Welcome everyone. My name is Alex Parker. I am a researcher at the University of Montreal. I did my doctorate at the University of British Columbia, and then I did my post-doctorate in Paris, France. Allow me to continue in English.
For most of my career I've been studying Huntington's disease, but my interest lies generally in neurodegeneration.
We made some important discoveries during my time in France, and we hope there will ultimately be benefits to patients. But another aspect to be considered is that the fruits of that research lie primarily in France and the United States, as they were the sources of the funding. This is something that I think Canada misses out on a lot of the time.
Recently, thanks to ALS Canada, I've been recruited to study ALS. This is directly due to an initiative from ALS Canada known as the Bernice Ramsay discovery grants. It is an initiative to fund high-risk research or attract researchers with different techniques to the field. I thought our approach would be applicable, so I applied. This type of funding doesn't really exist at the federal level. It is a lifeline for groups like mine, because I'm a relatively new researcher. This funding directly is like a lifeline to the lab, allowing me to set up and get going. It's been very beneficial so far.
I'm not saying all of the federal funding is inadequate. Some aspects are very good. For example, my salary is funded by the CIHR as a new investigator; infrastructure from the Canadian Foundation for Innovation was fantastic; and the new initiatives for funding student scholarships are also good. But we are missing one aspect, and that is operating funding to basically run the lab. We have projects ready to go. I could run three projects tomorrow, but I just don't have the money to get them going. This could be a situation where if we wait too long on some of these things, other people will move ahead, and some of the commercial aspects will go elsewhere.
So I believe that an increase in neuroscience funding is crucial. Why do I think this? It's because, as Denise touched on earlier, Canadians are living longer than ever, and the number one risk factor for all neurodegenerative diseases is aging. Just because people are living longer doesn't mean they are necessarily living healthier. You'll see an increased occurrence of many neurological diseases, including ALS, as people live longer.
We need to not just increase Canadians' lifespans, but increase their health spans also and maintain a healthy and productive population. What we're asking for are basically resources to eliminate suffering--that's an obvious benefit--but also to strengthen our scientific efforts. These will hopefully have benefits for the patients and families, but there will also be economic, societal, and productivity benefits.
At this point, working in a lab, I would say that two-thirds of the pieces are in place: infrastructure and support for training studentships. But we basically need the resources to round it out and do the experiments. I'll leave it at that.
Thank you very much.