Science and Research Committee on Oct. 29th, 2024

[The Chair, Liberal, Valerie Bradford]

I call the meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number 105 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Science and Research.

Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format and all witnesses have completed the required connection tests in advance of the meeting.

I'd like to remind all members of the following points.

Please wait until I recognize you by name before speaking. All comments should be addressed through the chair. Members, please raise your hand if you wish to speak, whether participating in person or via Zoom. The clerk and I will manage the speaking order as best we can.

For those participating by video conference, click on the microphone icon to activate your mic, and please mute it when you are not speaking.

For interpretation for those on Zoom, you have the choice at the bottom of your screen of the floor, English or French.

Thank you all for your co-operation.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(3)(i) and the motion adopted by the committee on Tuesday, September 17, 2024, the committee is resuming its study of the mission, mandate, role, structure and financing of the new capstone research funding organization announced in budget 2024.

It is now my pleasure to welcome our witnesses. From the Fédération des cégeps, we have Sylvain Poirier, deputy director of research. From the University of Calgary, we have Edward McCauley, president and vice-chancellor. On the screen, from the University of Saskatchewan, we have Baljit Singh, vice-president of research.

Up to five minutes will be given to each of you for opening remarks, after which we will proceed with rounds of questions.

Mr. Poirier, I invite you to make an opening statement of up to five minutes.

[Sylvain Poirier, Deputy Director of Research, Fédération des cégeps]

Thank you, Madam Chair, ladies and gentlemen and members of the committee of science and research.

I'm pleased to speak to you today on behalf of the Fédération des cégeps, which represents Quebec's 48 public colleges.

Our institutions house 55 of the 59 college technology transfer centres, or CTTCs, 27 technology access centres, or TACs, as well as numerous disciplinary research units and hundreds of researchers.

We carry out quality research, supported by more than 5,000 qualified researchers working in world-class laboratories.

We're pleased to see that the federal government recognizes the importance of innovation to Canada's wealth and economic and technological competitiveness, and is committed to taking action in that regard.

It's now well documented that Canada, despite the quality of our basic research, still generates few innovations. As a result, we are less competitive than the best-performing countries.

On the one hand, we have universities that produce a constant stream of new knowledge, and on the other, many small and medium-sized enterprises, or SMEs, struggle to integrate innovation into their business culture and undertake research and development activities.

Those SMEs, which represent 90% of the private sector workforce, are the backbone of our economy. It's therefore essential to take this reality into account when comparing our research and innovation support programs with those of other countries.

SMEs and organizations with a technological, social or environmental vocation are rooted in our cities and villages, and they fuel our local economies. However, they often lack the resources to expand internationally.

Building a bridge between universities and SMEs or organizations is essential to facilitate the transfer of scientific advances to the business sector. This bridge already exists in applied research conducted at our CEGEPs, colleges, institutes and research centres.

This gives SMEs and organizations access to a research potential comparable to that of major corporations. However, this potential can't be fully exploited if we continue to provide that college research with only 2.9% of the funding for research.

For an SME or local organization, the proximity to a college's researchers and specialized laboratories, which are accessible at a reasonable cost, can become the foundation upon which to build its growth. Access to expertize and facilities to build test beds, scale up discoveries, improve processes or integrate the circular economy is an essential element in boosting performance and productivity, and expanding the market occupied by businesses with direct socio-economic and environmental benefits.

Our CEGEPs, colleges and research teams are present throughout the province. They are already working with SMEs and local and regional organizations. They train the workforce that will implement new practices and technologies, while providing pathways where students interact with research teams and companies. The younger generation can therefore play an active role in finding concrete solutions to societal challenges. As a result, interest in scientific careers is emerging within our institutions.

If the government sets up the umbrella organization, the Fédération des cégeps hopes that it will adopt a neutral, inclusive and results-oriented approach, and that it will have the power to redistribute funding to enable every research and development actor to play their full role. We also ask that the college community be represented on the board in proportion to its research contribution.

In closing, only a well-funded and effective continuum of research, development, innovation and commercialization will contribute to the vitality of our regions, to the creation of quality jobs, to Canada's prosperity and to a more equitable distribution of wealth.

Thank you for your attention.

[The Chair, Liberal, Valerie Bradford]

Thank you, Mr. Poirier.

