax and we have a very robust ocean science community serving the government and industry, and working closely with both. In fact, if you look at our ocean-related industries, we have the largest per capita number of ocean-related industries of any city in North America. Our scientists at Dalhousie work very closely with those industries, so we have a true government-industry-university cluster here in this area.

We very much welcomed the marine research alliance that was signed in Galway, Ireland, this May. We see it as a manifestation of the kind of ties that a Canada-Europe trade agreement is bringing in its wake. This alliance between the EU, Canada, and the U.S. is a brilliant vehicle to increase the transatlantic and Arctic research that's desperately needed at a time when science is unlocking the potential of ocean resources. It is also needed to mitigate any risks associated with the extraction of these resources and with changes in climate.

The North Atlantic Ocean, which is shared between Europe and Canada, is a key region for what's been referred to as the “blue economy”, a many-billion-dollar economy. Our scientists are key players in this economic and innovation system, particularly in regard to the North Atlantic.

Our ocean researchers work hand in hand with ocean industries and federal scientists in very large national and international networks, such as the ocean tracking network funded by CFI and NSERC for $45 million, with approximately $128 million of international money included in it. There is also the Marine Environment Observation Prediction and Response Network of centres of excellence. In addition, we have the Halifax Marine Research Institute, a consortium of maritime universities and industries.

Through these networks we have formal ocean research agreements that were witnessed at the highest level of government with France's Pôle Maritime, which is an ensemble of 23 research universities and research centres in Brittany. It is the heart of the maritime-government-industry-university cluster in France. It cooperates with three ocean-related Helmholtz Institutes located in Germany. We were pleased to host German Chancellor Angela Merkel in the summer of 2012, when we signed an agreement with these three Helmholtz Institutes. It is entitled “Change, Risk, Resources: a Transatlantic Arctic Approach”.

We anticipate that the research ties with Europe will strengthen with this trade agreement, and any governmental initiatives that promote this are most welcome. We've noted that the EU has lined up substantial portions of their research funding in Horizon 2020, with ocean research aligned with the agreement that was signed in Galway.

We encourage the Canadian government, through the Canada Foundation for Innovation and things like the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, to do the same: line up funding that can be used in strong partnerships for work that follows along the lines of the Galway agreement.

Joint collaborative research between European and Canadian scientists will greatly enhance the development of transatlantic approaches to resources and to risk issues that will impact upon this trade agreement, not the least of which are ocean transportation, ocean security, ocean mineral, hydrocarbon and fish resources, and ocean science and technology industry.

Our scientists who do work with industry and have spun off companies from Dalhousie encouraged me to note a particular difficulty they have with the Europeans through the lack of the harmonization of the CE mark with the Canadian Standards Association's mark and with the United States' Underwriters Laboratories mark. The requirement for the CE mark on the sale of equipment, particularly on underwater sensors that are very key to a lot of the very kinds of important research I've mentioned, is.... In fact. that CE mark is blocked because they don't want it to interfere with radio frequencies, but those frequencies don't penetrate into the water. So the blocking of these particular sensors doesn't make a lot of sense.

At any rate, it's impeding the successful use of science and technology that results from the collaboration of scientists with industries on both sides of our shared ocean. Obtaining the CE mark can increase the price of a single piece of equipment by $10,000 to $20,000, which makes the Canadian equipment not competitive in the European context.

This kind of equipment, which is produced in large numbers in Nova Scotia through our ocean science and technology companies, is used for science, and in many ways is encouraged through science. So we encourage the Canadian government to seek sensible harmonization on the various standards that pertain to crucial scientific equipment.

The other problem with filing for patents in Europe is another impediment: patents have to be filed for each country and in each language. There's a cost to each of those filings, so when dealing with Europe as a set of nations, this makes patenting extremely expensive.

As a second point, I also want to mention to you that we have a European Union Centre of Excellence. This is funded by European Union funds. It was established in 2006. It continues to receive support through an agreement between the EU and Dalhousie. It's currently one of three centres across Canada receiving such support.

The scholars and scientists working at this centre utilize cutting-edge research. They use it to inform policy, government stakeholders, the general public, and members of the academic community on a range of topics pertaining to EU-Canada relations, comparative EU-Canada public policies, and EU policies more generally.

This a great resource to you. We're happy to have you contact any of our scholars at this centre. One of the targeted areas in the program, actually one of the theme areas, is EU-Canada trade and economic relations, so we have real scholarly excellence in that area.

The research undertaken under that theme helps to highlight relevant lessons that partners on both sides of the Atlantic can learn from each other. Their results feed into a range of outreach activities, from government policy to the private sector.

Finally, we are happy to receive, at this point, about 144 students from Europe. This number increases annually. The latest increase was by 8%. We hope it will continue to increase at that level.

