Science and Research Committee on April 28th, 2022

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

I'm sorry, Dr. Madadian.

Monsieur Lauzon, perhaps you could ask Mr. Madadian if he could submit it in writing, so that we keep this fair.

[Stéphane Lauzon, Liberal, Argenteuil—La Petite-Nation, QC]

You can submit this answer in writing if you want to, absolutely, because we don't have time, and it's a very important question to put in the report.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Thank you so much, Monsieur Lauzon. We appreciate those questions.

Now we will go to Ms. Gazan for six minutes.

I'm sorry. It's Monsieur Blanchette-Joncas for six minutes.

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

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Good evening, Mr. Madadian. It's a pleasure to have you with us.

I read your 2019 pre-budget brief, which, in particular, concerns investment in the Canadian postdoctoral training system. Earlier you discussed your first recommendation, which concerns the status of postdoctoral fellows, particularly as it pertains to employment insurance and the Canada pension plan.

You also recommend establishing a standard national policy on postdoctoral research and training. Would you please provide us with more information on that subject?

[Dr. Edris Madadian]

That's actually a very important question you raise because, as I said, there is no clear definition of post-doc in any provincial legislation, and that causes a lot of problems when it comes to different universities because the university, or the research institution will decide how to define a post-doc.

I can tell you that there are universities in Quebec that define post-docs as “students”. There are universities in Quebec that call them “faculty”. In B.C. it is the same thing. Some universities call them “faculty”, but still they are not getting the benefits that faculty get. Some of them are called “staff”. Some of them are even classified as part of the administration.

The situation is basically similar in every province we have done this study in. With respect to the post-docs policy, I think it's very important to have a definition about who is a post-doc and what their responsibilities are and, in terms of compensation, what the bare minimum is that the institution needs to consider.

This will cause a lot of precarity and uncertainty, which we see in different universities. I have seen a post-doc being paid only $25,000 per year, which is not even comparable with what a Ph.D. student who is being supported gets.

That's basically all about the policy, but of course there are lots of things. We need to do more surveys. We need to be more aware of things, but CAPS itself is a team of volunteers and we do not have access to permanent funding or annual funding. Whenever we want to do a specific survey, we just reach out to tri-agencies or other agencies to see if we can get funded for it. At a bare minimum, we want to conduct a national survey for post-docs every four years.

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

Thank you, Mr. Madadian.

The third recommendation in your brief concerns a permanent monitoring system. That relates to the topic we're exploring this evening, which is recruiting and retaining highly qualified personnel. In that recommendation, you state that no monitoring of employment conditions or postdoctoral policies is conducted at the institutional level.

Would you please tell us more about the impact that may have on the monitoring of the situation of former postdoctoral fellows to assess the reality of the long-term labour market?

[Dr. Edris Madadian]

Absolutely. Thank you.

If I understood you correctly, I believe part of that is the problem with the benefits, such as EI and CPP, and health care, which we talked about. There is a chain of problems that are linked to each other because of the definition of post-doc, as we just talked about.

The other thing is that, according to the survey we have done, only 20% of the people are hired by the universities in the end. Given that we are talking about short-term positions, a person cannot necessarily can get an academic position in the first post-doc. Sometimes they go to the second one, the third one, the fourth one, and in the end sometimes in the fourth one the quality is lower because there is some legislation from the tri-agencies, for instance, that there is an eligibility period, and that they do not accept a Ph.D. or post-doc if the Ph.D. is from more than three years earlier. Those are the problems it causes.

The post-doc wants to reach the point they want to be at but they still have to try, but then the problem is that there is no funding reserve, unless there are universities that want to offer some of the private funding.

Those are the topics I can recall that are related to the item you raised.

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

Thank you very much.

We've discussed the recommendations concerning the funding and introduction of clear and established policies, but does your organization have any expectations of the federal government?

[Dr. Edris Madadian]

Thank you.

I believe that in addition to the salary, which is obviously the most important part, and also the benefits we talked about, immigration is very important. As I mentioned in my opening statement, we have over 10,000 post-docs in Canada and 60% of them are international post-docs. That means they need to think about their future. If they are here, they are here for the short term. Again, they go to the next post-docs, but I would say that immigration is another important topic that needs to be clear. Province-by-province legislation, based on what I have heard, seems to be different. Sometimes in terms of administration, people in different universities are not aware of things because of those kinds of ambiguities in the policy. It needs to be defined for post-docs provincially and federally.