We'll now turn to Dr. McCauley.

You have the floor for five minutes.

[Dr. Edward McCauley, President and Vice-Chancellor, University of Calgary]

Thank you for your invitation today.

Thank you for the opportunity to address this parliamentary committee today.

The University of Calgary is one of Canada's research-intensive universities. We are Canada's entrepreneurial university, having started over 90 companies in the past five years, which is more than any other university in Canada over this period.

We have one of the fastest-growing rates of research funding, with $589 million in externally funded research revenue in the past year. One-third of that funding comes from industry and our community, which speaks to the relevance of the research we do.

Our scholars consistently demonstrate excellence and transdisciplinary collaboration, which are among the reasons why our external funding continues to grow and it's why the prospect of the capstone research organization is so exciting.

UCalgary welcomed the renewed investments in innovation and talent, as well as the plan to create a capstone research organization in budget 2024. This investment follows important historical investments by previous governments, both Conservative and Liberal, that built Canada's excellent research ecosystem.

When creating the capstone organization, I urge you to keep in mind the common definition of a capstone. In building our architecture, it's a stone that lies on top that adds strength and protects the function of the pillars underneath. If we create an organization that truly reflects the common meaning of a capstone, we will have a better research ecosystem in Canada that will flourish, attract investment and build new partnerships with sectors of Canada and internationally.

The implementation of a capstone organization that increases synergies across the granting agencies and includes governance structures supporting interdisciplinary and mission-driven research is a big enhancement to Canada's research ecosystem.

As you consider the implementation of the new capstone, I have four requests for this committee.

First, establish governance for the capstone that maintains a balance across the scientific disciplines and is inclusive of all actors within the research ecosystem. The implementation of a capstone organization recognizes that science is not siloed. It has the potential to result in better integration and processes across disciplines, with streamlined access to international partnerships, and with resources for mission-driven and interdisciplinary research for the 21st century.

Some coordination gains were made through the Canada research coordinating committee and the tri-agency institutional programs secretariat, but results were limited. Both entities encouraged coordination, but integration without governance relies on relationships for progress.

Greater integration is achieved when governance demands it. The capstone therefore must be equipped with a clear mandate, structures and resources to facilitate integration across the granting agencies.

Second, move toward more harmonized processes across the councils over time, without disrupting research cycles during transition or unnecessarily losing discipline-specific cultures. A healthy harmonization of processes and systems across the research ecosystem is a positive opportunity and, in fact, there are many benefits.

Third, maintain political independence of funding decisions and the core commitment to academic freedom, peer review and the free pursuit of knowledge. Federal support for research in Canada is based on rigorous, independent review that rewards the merits of applications and is considered the best practice internationally. Maintain this political independence for both discipline-specific and mission-driven research. Funding decisions should always be guided by scholarly excellence based on competitive applications and merit-based peer review.

Finally, the capstone mission-driven and interdisciplinary research should be funded through a new envelope, rather than redistribution of existing granting agency funds. This will ensure that Canada is best positioned to compete on a global scale.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you for the opportunity to share my thoughts with you today.

I look forward to your questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Valerie Bradford]

Thank you, Dr. McCauley.

We'll now turn to Dr. Singh.

You have the floor for an opening statement for up to five minutes.

[Dr. Baljit Singh, Vice-President, Research, University of Saskatchewan]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair and the committee members, for this opportunity to be in front of this committee. In addition to being vice-president of research at the University of Saskatchewan—a 117-year-old institute of higher learning and research enterprise—I serve as professor of veterinary medicine at the University of Saskatchewan.

I had the privilege of being a member of the advisory panel on the federal research support system, which was commonly called the Bouchard panel, and that was the panel that did the review and submitted a report to the Government of Canada in 2023.

Today, I appear in front of this committee as a representative of the University of Saskatchewan, although I will refer to the findings of the Bouchard panel report in my testimony and during the discussion. Before I talk about the capstone organization that is being proposed to be set up in the country, I want to make a couple of comments on the report itself.

Since the report was submitted, the Government of Canada has taken a number of actions on the report, and I thank the government for doing that. The first and foremost is the investment in funding graduate student support and also the post-doctoral fellow support. As we know, the lifeline of any innovation system is the young talent that we grow domestically and also the top talent that comes from around the globe to make Canada their home. They will not come to Canada if we do not have a well-funded program to support them.