One of our most successful graduate programs is a partner program between Dalhousie and Germany. It's sponsored by NSERC on this side of the ocean and by the Helmholtz Association on that side of the ocean. It involves about 25 Ph.D. students from each country. It has about $5 million worth of funding to bring these students together and to place the German students in industry companies in Halifax, in ocean science industries, and to place the Canadian students into the same industries and government labs and university labs in Germany. They exchange back and forth. They get together twice a year, which they've just done in Halifax over the past month.

This kind of educational initiative will build strong ties that will be there for next-generation scientists.

We understand that public education is exempt in the trade agreement, and we applaud that. We did not find any indication in early discussions on the agreement that it would provide access to university education at domestic rather than international fees in either direction. I think this is important, because the universities on the two sides of this shared ocean are funded in very different ways. We know that international students require a different level of academic and student services, and our fees are set according to that and to our funding mechanisms.

The final point about education that I'd like to make is the recognition of professional credentials for the graduates from our professional programs—and Dalhousie has a wide range of professional programs. It will be very important for the free flow of highly qualified individuals between our nations to harmonize that professional accreditation, so that a physiotherapist trained here can work in England and one trained in France can work here. In that way, we will all benefit.

I just want to conclude by saying that we strongly endorse the potential of this trade agreement to strengthen educational scientific research and innovation ties between our two countries, and we hope, as a university, that will contribute significantly to that partnership.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Thank you very much.

We'll now look forward to Dr. Dodds' comments.

[Dr. J. Colin Dodds, President and Vice-Chancellor, Saint Mary's University]

Thank you very much, committee members. Meeting here before you this afternoon brings back memories of appearing before this committee at the time of the free trade agreement. So it's nice to be back to see what progress has been made over the years.

I do not see this, as my colleague from Dalhousie sees it, just as a trade deal in the narrow context. I looked at The Chronicle-Herald this morning and it said trade pacts. I see it as Martha does—very much in a broader context. Given that it is called a comprehensive economic trade agreement, I see it as a natural step with respect to the EU, because over the years, so many foundations have been built for this, and my colleague has explained some of them in great detail.

What I would like to do this afternoon is not just specifically focus on Saint Mary's, although we have many linkages, particularly sister institutions where we link formally, and students. I'd rather look at some broader issues of the trade pact that I'm interested in. Again, given that I did appear before the committee back in the eighties and have followed the NAFTA agreement in the nineties, I want to come back to some of the context—back in the nineties some of us had visions of a trans-Atlantic trade partnership. It's nice, then, to see that here we are, later on, building on that.

Of course, some of us also had dreams, following NAFTA, of a North-South America hemispheric trade agreement. We still have work to do on that. Various governments over the years have built bilateral trade deals, so you can sort of start to see a process of how that's emerging.

Of course, Canada has been looking at a trade agreement with India, and most recently we have the Trans-Pacific Partnership. I'm sure you've had lots of presentations that have rehearsed the various arguments back and forth with respect to these kinds of arrangements. I really don't want to develop on that.

I want to build on the theme that my colleague has talked about, which is knowledge collaboration, particularly in the area of science and technology, which she's addressed, but also in the issue of management. This knowledge collaboration would flow and build on what we've already achieved by greater cooperation between the EU and Canada, because as we know, the world we're living in is far more transnational, dynamic, and increasingly competitive.

I do want to remind the committee, which I know you know, that Canada places 14th in the global competitiveness index. At one point we were tenth, in 2010-11, then 12th, in 2011-12, and it's not so long ago that we were eighth.

If we take higher education, I would argue it is now the global currency, enough for a key driver for what we want to achieve from this comprehensive agreement. If I look at the breakdown of the global competitive index, what I see is that in higher education, on quality we rank sixth. In other words, we're up there. In the quality of math and science, we rank 14th; in quality of management schools, we rank fifth. So we've got a lot of things going into this that help us.

If I think back to when I was a member of the advisory panel to Minister Fast on international education, one of the aspects that we dealt with there was in fact the advantage we have of quality and quality education.

I certainly see the collaboration of higher education institutions between Canada and the EU as a positive-sum game, as I also see the collaboration of firms. If I go back and look at some of the data that I'm aware of with respect to the EU and with respect to some of the structural changes that are occurring, and if I look at what the EU sees as its most innovative sectors and what it calls the European knowledge society, I see that these include life sciences and biotechnology, information society, energy and the environment, and sustainable growth.

Within that, their focus has been to support small and medium-sized enterprises, which we know are critical for innovation and job creation. They've also been involved in looking at the least developed areas within the EU, and also the upgrading of human capital. We all know the issues out there with respect to skills and the skills that Canada needs in the future. So if I look at those areas of interest within Europe, I think they match very well the interest within Canada.

