Science and Research Committee on April 28th, 2022

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

My question is for Mr. Carbonneau.

Would you please tell us about the balance between internal development and immigration?

I'm referring specifically to the figures that François Deschênes reported, according to which approximately 35% of researchers who have earned a doctorate can't get funding.

[Etienne Carbonneau, Executive Advisor, Governmental Relations, Université du Québec]

Canada's capacity to provide its new generation of trained talent, particularly at the doctoral level, with the necessary conditions to conduct research properly represents a challenge. The chancellor of the Université du Québec à Rimouski, François Deschênes, was right to mention this. We ultimately abandon some of our talent by not providing them with the necessary resources to conduct their research, which is promising and would have a definite impact on Canada's capacity to forge ahead in the scientific field. That was a short answer.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Thank you both. That was very short.

Ms. Gazan, I would ask you for a very short question, and then a short answer, please.

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

My last question is for Dr. Céline Poncelin de Raucourt.

You spoke about the importance of providing post-secondary opportunities that are community-based. I would agree with that. It's very difficult for students to have to be taken away from their family's and loved ones' support to get a post-secondary education.

Could you expand on that a little bit more?

[Céline Poncelin de Raucourt]

Yes, absolutely. As I've said a number of times, the presence of a university is a major factor in developing a diverse range of talents that can contemplate pursuing post-secondary studies, then having careers and carrying on their profession in the place where they studied.

Universities are also the place where industries, socioeconomic environments, researchers and students come together. The presence of a university in a place is thus a driver of research, innovation and culture that revitalizes an entire region and makes it grow. I think that having many of these centres of excellence is vital to ensuring that an entire country thrives.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Thank you both for being so gracious with the time.

Let me thank all of our witnesses. We appreciate your time, your effort and your expertise this evening.

We will briefly suspend and then our committee will go in camera.

I'm sorry, I've jumped ahead. We have one more witness. We will say goodbye to these witnesses and we will welcome one last panel.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Dear colleagues, I'll welcome you back. This is our last panel this evening. We have the Canadian Association of Postdoctoral Scholars, and our witness is the chair, Dr. Edris Madadian.

Welcome. We will hear from you for five minutes and then we will have one round of questions from each of the parties for six minutes. The floor is yours.

[Dr. Edris Madadian, Chair, Canadian Association of Postdoctoral Scholars]

Thank you, Madam Chair, and distinguished members of the committee.

Thank you for inviting me to appear before the committee.

My name is Edris Madadian, and I am the chair of the Canadian Association of Postdoctoral Scholars. I'm also a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Waterloo, funded by the AMTD Waterloo Global Talent foundation. I am a first-generation immigrant, a scientist and an advocate for Canadian postdoctoral fellows.

At the very outset, and on behalf of the executive council of the Canadian Association of Postdoctoral Scholars, I would like to acknowledge the enduring presence and deep traditional knowledge, laws and philosophies of the indigenous people with whom we are sharing this land today. We are all treaty people with a responsibility to honour all our relations.

I would like to start my remarks by raising a question. Do you know someone who is extremely talented, has immense knowledge in his or her field and has made great accomplishments, yet has run into systematic problems that prevent them from fully exploiting their capacity?

Today I would like to speak about those people, the post-doctoral scholars, and their role in promoting the research and innovation ecosystem of Canada. Before that, though, let me explain who we are. CAPS/ACPP is a non-profit professional association that advocates on behalf of Canadian post-doctoral scholars. We advocate for a range of career paths. CAPS/ACPP was established in 2009 with a mandate to improve the lives, training and work experience of all Canadian post-docs. The vision that guides this mandate is one of a strong community in which all Canadian post-docs are provided with fair and reasonable compensation, benefits, rights, privileges and protection as well as a supportive social network and effective support, training and career-development opportunities.

Currently, there are reportedly over 10,000 post-doctoral scholars in Canada, and around 30% of them are members of CAPS. A post-doc is a temporary position that allows Ph.D.'s to continue their training as researchers and to gain skills and experience that will prepare them for their academic careers. Post-doctoral scholars are highly skilled and motivated individuals who support research-intensive universities to drive academic research in Canada while also building local networks of intellectual capital. Post-doctoral scholars have demonstrated their high-achieving tendencies and abilities by earning a Ph.D. degree. They are important human capital in knowledge-based economies and they're major contributors to research, innovation, arts, culture, science and policy-making throughout the world.

