Science and Research Committee on Dec. 14th, 2021

[Ron McKinnon, Liberal, Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC]

You're the boss.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

I want to make sure you all feel heard.

[An hon. member]

Go with whoever puts up their hand.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Okay.

Ms. Diab, we'll go to you, and then we'll go to Monsieur Blanchette-Joncas.

[Lena Metlege Diab, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I am very proud to be on this history-making committee.

Look, we've waited since 1867 to have this committee, so it's okay. I don't mind waiting a few more minutes for my turn.

I'm excited to be here. I'm very much looking forward to having constructive, collaborative discussions in this committee. I really do think we need to shine the light on our strong research sector. We need to help tell the story in our communities, in our own backyards and in our own provinces, and to the media and everybody, about the hard-working scientists and about the research going on across the country, which most people have no idea about.

I'll tell you that I was involved in provincial politics before coming to this table. I was a cabinet minister for eight years in Nova Scotia. Part of the stint was advanced education and labour, just before coming here, as well as immigration and so on.

I'll give you one example. I brought the Brain Repair Centre at Dalhousie University to meet my deputy minister and some of my higher education staff. The research that is going on at that facility is recognized internationally. The unfortunate part is that most people don't know what's happening in the country. The centre has no time and no skills to even promote it and communicate it and let people know what's happening. My heart was just.... I couldn't believe it, but it's true.

Two of my four children have a Ph.D. One is a neuropharmacologist. He is a scientist. My daughter is a chemical engineer. Through their lens, I have seen the enormous work that goes on in these sectors. Obviously, there are so many sectors, but there is enormous talent out there among the youth. It's not something I experienced when I was their age. This is also a story that most people have no idea about.

I hope this committee can shine a light on the good things that are happening across our regions in this country. That would be my motivation for being here in this committee. I'm very much open. Mount Saint Vincent University, a university in my own riding, is doing extremely important things in early childhood education, and in aging. It's just enormous stuff.

So that would be what I think we could collaborate on, and we could come up with how to build on that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Thank you so much, Ms. Diab. What I'm excited about is that I can hear your excitement and passion for this. I thank you for that.

Ms. Bradford, would you like to give your thoughts?

[Valerie Bradford, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

Oh, me...? Are we going around—

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

I'm sorry, folks. I am not getting any list here at all.

Monsieur Blanchette-Joncas, go ahead.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Allow me to start by congratulating you on your election.

It's an honour to take part in the creation of the Standing Committee on Science and Research. It may have taken the pandemic to make us realize just how necessary this committee is. Nevertheless, I am very proud to sit on it.

Some members expressed their desire to have the committee get an understanding of the big picture, but I think we already have that understanding, in part thanks to you, Madam Chair.

We had the Naylor report, and a number of recommendations that have gone unheeded since 2017. Massive reinvestment is needed, particularly in basic research. Unfortunately, Canada is the only country in the G7 to have reduced its R and D spending between 2000 and 2019. Unfortunately, Canada was also the only G7 country that did not produce a COVID‑19 vaccine. What's more, Canada was the only G7 country that took part in the COVAX program, receiving vaccines that were intended for the world's poorest countries.

I think we have a long way to go, but I remain optimistic. We already have a good overview of the situation. All we have to do is demonstrate our commitment to finding solutions to all of the problems that have already been identified in recent years.

I've listed a few issues that I feel cannot be ignored. Canada and Quebec have tremendous expertise and carry out considerable scientific research on the world stage. However, this pandemic we are living in has brought to the fore the urgent need for action. We mustn't wait long before really tackling the situation, because that situation is critical.

I've met people in the scientific community who've told me that they have often had basic research projects turned down owing to a lack of funding. I do want to say that the government has made a significant contribution in recent years as far as reinvestment is concerned, but it has not been enough to fill the widening gap. Personally, I find this troubling, as do many in the science and research sector with whom I have spoken.

I find something else troubling, and it, too, is based on facts. I'm talking about the research criteria developed by the government for the awarding of grants to research chairs. I'll be putting forward a motion on that topic a bit later. Criteria pertaining to identity, equity, diversity and inclusion are now mandatory for the research chairs.

Unfortunately, skilled scientists who should have obtained funding were not able to get it, not because of a lack of expertise, but because they did not satisfy certain criteria—criteria that are onerous for many scientists. That really worries me. These are skilled and talented people. The repercussions of these criteria on scientific development, progress, discovery and research need to be examined. These much-talked-about criteria are one of the topics I want to dig into.

Money is, of course, crucial, so we need to determine whether funding as a whole is commensurate with the potential and talent that exist in Canada.

These are issues that I care about and that concern me. I hope that we'll be able to study them in our upcoming meetings and that we'll be able to get down to business quickly.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Thank you so much, Mr. Blanchette-Joncas.

Is there anyone else who would like to speak to this?

Mr. Lake, go ahead.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Wetaskiwin, AB]

Are we allowed to take off our masks when we're speaking in committee?

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

You can.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Wetaskiwin, AB]

I have just a couple of thoughts to add.

It's the first time that we've sat as a committee. In my experience—and I've been around for a long time here—the regular committees get bogged down oftentimes in other things and don't have enough time to do substantive studies based on evidence. If we've learned anything over the last couple of years, it's that we're in a world where information is everywhere. There's a lack of clarity around what information is actually evidence-based and what isn't. We have an opportunity to shine a light on that.

If you take a look at the last couple of years, the sad thing is that our committees haven't been functioning for much of the last couple of years. If you take a look at this last stretch, by the time we sit meaningfully as a committee, it will have been eight months since most committees actually sat. In the middle of a global pandemic, our Parliament was shut down. Then we went to an election. We were delayed coming back. We hit the Christmas break, and it will be from June to February before we actually sit to study things.