If I look further on this for higher education, what is apparent is that given the scope, complexity, and cost of dealing with many of these scientific issues in their various forms, collaboration is the natural way to move forward, as I described it as a positive-sum game.

Joint research centres, which Martha Crago has just talked about, between Dalhousie and its partners, the exchange of scholars and students, are there but could be developed further—sharing information. If I go back and look at some of the indices that are out there with respect to internationally co-authored papers, and if I look at the EU, they're increasing dramatically; if I look at the United States, they're increasing dramatically. I saw some recent data for Italy, for example; again, for internationally co-authored papers, the growth is quite significant. Again, there is a lot of potential for our scientists in our faculty to be involved in this.

If I asked the question, what assets and activities could Canadian universities—and of course we have a wealth of them in Atlantic Canada—build on to contribute to the international trade priority, specifically in the case of the EU, they would be: international students, coming back to the Chakma report that I mentioned I was part of the panel for; international faculty; international research and collaboration; partnerships and networks; and the global quality of the Canadian educational experience, as validated by the World Economic Forum in terms of the global competitiveness index. If I then think with respect to the knowledge and skills that our public and private sectors would bring to this, we have a wealth of cultures, a wealth of languages, history, societal—you name it, it's all there. Communication, decision-making, dispute resolution—we have it all in Canada.

If I then drill down further and say, what role could Canadian universities help play, both the public and private sectors, in accessing these knowledge and skills, then let me focus, first of all, on the brand of Canadian universities, which is very, very strong, to attract more international students. Expand the potential for student co-op and internship programs, linking in with the private sector, with our multinationals and firms that are operating in Europe. Expand the funding for the integration of university graduates into private sector research positions—so that goes beyond just the internship programs—with the idea, of course, as that report that we gave to Minister Fast talks about, of increasing the mobility of Canadian students. And certainly from the point of view of Atlantic Canada, Europe is really closer than the west coast of Canada, so there is a tremendous geographic advantage that we would have. There is potential to take the Canada research program and target researchers from Europe with respect to that. The potential of CFI funding has already been mentioned, so I won't go further on that. Again, there is the potential for more foreign-sponsored research to be done at Canadian universities from the European Union. There is potential, if there are any savings in the SR and ED program, to provide international research in commercialization projects, again geared towards Europe.

I think we could have more public policy forums with respect to the EU. I'm on the board for the Asia Pacific Foundation, for example, and we've been conducting across-the-country forums on what we call “conversations on Asia”. Again, conversations with respect to Europe would be very, very useful.

I will come back to my own institution. We have a number of research partnerships. We welcome a significant number of students from Europe. I think you're all aware that Europe—not just the EU, but the whole of Europe itself, and it extends to about 47 countries—in terms of the Bologna agreement, has gone through fundamental structural change. They have in fact been realigning their undergraduate and their graduate programs to more of an international norm. Again, I think there's potential for us there. We welcome many students, for example, from Germany on study abroad opportunities, typically in the fall semester. Those could be expanded into the future.

Members of the committee, I stand ready to answer any questions you may have.

My own university celebrated its 200th anniversary some years ago. Actually, Canada Post gave us a postage stamp in our honour. But as a stamp collector, I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge that some years ago Dalhousie Law School actually had a Canada Post stamp in their honour.

I stand ready to answer any questions, particularly if you want to get into the areas I'm really interested in, which actually would be trade and investment opportunities, because that's an area I do some research in.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

I have a feeling questions will probably be on trade in the trade committee.

Let's start.

Mr. Davies, the floor is yours for seven minutes.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

And thank you, Ms. Crago and Mr. Dodds, for being with us today.

Mr. Crago, I'll start with you.

You mentioned the difficulty that Canadian firms have with the patent process in the EU. If I have it correct, you said the difficulty is they have to be different applications, depending on the country, and in the different languages.

In your understanding, does CETA address that problem? Does it cure it?

[Dr. Martha Crago]

Well, it needs to cure it. I'm not sure that it's done it strongly enough. It's the feeling I got from the scientists, who feel that their inventions are so difficult to patent in Europe, although they would be very usefully patented in Europe.

Without having the expertise to say whether it has addressed it as well as it could, I want to just raise it and flag it as an issue, particularly for our scientists, who are producing things through their science that are patentable.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thank you.

You may know that it's been the New Democrat position that we're positive about the prospects of deeper economic relations with Europe and are in favour of a deal with the EU. We're reserving judgment until we actually see the text of the agreement. In our view, there are a lot of issues that remain to be determined, and that's one of them.

What we have to work with is the “Technical Summary of Final Negotiated Outcomes”. I've read the part on intellectual property and there's nothing in there that bears on the question of whether or not we made any progress with that issue.

Ms. Crago, do you have information outside of that?

[Dr. Martha Crago]

No, I don't have any information outside of that.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Okay, thank you.

