Science and Research Committee on May 5th, 2022

[Dr. Shaun Khoo]

I can only really speak to the Australian aspect of how Canada compares, but I can say that in Australia, for domestic Ph.D. students, there are no tuition fees. There is no question of whether there will be an extra cost imposed on students. For international students, there are fees, but for the majority of students who are studying or completing their Ph.D.s in Australia, my understanding is that they would apply for and usually get an international fee remission scholarship.

The fees are there on paper, but the majority of students who are successful in winning a scholarship would probably also get their fees waived or funded by a scholarship, so they wouldn't need to pay anything there. In terms of Canada charging fees for post-graduate research, it seems to be a little out of step with what we would get in Australia.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Does that also apply to a master's student? Are there tuition fees for master's programs in Australia?

[Dr. Shaun Khoo]

I believe there are, but I'm not entirely sure of the situation for master's students. I think they might have some similar kinds of scholarships. The master's is a bit more complex, because there are master's by coursework and master's by research, so the variety of degrees on offer is different. There will also be a variety of different scholarship settings.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

To clarify, did you say that in Australia the funding that grad students can apply for in post-docs has been going up year by year over the last 20 years, unlike in Canada?

[Dr. Shaun Khoo]

Yes. That's correct. For Ph.D. students in Australia, the funding is provided by the federal government. The Ph.D. scholarships are indexed every year. You can look up the historical Ph.D. student stipends on the department of education website. They go back many, many decades. You can see that they've been going up regularly for the whole time.

As for post-doctoral fellows, the salary is set by the institution that employs them. As a post-doctoral fellow in Australia, you're covered by the enterprise agreement just the same as any other employee of the university. Your pay is indexed according to that enterprise agreement. You will not have any issue with your pay decreasing over time. Hopefully, if the pay rate that's been agreed to with the employees goes up, then you will beat inflation.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Thank you, Mr. Cannings, for your questions.

Colleagues, we will go to a second round of questions of five minutes each.

Mr. Soroka, the floor is yours, please.

[Gerald Soroka, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you to all the witnesses. Boy, we've asked you a lot of good questions tonight. I've taken a lot off my list already.

Dr. Leonardi and Dr. Bridge-Cook, you spoke more about the education of women, or their lack of it, and even about the tendency to not talk about severe periods or something else affecting women to have systemic pain. What can we do to improve the education so that more women actually find out about this or are more knowledgeable about endometriosis?

[Dr. Philippa Bridge-Cook]

I think it's very important for there to be education about this in schools. Obviously, that education is a provincial responsibility, but I think the federal responsibility role in that is in providing a leadership role. For example, we've been advocating for a national action plan for endometriosis from the federal government that would state that endometriosis is a problem and these are the problems with it—for example, the lack of awareness is a problem—and to provide leadership the way that other countries have done. For example, in Australia they actually made an apology to people with endometriosis, apologizing for the neglect of their disease.

It would be really important for the federal government to provide that leadership role that could then translate into more specific improvements through, for example, provincial governments for funding for education in schools.

[Gerald Soroka, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Thank you for that. I hope that does come about a lot more quickly. I don't think people should go through suffering the way you had to. I feel sorry for what you had to go through to find out that you have this disease.

[Dr. Philippa Bridge-Cook]

Thank you.

[Gerald Soroka, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

With that, I'll go to Dr. Khoo.

You spoke about the integrity in research and the foundations that can be integrated in order to ensure the credibility of data in research and improved social trust and morale. Could you give us a bit more explanation on that, please?

[Dr. Shaun Khoo]

Yes. Thank you for the question.

There are a lot of movements in science right now to make data more open, to give transparency and allow other people to check it. For the most part in science, we operate on a trust principle. If a paper is published, the dataset underlying that doesn't actually get reviewed while the paper is reviewed, and that doesn't necessarily get assessed at any time after publication either.

At the moment, there is a reform movement, or multiple reform movements, within science to make it more open and transparent and to share these datasets more publicly at an earlier stage. By supporting scientists who are doing this, that would make their work more open and more readily assessed by other scientists and more closely scrutinized. That will ensure, we hope, that the science that is produced will be more reliable.