In addition, the Government of Canada also made a commitment to grow the funding for the tri-councils in our country so that our investigators can continue to get the best grant support to do the type of science that they do.

The last point I will make is because I am at the University of Saskatchewan, which is home to two of Canada's largest research facilities, the first of them being the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization, VIDO, which did a commendable job during the pandemic in protecting the health of Canadians; and the Canadian Light Source, which is Canada's only synchrotron located in Saskatoon. I appreciate the steps that the Government of Canada is taking to create the major research facilities framework to provide sustained funding to some of our largest and most globally recognized research facilities in our country. Still, we have lots of work to do. We know Canada suffers from innovation gap, productivity gap, in comparison to our peer G7 group countries or the OECD countries when we measure ourselves against them.

The proposal to create a capstone organization is in play to bridge some of those gaps by creating very cohesive coordination and integration among multiple components of Canada's research and innovation system. For example, the capstone organization could itself create a better coordination among the tri-councils and other players in the innovation system, such as the Mitacs and the Canada Foundation for Innovation.

However, I also want to create a caution here that we must continue to support, protect, preserve and enhance the excellent research funding mechanisms that have been created by NSERC, SSHRC, and Canadian Institutes of Health Research to support globally recognized research programs in our country.

We also need to pay attention to the colleges and the polytechnics that exist across our country. We know that the colleges, even though they are small, are deeply connected to the needs of the communities locally and have great capacity to be part of the innovation system to support small and medium enterprises in small towns and villages across the country. Hopefully, the capstone organization, once established, will try to bring these components—small universities, colleges and polytechnics—into Canada's innovation agenda.

The last point that we generally heard across the system is that international bodies and the government sometimes do not know on which door to knock when they come looking for Canada's participation in large-scale, mission-driven interdisciplinary research with global impact. Creating a capstone organization will allow Canadian scientists and the stellar work they do to be part of the global story and bring more recognition to our country.

In closing, I believe the time has come to evolve and adapt by creating a capstone organization so that the Canadian research and innovation system can keep pace with our peer global economies in the G7 or the G20 countries.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Valerie Bradford]

Thank you, Dr. Singh.

That concludes our opening remarks. I'll open the floor to members for questions. Please be sure to indicate to whom your questions are directed.

We'll start with our six-minute round.

We have MP Lobb for six minutes.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair, and to everybody who presented today.

My first question is for Mr. Singh.

[The Chair, Liberal, Valerie Bradford]

That's Dr. Singh.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

He's Dr. Singh, yes.

The Canada research coordinating committee, from what I've heard from previous guests and I think guests here today, is not quite living up to expectations. You're a part of the committee. What do you feel the failings have been there? Maybe they aren't failings; they just didn't do enough. What are your thoughts there?

[Dr. Baljit Singh]

The committee did not succeed as much as the system thought it would. President McCauley has also made a comment that the committee was left to the relationship of the leaders of the individual organizations to work together and develop programs; however, there have been successes in creating interdisciplinary large-scale programs through that particular body.

If we really want to achieve the type of integration and coordination within our system to eliminate the gaps between various funding players and the innovation leaders within Canada, we need to have a very robust governance system in place in the organization that will demand that level of integration and coordination.

CRCC did what it could within the mandate and the scope it had, but it did not have the type of empowerment to undertake large-scale changes to the system. That's what my impression and understanding is.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

How many people were on the committee that was set up, and how many staff were involved on that committee?

[Dr. Baljit Singh]

CRCC was comprised of the presidents of the councils, who had rotating chair responsibilities as well, and they were supported by the staff from these bodies.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Is the capstone going to have different people involved, or will it be the same cast of characters under a different umbrella, a different name?

[Dr. Baljit Singh]

The capstone will need to have a totally fresh way of looking at organizing this body. It needs to be very inclusive. It needs to bring a fresh set of leaders into the organization. Yes, the leaders of the councils, from NSERC, SSHRC, CFI, and the CIHR will have a role or maybe membership in this particular capstone organization. The governance piece will need to be very separate, independent of the councils that we currently have in front of us.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

When you guys were putting this together, did you come up with a budget in your mind? There aren't a whole lot of details on the budget. Do you have a budget or an estimate for each year?