We have an opportunity as a committee to take a look, certainly, at broad-based issues. I think there is going to be an importance to studying those things. I also think we have to take a look at the issues that are front and centre in our country at any given moment and aren't getting the spotlight shone on them. In the health ministry, for example, there are many issues competing for the health committee's time. Because we probably won't be as busy with legislation as other committees may be, we have the opportunity to take those big issues and give a really good, hard look at them as a committee, sort of pick the biggest issues of the day as they come forward.

One thing we probably want to be careful about is going after issues that might be important to one of us individually at committee, in our own world, in our own constituency. We might want to take a look, in the general interest of Canadians, at putting a spotlight on the issues that affect our society broadly and that are under-researched.

We can use the one that's so obvious, right in front of us, the COVID response. One of the biggest challenges we have had in the country—we all just went through an election campaign where we were knocking on doors—is confusion and lack of clarity around what the evidence shows. I think we have an opportunity as a committee to tackle that and to pursue a conversation around that, if that's where we decide to go as a committee. We could invite some of the top experts in the world, many of whom are working right here in Canada, to have conversations. Some of those experts may not agree with each other 100%. We have the opportunity to bring them to the table together and have that discussion and ask questions as a committee. If we take our responsibilities seriously as a committee, we can, together, do great things for our country.

I'm really looking forward to the opportunity to do that.

The last thing I would say is that our researchers, if I've learned anything.... I'm not a researcher myself, but I've been around for a long time and I've worked with a lot of world-class researchers, particularly—as you would know, Kirsty—on the autism file with some of the top autism researchers in the country. Those researchers don't necessarily want to see us just arguing about money in the House of Commons. They want to see their research actually being used for meaningful action on behalf of the Canadians they are working with and the communities they're working with. We have an opportunity to do that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Thank you, Mr. Lake. Thank you for recognizing the contributions, and that we have such an opportunity in this committee.

Is there anyone else who would like to weigh in?

Mr. Tochor, go ahead.

[Corey Tochor, Conservative, Saskatoon—University, SK]

Thank you, Mike, for those astute comments about what we could be looking at as a committee.

I think there might even be a hope that this committee—and maybe that's naiveness—wouldn't become a partisan committee. Facts are facts, and they don't care what your political leanings are. I think there is a great potential here to do some really important work for the people of our great country.

Those are all the comments I will share today.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Thank you, Mr. Tochor, as always.

Is there anyone else who would like to weigh in?

Ms. Bradford, go ahead.

[Valerie Bradford, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair, and congratulations on your election as chair of this committee.

It's such an honour to serve on this inaugural committee, a very special committee. I'm very pleased to be able to serve with such esteemed members from all parties. I think we can work together and accomplish a lot. I'm looking forward to what we can do.

Because I am new, I will give you a bit of background on where I come from. I represent Kitchener South—Hespeler, which is in the region of Waterloo. It's commonly referred to as the western end of the innovation corridor, which is anchored by Toronto at the other end. We have a lot of research capability in Waterloo. Probably many of you are familiar with the University of Waterloo.

I'll impinge a bit on Lloyd Longfield's area of Guelph as well. In an area of about 600,000 people, we have three esteemed universities. The University of Guelph is renowned for research in agriculture and food.

The University of Waterloo, which everyone thinks of for tech and math, is certainly renowned for that, but there's also a lot of expertise in robotics. I toured the university with the president fairly recently, within the last month—we have a new president—and they have a lot of research there.

In robotics, I see a lot of opportunity for the medical field. We all know that we have severe shortages of health care workers, and I think there's a lot of opportunity. They now have very friendly robots that aren't in cages in manufacturing plants anymore and can actually deliver a lot of health care services. That might be something that we have an opportunity in.

Also, there is sustainable aviation, and they're really looking at that. In a country as large as Canada, we do have to fly around—many of us even to get to our jobs here in Ottawa—but we need to make aviation more sustainable and environmentally friendly. I was happy to see that there is research going on in that area. Also, there's the Perimeter Institute, the quantum institute.

We might want to do a road trip to some of the various universities—I know that Chad has McMaster, and we also have the University of Alberta and the University of Calgary—to see what everyone is doing.

I agree with what Mr. Cannings said earlier. I think we need to do an overview at some point, perhaps, to see what the strengths of Canadian research are, what the gaps are and where we need to maybe pick up the pace, and to see what the opportunities are.

That's all I'll say now. I ramble too much, but I'm very excited about the work ahead of us and being part of this group and seeing what we can accomplish together.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Thank you so much, Ms. Bradford. Thank you for sharing a bit about your background and where you come from.

Is there anyone who has not spoken who would like to speak?

Okay, colleagues, is there anything you'd like to bring forward? We have about 45 minutes left.

[Corey Tochor, Conservative, Saskatoon—University, SK]

A motion to adjourn may be in order.

We'll get into the topics and the study in the subcommittee, which I would propose would be beneficial, versus discussing any motions on the floor today.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Thank you, Mr. Tochor. I'll bring that to the group.

Mr. Tochor, can I clarify? Is the motion to adjourn?

[Corey Tochor, Conservative, Saskatoon—University, SK]

Yes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Thank you.

Colleagues, there's a motion to adjourn. Do you want to discuss?

[An hon. member]

It's not debatable.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

It's not debatable. That's right. I'm sorry, folks. It takes a while to get back into the swing of things.

Dear colleagues, I wish you all a very merry Christmas, happy holidays and my best—

[Ron McKinnon, Liberal, Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC]

On a point of order, we actually need to vote on it.