Given the number of post-docs, immigration is definitely an important matter to talk about.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Blanchette-Joncas.

We also recognize your efforts to be here tonight, so thank you.

Dr. Madadian, it's not often that you get all the questions, so I'll just give you a minute to breathe. This is not easy.

With that, we will go to Ms. Gazan for six minutes.

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Thank you so much, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Dr. Madadian. I think you've done a really good job of making it very clear how exploitive the academic system has become for scholars, and particularly, in your case, for people who are doing post-doctoral studies.

How have post-doctoral and graduate unions across Canada, like PSAC 77000 at Carleton University, been fighting for post-doctoral scholars' compensation for their teaching and research work? I know that unions are getting involved because the system has become so exploitive. How has that helped?

[Dr. Edris Madadian]

Thank you for your question.

As a person who has been in different universities from coast to coast in Canada, I have had the experience of working with PSAC as well, so I understand that their support is really important and it's really vital to get things done and moving forward faster, but the fact is, there has to be a union in a university.

If we look at the U15 universities in Canada, out of those U15, we see that two have knowledge of CAPS and 10 have post-doctoral associations and also unions, but five of them do not.

Please remember that is the U15, and that there are 61 institutions in Canada that have post-docs. There are the small universities. If I'm talking about Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax or the University of Northern British Columbia in Prince George, all of them are smaller universities, and they definitely do not have unions or associations.

That's definitely a problem. In those cases, if PSAC ever reaches out to those people—and maybe they will not, because of the low number of post-docs—it will be a hard job to get a collective agreement established in the university to ensure they are receiving their rights in the right way.

I would say that PSAC is very helpful. I do not have enough knowledge to speak about Carleton, which you just talked about, but I would say that for Dalhousie, where I was before, what we received from PSAC was very important and very supportive. I wish that would be the case for all the provinces in Canada and all the universities.

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

One of my colleagues asked a question about student debt that you weren't able to answer. As a former post-secondary educator myself, I've been a long-time advocate for no tuition fees. We've seen it in other countries. We know it's the way of getting the best of the best if, first of all, people aren't limited by their financial ability, but also are not limited by the huge amounts of debt they acquire, especially at your level of education.

Can you speak a bit to the impact of student debt, particularly as it relates to low salaries paid to post-doctoral students?

[Dr. Edris Madadian]

That's a very important topic to talk about.

Many of the post-docs are carrying over with them the debt they had during their Ph.D., so they have to pay it back either to the government or to the university. The fact is that their low income does not allow them to. That's a simple answer, because their priority is paying their bills; it's not the loan, even though the loan is very important. They are not able to pay off such an expense. It's the second or third priority for them.

If it's coming from the university, it's easier, but they still have have to pay the interest, because the university is adding interest over the years. In the end, it depends on whether or not they end up with a well-paid job, so that they will be able to pay off everything.

I would consider that an important issue, even though I would say that many of the post-docs in our surveys have not indicated that, because, again, there is a higher degree of issues in the list, such that they do not even see that at this point, but I'm pretty sure, based on the people who we have been in contact with, that would be an issue. It definitely would be a good item to include to see what exactly are the numbers that we can talk about in our next survey.

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Do you think one of the things that would help—again, I find it problematic, particularly with your level of education and commitment to education—would be to have a set wage standard for post-doctoral students?

[Dr. Edris Madadian]

It's absolutely important, because the number one problem that the post-docs have been reporting is salary. As I said, 25% of the post-docs right now in Canada are receiving less than $45,000, and the average salary is $52,000. It means that we are still far from the standards of the countries we are comparing ourselves with—Australia, the U.S. Many of the post-docs have to go to the U.S., because there are more openings and academic job opportunities there. They are being better paid there compared with in Canada.

That's really important.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Thank you so much, Ms. Gazan, for your questions.

I want to thank all of the committee for their questions tonight.

I want to thank Dr. Madadian. It is not easy to come here and have all of these members of Parliament ask you continual questions.

I think all of us recognize the job you did tonight, and we thank you.

We will suspend and come back in camera. We have some work to do.

Thank you, Dr. Madadian.

[Proceedings continue in camera]