In addition to going on to academic positions, these individuals frequently fill roles in a variety of fields, including working in the burgeoning industries and establishing new start-ups. In this way, post-doctoral scholars represent the future innovation ecosystem of Canada. However, due to legislative ambiguity around these positions—the nature of post-doctoral positions is not defined in any provincial legislation document—some individuals find themselves in unfavourable positions, being denied all employment benefits and, in some cases, even being denied access to mandated employment protections.

A CAPS' survey has shown that the position of post-docs in Canadian universities is highly variable and precarious. Sources of funding will oftentimes dictate how a post-doc is embedded within an academic institute, resulting in highly variable access or no access to important social infrastructures such as health care or parental leave for post-docs within the same institute.

As a result of this situation and the relatively short nature of post-doc contracts, post-docs are often overlooked when it comes to creating supportive policies. The high degree of uncertainty and precarity for a post-doc may be attributed to the following factors, which may act as deterrents to attracting and retaining talent.

Number one, post-docs are described and treated as students and trainees when they are actually qualified professionals. Number two, Canadian post-docs' average compensation is not keeping up with global trends, and, number three, career opportunities for Ph.D.'s in Canada are not in line with the number of Ph.D.'s produced by Canadian universities.

I will pass you the summary of my speech, but before I conclude my remarks, I would be remiss if I did not say thank you for the kind and generous support we have received over the past few years from the tri-council funding agencies—NSERC, SSHRC and CIHR—the Burroughs Wellcome Fund and all the members of CAPS across Canada.

Once again, I thank you for this invitation and I look forward to our discussion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Thank you so much, Dr. Madadian. You're the first person who's come and really spoken from the post-doctoral position. We thank you for joining us. You have an eager committee that's going to want to ask you questions.

We're going to go to each party once for six minutes. We begin with Ms. Gladu.

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to our witness.

We have heard a lot of testimony about how, if Canada wants to attract top talent, we need to be competitive in terms of salary and that currently the scholarships we offer for post-docs and the salaries we're offering are not competitive. Would you agree with that?

[Dr. Edris Madadian]

Absolutely.

When it comes to worldwide standards, they're not competitive. In fact, CAPS has done four national surveys with post-docs, and what we have found so far is that the average salary is $52,000 and 25% of post-docs are earning less than $44,000, which is not at all competitive with the post-docs in other countries. For example, in Australia the post-docs are earning more than $80,000 per year. In the U.S., it's not as high as in Australia but it is still higher than in Canada.

That could be one reason why it's a little bit frustrating when they cannot get an academic position, and they are just desperately looking for other options, because the salary's literally not enough to pay the bills with.

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Exactly. Thank you.

We talked about how people come for top science. Really, that's what attracts the top talent. Are there areas of top science that we're neglecting in Canada that would allow us to attract more top talent?

[Dr. Edris Madadian]

Based on the responses we got in our survey, we believe that 40% of our post-docs are in life science; 35% are in physics and engineering, and, I think, 10% or 11% are in social science. Social science, I would say, needs more investment, especially when it comes to post-docs. Sometimes we can see that it is completely ignored or neglected. That's something we need to focus on.

Otherwise, in engineering and health sciences, I would say, based on the capacity that Canada has shown so far, there are equal supports for the two groups of post-docs.

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Do you think there are other barriers that keep us from attracting and retaining the best talent in terms of post-docs?

[Dr. Edris Madadian]

Absolutely. Thank you for this question.

It was actually part of the summary of my talk, but I didn't want to go over five minutes, so I'll take advantage of this question to go through that.

There are five top ways, we believe, to help retain post-docs as a top talent group of Canadians or immigrants in Canada. Number one is to increase average post-doc salaries, as we just talked about.

Number two is to universally recognize post-docs as professional researchers, not as students or trainees. The fact is that doing that affects the immigration process. There are a lot of benefits they cannot take advantage of.

Number three is to ensure that post-docs have access to critical protections like CPP and employment insurance as well as workplace benefits like health insurance. Eighteen per cent of the post-docs in our survey indicated that they didn't even have access to provincial health care, which is very concerning.

Number four is to harmonize legislation pertaining to post-docs at the federal level in such sectors as immigration, employment and taxation. I know a post-doc who was earning $50,000 in a fellowship. Because that wasn't his salary or it wasn't something that we considered one, there was no record of it as such that a bank could accept.

Number five is to increase federal spending in research, specifically for early-career researchers like post-docs who are at the cutting edge of their field, which will increase opportunities for innovation in academic settings.

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Finally, are there things we need to do, from a gender lens or an intersectional lens point of view, when it comes to post-docs here in Canada?

