Science and Research Committee on Nov. 7th, 2024

[Christian Agbobli]

Madam Chair, I thank the member for his question.

The Université du Québec network wants to play a major role, as do other Canadian francophone universities, in order to be better represented within the country's research ecosystem.

We certainly welcome this committee's contribution and the appointment of the advisory panel, but much remains to be done to improve compliance with the Official Languages Act.

As a network, we advocate for the quality of research conducted in French to be better recognized, valued and funded. The capstone organization must play this major role by enabling universities in the regions to be at the table.

You talked about the 10 universities in the Université du Québec network. The Université du Québec à Rimouski, the Université du Québec en Abitibi-Témiscamingue and the Université du Québec à Chicoutimi must ensure that they are at the table, just like the Université du Québec à Montréal.

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

Mr. Agbobli, you mentioned that, on October 22, the federal government created an external advisory panel on the creation and dissemination of scientific information in French.

That said, the Quebec university network is not part of that panel. I repeat: Canada's largest francophone university network is excluded from that panel.

Do you think it makes sense to exclude that network, considering that it's the largest francophone university network in the entire country?

[Christian Agbobli]

The Université du Québec network is concerned about the decline of French in Canada. In the scientific field, that decline is indeed pronounced. We hope that the panel will be able to meet with us and talk to us, so that our ideas can be more present and so that we can better position ourselves and make ourselves known.

We welcomed the creation of this panel, and we hope that we will be able to make our voice heard through the representatives who are part of it right now. Research in French is important, and, I repeat, the Université du Québec network is, as you said, the largest university network in the country, from coast to coast to coast.

There are 100,000 students attending universities in our network, and the number of professors and researchers far exceeds that of all universities in the country. So we have an important role to play.

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

Mr. Agbobli, concretely speaking, would you like to be part of the expert panel?

I personally can't believe that, within the 10 institutions that are part of the largest francophone university network in the country, no one has the knowledge required to sit on this new expert panel.

Do you want to send a message to the government that you would like to be part of the expert panel?

[Christian Agbobli]

We would like to be heard by the expert panel so that we can put forward our position and explain what the large Université du Québec network can do.

I hope I've answered your question very clearly.

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

It's very clear, Mr. Agbobli.

You talked about promoting science in French.

In concrete terms, what are your expectations of the capstone organization in terms of promoting and disseminating research in French in Quebec and across Canada?

[Christian Agbobli]

We have a variety of expectations. First, support should be provided to scholarly journals in French. Knowledge in French goes through those journals in this field.

In the natural sciences and engineering and health fields, there are virtually no options for publishing research results in French. Consequently, 90% of publications in these fields of research are in English.

So we need the capstone organization to support—

[The Chair, Liberal, Valerie Bradford]

Excuse me. We're over our time. Perhaps you can continue that in your next round, MP Blanchette-Joncas, to let the witness finish. That would be great.

MP Blaney, you now have the floor for six minutes.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Thank you so much, Madam Chair.

I want to thank all the witnesses for their testimony here today.

Dr. Sheane and Ms. Watts-Rynard, I really appreciate your testimony earlier. I represent a rural and remote area as well. I know that pragmatic solutions are often key because when you have fewer resources, you have to be very smart about how you collaborate and work together.

My first question is about your response to the capstone research funding organization consultation. You hold up the European universities initiative as an example of challenge and/or expertise-driven collaboration in a network of research. What is particularly important about this, and what do you think Canada needs to learn from it?

[Sarah Watts-Rynard]

What we are trying to really point out is that interdisciplinary research is not necessarily investigator-led. It's something where there's a shared topic of national interest and then an ability to bring together researchers from various parts of the academic sector to address that.

One of the things we see in the European universities is these connections between research expertise that is connected—not necessarily the same—and is able to come at a problem from various angles and benefit from that. It's something I see when I look at the network of my members across the country.

There is a desire to work around artificial intelligence, for example. It's not a theoretical opportunity. The opportunity is to take something we know about and try to apply that to real problems. That would be done in different ways by different institutions. That's an opportunity to think about implementation. What does that look like for small businesses? What does that look like for the agricultural sector, the mining sector or elder care, for example?

I think it's that idea of trying to get networks of experts together to solve big challenges rather than stand-alone projects that are focused around one researcher's idea.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

I know, from a long history of living in rural communities, that often rural and remote communities have booms and busts. It's always up and down, and that's very stressful on the communities, and it's frustrating, because a lot of money during the boom is made in the communities and it leaves the communities to subsidize other parts of Canada, and then when it's bust time, often the resources aren't there to help us move through it.

In the work you're demonstrating in terms of economic development and working with different industries to find solutions that make sense within the area, what kind of investment or support would be more beneficial to actually see that expand so we can see a diversification of the economy?

To add another thought to that, one of the things I've heard a lot of researchers tell me is that in Canada we do a lot of great work at the beginning, but we don't take the next step. Often, other countries take our research, do the next steps and then become the specialists who can create opportunities to make money in their own country, and then we're buying what we started in the first place.