[Gerald Soroka, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Thank you.

You spoke about salaries, contracts and livable wages. Even in terms of incentivizing immigration to obtaining permanent residency, do you think that would encourage researchers to stay as well, or is it basically just the money contracts and the livable wage?

[Dr. Shaun Khoo]

I think there's a mix, and it depends of course on each individual person. For some people, wanting to migrate to Canada is definitely part of the reason they apply to Canadian research institutions, whether it's for their research degrees or for their post-doctoral fellowships. I think that immigration incentives would definitely attract researchers.

For me, personally, that wasn't a strong factor in wanting to come to Canada. Returning to Australia was always part of my personal plan. But I can imagine there are lots of people who would find migrating to Canada on a permanent basis to be a strong incentive.

[Gerald Soroka, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Thank you.

Basically, I have no time left, so I'll just forgo my time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Mr. Soroka, I want to acknowledge that you're right. There have been a lot of good questions from a really interested committee. Thank you for your questions.

Now we go to Monsieur Lauzon for five minutes.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'd like to thank all the witnesses again who are here this evening.

Ms. Bridge-Cook, you talked about endometriosis and that piqued my curiosity. So I did a bit of reading and I learned some things about this disease.

To make the connection with the study we are doing at the moment, I would say we have to retain the best talent. In your case, we have to create the best talent and retain it.

You made it very clear to us that endometriosis is not well known. If there were an association in Canada like the cancer society or the diabetes association, or like the EndoFrance association in Europe, which is very active in the field, I read, could that help your cause?

[Dr. Philippa Bridge-Cook]

Yes, it definitely would. I was a founding board member of the organization that's currently the only registered charity for endometriosis in Canada, and that is Endometriosis Network Canada. It's a very grassroots organization focused on increasing awareness and providing patient education, government advocacy and support for people with endometriosis, but as a grassroots organization that's focused on a gendered disease, our funding is very low. If we were to grow bigger.... For example, obviously the Heart and Stroke Foundation and the Canadian Cancer Society are a completely different level of organization, but they're also able to fund research, run enormous programs and have a tremendous impact through their work. I think it is really important to support organizations like this in our work, for sure.

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

Thank you.

As you clearly explained to the committee, you want there to be this kind of recognition. Even before getting into retaining specialists and researchers, what could the government do, in concrete terms, to make your work known?

[Dr. Philippa Bridge-Cook]

I think the funding for research is a big important thing. We know that endometriosis research in Canada is quite underfunded compared to other conditions. For example, the funding per affected Canadian for endometriosis is only $7.41, and that's compared to, for example, inflammatory bowel disease, which affects far fewer individuals and receives funding per affected Canadian of about $340.

Endometriosis is a very under-researched area due to a lack of funding, so the federal government could certainly help through research funding. Endometriosis researchers don't have a great home to apply to for their grants in endometriosis, so restructuring of the CIHR would help encourage those applications and, as Dr. Leonardi described in the opening statement, separation of gynecologic diseases from obstetrical diseases, which tend to receive prioritization....

In terms of awareness, the federal government could provide funding for awareness campaigns that could reach many more Canadians than our small grassroots organization can ever hope to do.

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

Thank you for your answer.

My next question is for Ms. Nanak.

Ms. Nanak, I don't know whether you are a francophone, but I noticed that your French was impeccable.

Can you tell us about retention of francophones in Alberta, in your field? What are your strategies for retaining them?

[Elizabeth Nanak]

Thank you.

There are not a lot of francophones in Alberta. Personally, I come from France, which explains the quality of my French.

Maybe I will continue in English, because I have become more used to speaking in English for the last 20 years.

Because Glycomics Network is a pan-Canadian network, we work a lot with people from Quebec, too. Most of the universities in Quebec are part of our network. What we do here for retention is we stay in Canada. We're not staying in Quebec because we have these partnerships and collaborations. They may go after their studies to do a post-doctoral fellowship somewhere else in Canada in another province until they come back.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

I'm so sorry. Perhaps, Mr. Lauzon, you might like a written answer there.