[Dr. Edris Madadian]

Well, the fact is based on the numbers that we have. We have observed that we have almost the identical rate of acceptance for post-docs for women and men.

However, the fact is, what is the next step? The post-doc is a temporary position. Most of the people who want to do post-docs want to get into an academic career, even though some people believe, which I also advocate, that they do not necessarily want to become a professor but they want to have their own research-based institution, start-up, or something similar.

When it comes to that point, there are the programs that the government has been working on for a long time, which are the CERC and CRC, Canada research chair and Canada excellence researchers. Based on the numbers that I read, those are supporting the women-side of the post-docs, which is absolutely great, to be entering the universities for longer terms.

In terms of the post-docs, I don't see any difference exactly between the men and women.

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Excellent. I want to thank you for your testimony tonight.

[Dr. Edris Madadian]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

I know you've made special efforts to be here, and we're pleased to see you tonight.

Thank you, again, to the witnesses.

Mr. Lauzon, you have the floor for six minutes.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'd like to thank Mr. Madadian for being here this evening.

I didn't know much about the Canadian Association of Postdoctoral Scholars, but I'm pleased to see that such an association exists for students leaving the universities.

I also learned that you've submitted pre-budget briefs to the federal government, the last of which, on investing in the Canadian postdoctoral training system, dates back to 2019. That report was submitted just before the pandemic.

I'd like to know what has changed during the pandemic since you submitted your last report in 2019.

[Dr. Edris Madadian]

This is an important question that you raised. I believe that a lot of things changed during the pandemic, when you compare it with the pre-budget information you just talked about.

Based on a publication that Nature published recently, the early career researchers, basically post-docs, were the main people harmed as a result of this pandemic. When we look at that, many of the post-docs needed to be productive during their temporary position, because nowadays that is one of the qualifications when they want to apply for jobs, especially academic jobs. They need to have publications. They need to have the experience of the mentorship and mentoring their students. Post-docs are the right spots for it. However, during the pandemic, even for a short period of time, a year or two years, the post-docs saw that the time was going by so fast and they were more worried about it.

In terms of the numbers, I think that was one of the things we tried to advocate for. We touched on that with the tri-agencies, to make sure that there would be an extension for those post-docs who have literally earned this time and could not take advantage of it to be productive.

Of course, depending on the different fields, there will be different outcomes. Some felt they were more comfortable with working from home, so they kept their productivity, but some of them were not. So that's one of the things. One of them was about the budgets....

The other thing is about the inflation. When we want to adjust the salaries for inflation, the post-doc's wage has not changed that much. It's very negligible. For tri-council or other agencies, or private agencies, there is no wage increment for post-docs over the year, not even for 2% or 3%—nothing. It's like $45,000 for first year and $45,000 the second year. That's another thing that has not changed, and it's even worse now that the inflation is higher.

I would say that these are a part.... The pandemic is in part to blame for this. The general problem is with that, and not necessarily relevant to the pandemic.

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

Thank you for that answer.

I've also read that you worked on a report in 2009, 2013 and 2019, and you also had one in 2016, so I'm pretty sure that you're working on one right now.

Can you give us a heads-up—just a couple of lines—about what you're working on right now?

[Dr. Edris Madadian]

Absolutely. Thank you for asking.

Every four years, we run the national surveys. The last one was in 2016, and we did the 2020, but the fact is, the result was delayed, because many people—again, we are a team of volunteers in CAPS—were affected, so we could not process, and we wanted to have a longitudinal comparison with previous years.

What I can give as an update is that it's almost out. We are going to publish that in the next month. There are definitely comparisons with previous years in terms of the increment in the salaries; the change in the demographics, for instance; the immigration and citizenship situation we have observed in the post-docs compared with 2016 surveys; and, of course, the problem with benefits, as I've explained.

For some of the numbers that I was just talking about, for instance, if 18% of the post-docs do not have access to provincial health care—this is coming from our recent survey that is going to be published—or if we can say that only 20% of the post-docs are being supported by the tri-agencies, it means that 80% of the post-docs are supported internally, which means that the faculty member or the principal investigator of the project is supporting them. When it comes to that end, it becomes a bit tricky, because we don't know what's happening unless the university or the institution has a collective agreement that everything is clear there.

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

We only have 20 seconds left. I think we'll have to go very fast for this answer.

You talked at length about the money these students earn at the end of their studies but said little about the debts they have to repay. What's the average amount of debt they have to repay while not earning big salaries?