I'm wondering if any of that makes sense, and if you see opportunities where funding might actually result in that.

[Sarah Watts-Rynard]

Certainly, one of the things we see is the billions of dollars that get spent in the research community. I'm not suggesting that work is not important; what I'm suggesting is we have really not spent a lot of time and resources on how we take that knowledge and then provide the tools to businesses to use that information, to commercialize it and to turn it into products and services and support across the country.

I would certainly like to see us go from under 3% of funding to at least 10% of research funding. My recommendation around the capstone research funding organization is not to try to do what the tri-council members are already doing, but to try something new and different. That is going to require bringing different players to the table, taking apart the system as it works now, and thinking about how we can bring all of the strengths of investigator-led research to make it really pragmatic.

I think that's where polytechnics and colleges are extremely strong, and I think we have really just underplayed their role.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Do you have anything you'd like to add, Dr. Sheane?

[Dr. Vanessa Sheane]

What I will add is that, as a publicly funded post-secondary institution, it's not our place to say what the directive research topic study is. We look to industry and have them come to us with the challenge. We provide our expertise in terms of equipment, technology, academic rigour and evaluation methods, and then translate the results into practice. That's really where polytechnics have that strength. We're not setting the research agenda, but we are using our skills to support industry and communities in what they need, and we can do that through a rigorous research approach.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Thank you. I appreciate that.

I'll cede the last 10 seconds.

[The Chair, Liberal, Valerie Bradford]

Thank you.

Okay. We will now turn to our second round of questions.

We'll start with MP Kitchen for five minutes.

[Robert Gordon Kitchen, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, all three of you, for your presentations here today.

We're talking about the capstone, an agency that's being created to deal with the tri-council, the three federal research funding councils. I think the challenge that we have is the perception, from the witnesses we've heard, that the capstone is going to have a whole bunch more money to give out to people, because researchers come for money. That's what they need. Having been one in the past, I can say that you need that to survive.

It's so great to hear from all of you, in particular when we talk about the polytechnics etc., all across the country that do tremendous work with businesses, and that trickle-down effect to communities gets the research that is dealing with things like boots on the ground.

At Southeast College in my hometown, Tania Andrist, educational director for innovation and applied research, is looking at things such as carbon capture, which are great research projects. However, as we heard from my colleague, our concern is that, while you have all these research projects, they're not touching things like that, which are so important.

The challenge is how to ensure that the colleges are getting that. You mentioned that only 2.9% of funding is going to colleges. I think the job should be done by the tri-council; the tri-council should be accountable for where that funding is going. Rather than creating a whole new bureaucracy, let's get the tri-council to actually do the part that the capstone is being proposed for.

Ms. Watts-Rynard, do you have any thoughts on that?

[Sarah Watts-Rynard]

I think the tri-council members are disciplinary in nature, so they fund researchers in those areas of discipline. There's nothing wrong with that, as long as something comes out of that research, that somebody, somewhere is thinking, “Okay, so how are we going to use this? How are we going to make that pragmatic?”

I would argue that's what polytechnics and colleges are already doing. If there is going to be the creation of this additional bureaucracy, as you say, I would like to see that bureaucracy tasked with how we can make the research that is falling out of the tri-council pragmatic and how we can apply that knowledge to real problems across the country. I would suggest that if it doesn't do that, then it really is a waste of time and money.

[Robert Gordon Kitchen, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

I appreciate that. I see it as a waste of time because that's what's going to happen as a bureaucracy. What I'm hearing from you, however, is that perhaps we should be saying, “Okay, let's take that money and create a fourth body of the tri-council that deals with institutions that are providing the research and that works on the ground with the local businesses and so on”. Is that correct?

[Sarah Watts-Rynard]

No. Really, what I would like to see is an umbrella organization that is making more of a pointed direction to the tri-council, saying, “Here are the big challenges we have in the country, and we would like to see some of the work that is being done—funding that exists within the tri-council—being earmarked to interdisciplinary research that is related to Canada's big challenges”.

I actually don't think it's a great idea to keep throwing more money at another agency to create yet another bureaucracy. I'd actually prefer to see a real effort to make that more effective.

[Robert Gordon Kitchen, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

What I'm hearing from you is that the government needs to do its job to tell the tri-council members to do their job.

[Sarah Watts-Rynard]

That is what I am saying.

[Robert Gordon Kitchen, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Dr. Sheane, it is great to hear your comments on oil and agriculture. I mentioned Southeast College in my community in Saskatchewan. How do we expand upon that? How do we get that to the attention of the tri-council and say that we should be putting money towards this research funding? Why is this not part of equity diversity?

[Dr. Vanessa Sheane]

My simple, straight-up answer is that all funding opportunities need to be available to all post-secondary institutions. There are many that colleges and polytechnics are not eligible to apply for because we're colleges and polytechnics. To open it up and make those opportunities available for funding, they all need to be available to every post-secondary institution.

[The Chair, Liberal, Valerie Bradford]

Thank you.

We'll now turn to MP Chen.

You have the floor for five minutes.