[Dr. Baljit Singh]

We simply presented the principle that this new organization should have a new infusion of funding. It should not be money taken from the existing funding organizations to start a new funding body in the country, considering the scale of the programs that we might be looking at. For example, Canada launched a quantum strategy a few years ago with $400 million. That type of large-scale, mission-driven initiative will be coming out of the capstone organization that we are proposing. In a way, the funding needs will be determined by the scope and the scale of the initiatives that the capstone organization will be launching.

To answer your question directly, no, we did not put a dollar figure on the budget for this particular proposed organization.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

I asked this next question a week ago when I was at the last committee meeting that I attended. Concerning the mission-driven focus, in your mind, who gets to decide what those are?

[Dr. Baljit Singh]

That will need to be a highly consultative process based on the needs of our country and the investments that we need in the type of areas we need. It cannot be determined in a top-down way. There needs to be participation of, for example, businesses. There needs to be participation of the academic institutions. There needs to be participation of groups such as the first nations, Métis and Inuit peoples of our country. It depends on what we are looking at, but there needs to be an in-built, robust, consultative framework that will allow us to identify the areas in which the Government of Canada is trying to invest.

For example, if we are looking at water security in our country as to how we use our water for demographic expansion, for our agri-food enterprise and for our mining and resource extraction, it will need to bring in all those relevant stakeholders for consultation and identification of the mission that the government or the capstone organization will then launch.

As has been said, we will need political independence within the development of those missions so that the academic and the scientific parts and the needs of society are put at the front end of the development of those initiatives.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

How much time is left?

[The Chair, Liberal, Valerie Bradford]

You have 15 seconds.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

I'll put that into the pot—15 seconds.

[The Chair, Liberal, Valerie Bradford]

Thank you, MP Lobb.

Thank you, Dr. Singh.

We'll now turn to MP Kelloway for six minutes.

[Mike Kelloway, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

Thanks very much, Chair.

Hello to everyone, and thank you for your testimony.

In particular, I want to say hello to President McCauley. Full disclosure, I'm an alum of the University of Calgary, and I taught in the leadership and development program for a period of time. I have great admiration and respect for the university and for what it does.

When you were talking about your four recommendations, you talked about political independence, and Mr. Singh just also spoke to political independence.

On the flight here, I was preparing some questions. Sometimes when you're flying from Sydney to Toronto and then to Ottawa, the flight is delayed or cancelled, so you have plenty of time to think. I was watching a movie and preparing my questions. I was watching Ted Lasso, who mentioned a quote attributed to Walt Whitman that we need to be less judgmental and be more curious.

This, to me, ties into political independence. Whether it's a left-wing government, a centrist government or a right-wing government, we don't want political interference in research. It's tempting even for someone like me. When I look at certain research projects I say, “My God, that's esoteric. My God, what is the relevance?”

I think of researchers like Geoffrey Hinton, who is a pioneer in AI. I would assume that if we brought Dr. Hinton here, he would say, “You know, when I was starting out, there were a lot of questions about the research I was doing in AI.” We could also choose another researcher in advanced technology, so I think we need to be careful.

With that in mind, can you unpack a bit of why it is so important that politicians and political parties—because we do have oversight, to a certain degree—know our lane and respect the institutions that are there to do the research?

[Dr. Edward McCauley]

Thank you.

The market for ideas is global. That's the competitive market for ideas. Canada is really blessed with having a large amount of talent across the country that has developed at CEGEPs, polytechnics, colleges and universities that are building their abilities to create those ideas.

The capstone organization, I think, will be a great opportunity to identify some of those big, very difficult problems that Canada needs to solve to improve the quality of life and productivity. Very often, the solution to those problems requires contributions from different disciplines from people who have been trained differently.

One of the common characteristics of people who have been trained in Canada in this way is that they're critical thinkers. Again, the ideas are competitive on the global stage. They're competing against other ideas. Having that base of independent thought, the ability to come up with an idea that looks like it's out in left field—or right field, depending on the political party—is essential to being able to test that idea and to have it move forward in that global landscape.

We need that broad generation of critical thinkers, the broad generation of people who are willing to commit to respectful debate across the ideas. Political interference precludes some of that because some voices are then not heard as loudly as other voices. I think we need all voices at the table in order to move forward.