[Dr. Martha Crago]

I have kind of a lived experience that people reported to me.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

It's an important issue. I think Canadians would like to see that streamlined, but what I'm saying is we don't know that at this point.

In terms of procurement, you did say that post-secondary education is exempt as an area, but the MASH sector and academia are subject explicitly to the procurement provisions of CETA.

I'm just wondering if either of your institutions has done any kind of study as to what the costs or benefits of those may be to your institutions.

[Dr. Martha Crago]

We haven't done that study, but actually coming here raised the issue to both me and the president that this was the kind of study we need to do. We need to understand more clearly exactly what any implications of that would be.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Mr. Dodds?

[Dr. J. Colin Dodds]

We'd be the same, yes.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Fair game. I think it's early days on this. I know that this document we have to work with is really a narrative. It's descriptive but doesn't have a lot of the details. It's our view that trade agreements—particularly the most complicated and comprehensive agreement in Canada's history, as it's being touted—require us to look at the details.

I want to move to credential recognition. That is a vexing problem in our country. We have tens of thousands of Canadians, if not hundreds of thousands, who are underemployed here because we don't recognize their credentials. It hurts them and it hurts our economy.

I'm looking at the credentials section of this agreement as well. Again, it's a narrative. It says that it's the “[f]irst time that substantive and binding provisions on licensing and qualification, as well as the mutual recognition of professional qualifications, have been included in any of Canada’s free trade agreements”. It states that the “[p]rocess of recognizing foreign qualifications [is] streamlined” and that it “provides a detailed framework so that regulators or professional organizations may negotiate mutual-recognition agreements”. It also says, “Professional associations...have already engaged in discussions on mutual-recognition agreements.” As well, it says, “Other professions...have expressed interest in future engagements.”

What that sounds like to me is a description of a goal that contains an agreement to discuss. That doesn't strike me as a binding agreement that tells me we have achieved credential recognition in specified professions. Do you have any other additional information?

[Dr. Martha Crago]

I have a comment that I can make, based on my own past as a speech pathologist, which is that our own provinces in this country had a lot of trouble with this about 30 years ago, but they managed to sit down, discuss it, and sort it out. I believe that we've done similar things with the United States in the health professions that I know best. It's my anticipation that with goodwill one can sort these things out. It's just something we need to be aware of.

It's of benefit, if you will, for us to be able to profit from that kind of highly qualified personnel who are trained in Europe. We have many areas of this country that are underserved, I can tell you, in terms of speech pathology. We need more personnel. We don't have the capacity to produce them in our universities right now, so we would need personnel like that—

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Sorry, but I will have to interrupt you. You should have told me that at the beginning. My wife is a speech pathologist, so I....

[Dr. Martha Crago]

Well, there you go.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Well, I'm a lawyer, and I know the difference between a binding agreement and an agreement to agree. I agree with you that it's good that we have these processes, but I just want to find out what CETA does and what remains to be discussed.

Have either of your institutions, any of your staff members, done a current economic evaluation of the costs and benefits of CETA? I'll preface that by saying the only document we have is something that was done in 2008. It was an economic modelling that preceded the current deal we now have in front us. It preceded the great recession. It preceded the problems in Europe. It preceded the issue of currencies.

What we're looking for is a current evaluation, using the bones and flesh of CETA, to determine whether or not the job and the GDP growth are accurate at this point. Do you know if you have any staff members who are doing that work?

[Dr. Martha Crago]

I don't know that for sure, but what I do know is that the Centre for European Studies, or the European Union centre, does have people who look at these aspects, and this agreement is, as I said, one of its themes for focus and concentration. I am going to suggest that there will be people there, and I can certainly put you in contact with the head of that centre, who can inform anybody. Anyone is free, of course, to seek their advice on any of their scholarly work.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Is there anybody in Canada? I'm just wondering if we have any experts or academics in your institutions who are looking at that.

[Dr. Martha Crago]

I believe there are two, yes, who were hoping to be here yesterday afternoon and couldn't for reasons of conflict of time.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Mr. Dodds, do you have anybody in your institution?

[Dr. J. Colin Dodds]

Not specifically, no, but coming back to the whole issue of professional credentialling, not only is it an issue that Canada faced 30 years ago, it's an issue that we're still facing. It's rather ironic because, as we know, many of these professional designations are provincially recognized, and we don't have free trade in Canada. It's an issue that we just have to work on. We have to address it. It's particularly relevant, of course, in the professional schools.

With respect to actual degrees, that typically is no problem at all. If we're recruiting a faculty member from overseas, it's easily recognizable. It comes down to some of the professions. I would just caution you that in many instances we don't have a fully fledged system in Canada.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Thank you very much.

We'll now move to Mr. O'Toole for seven minutes.