Science and Research Committee on Dec. 12th, 2024

[The Chair, Liberal, Valerie Bradford]

I call this meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number 115 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Science and Research.

Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format. All witnesses and participants have completed the required connection texts in advance of the meeting. Both of our witnesses are online today, as are several committee members.

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're not speaking. For interpretation for those on Zoom, you have the choice at the bottom of your screen of 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 Thursday, October 31, 2024, the committee is resuming its study of the impact of the criteria for awarding federal funding on research excellence in Canada.

This is basically a rerun or a continuation of the meeting we attempted to have on Tuesday, which had to be aborted due to technical difficulties with our audio. I'm very glad that two of our witnesses were able to come back again.

We're going to do a restart for continuity. We have many new committee members present today who didn't hear anything before, so I think it's good that we have a fresh start.

It's now my pleasure to welcome Dr. Philip Kitcher, John Dewey professor emeritus of philosophy, as an individual, and Dr. John Robson, executive director of the Climate Discussion Nexus. Both are joining us by video conference.

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

Dr. Kitcher, I invite you to make an opening statement of up to five minutes.

[Philip Kitcher, John Dewey Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, As an Individual]

I'm most grateful for the invitation to speak to you. In light of Tuesday's partial meeting, I now feel that I have a much better understanding of the issues with which you're concerned.

Thirty years ago, I was invited by the Library of Congress of the United States to write a report on the promise and the potential problems that would result from the human genome project. That led me to write a book in which I explored some of the ethical, legal and social implications of that project.

In the decades since, a significant part of my research has attempted to provide an account of how scientific research should bear on policies within a democratic society.

The first thing I want to say today is that public funding of scientific research is essential to a healthy use of scientific technology. Nations that cannot support their own research are dependent on efforts made in other places. Frequently they find themselves unable to acquire solutions for their own special problems. To cite one notorious example, African children suffered for a long while from river blindness because their countries could not manufacture or purchase the pertinent drugs. The foreign companies that designed those drugs found it more profitable to manufacture cosmetics for rich members of their societies.

There are two obvious consequences of abandoning public funding, and they're disastrous. The first is the emigration of the most successful native researchers. The second is the privatization of research, with the predictable result that the research done will be tailored to the needs of the wealthy. That tends to be where the profits are.

I'll add something to the text I sent—namely, that I don't think it is wise to have only private companies and private ventures involved in the development of AI.

In a democratic society, research should attempt to meet the most urgent needs of the citizenry, all the citizens. Most nations have contained populations whose needs have previously been ignored. If, when that's recognized, it appears that too much emphasis is placed on a previously neglected group, a new balance may need to be struck, but the original decision to address the needs of that group was a properly ethical choice. It shouldn't be dismissed as ideology.

Researchers should not quit the public research sphere in fits of pique. Rather, they should work with those who make funding policy, explaining the corrections they envisage. There has to be a dialogue involving researchers and representatives of the most urgent needs of all the population. Working out the proper relationship between the perspectives of the research community and the hopes of those who are currently experiencing difficulties is a complex business. It requires a painstaking process of ethical inquiry.

Much of my work during the past 30 years has attempted to develop a model for how that inquiry might go, and I'll be delighted to say more about that today, because I think that is the real, deep and difficult problem.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Valerie Bradford]

Thank you very much for those opening remarks.

Now we will turn to Dr. Robson.

I invite you to make your opening statement of up to five minutes. I'm sure it will go much more smoothly today.

[Dr. John Robson, Executive Director, Climate Discussion Nexus, As an Individual]

Well, that wouldn't be a hard bar to clear, but I thank you very much for inviting me and indeed for inviting me back to present a perspective that is perhaps different from that of the previous witness.

You're gathered here to ponder the impact of the criteria for awarding federal funding on research excellence in Canada, and I'm here to urge you to get rid of them, and also all of the funding involved, rather than refining the criteria.

I say this for two reasons.

The first is that you, as members of Parliament, are the critical link between citizens and the whole political process. In the massive apparatus of government, you are the only people we choose, and you have core duties that you must attend to, which, at the moment—not to be uncivil—are being carried out very badly. You need to be peering into the public accounts, not the test tubes.

The second point—and those of you who were here for the first try will know this—is related to the fact that I come from an academic family. Both of my parents are professors, as well as my uncle and two cousins. My grandfather was not just a professor; he was an expert on the evolution of Parliament. My quotation of the day online today, in fact, is from him.

Our universities are in a mess today, and one of the primary reasons is that they've become creatures of the state. Of course, it may be occurring to some of you that education is in fact constitutionally provincial, and you're right. Nevertheless, the federal government somehow seems to spend something on the order of $15 billion a year on post-secondary education, and I don't think it's doing much good.

More to the point, when I speak of your core duties, the first one I want to mention is the national finances. Solvency is a critical thing, yet we are facing massive deficits. We just got this weird Christmas tax break that's apparently going to save each of us $4.51 and cost firms millions to administer. I urge you to put aside genetic codes and look at the tax code.

An even greater responsibility is the defence of the realm. I'm just drawing here on very recent news stories. Canada is defenceless in the Arctic. We have no assets there worthy of the name. In fact, we are generally defenceless in an increasingly dangerous world.

Again, I tell you to forget about antimatter and get us some ammunition and somebody capable of firing it.

Another critical federal responsibility is infrastructure. A news story revealed that Via Rail is getting subsidies exceeding $1,000 a passenger, but it can't make the trains run on time. Then some minister was promising, finally, a human right to clean drinking water for first nations and long-term sustainable funding for generations. What we really have is boil water advisories for generations. I say to forget heavy water and fix the tap water.

Then there was the story about the Federal Court maybe having to curtail hearings because they have such a funding shortfall. Nothing is more fundamental to peace, order and good government than justice—except defence—but justice is collapsing as well in this country. You could wait almost a year just to get a hearing on a traffic ticket. I assure you that's true. This is happening even though federal spending has ballooned from under $300 billion a decade ago to over half a trillion today, the national debt is over a trillion dollars and the federal public service is up a baffling 40%.

You as MPs need to make this stuff stop. Never mind inventing a Canadian bilingual chatbot. I do think there's a certain irony in the fact that the hearings fell apart last time because we couldn't actually manage translation. Is there anything that the federal government ought to be more on top of than that?

You know, I would say more about the universities, but time is short. Bruce Pardy and Heather Exner-Pirot both spoke about that. I want to come back to this point that you should leave education to the provinces. It's bad enough with them in charge.

When you cut, if you cut the spending—I'm talking about that $15 billion, to end on a slightly more cheerful note—take about a billion dollars of it and buy yourself some staff. I worked on Capitol Hill almost 30 years ago and I discovered that the congressional U.S. House of Representatives' budget committee alone had about 100 staff. Representatives have close to 20 each. Senators have dozens; a lot of them are doing administrative or constituency work, but they have five or 10 full-time policy people to keep them on top of what's happening.

Here, you're looking at five staff in total. I'll tell you what: Cabinet, the party leaders and the bureaucracy do not want MPs on top of issues, because it makes you less docile. They want to distract you, and this issue today is a distraction. Laser beams? That's for cats to chase.

We citizens need legislators who are focused on fundamentals, not cold fusion, because right now, in the central responsibilities—

[The Chair, Liberal, Valerie Bradford]

Thank you. That's our time. I'm going to stop you there—

[Dr. John Robson]

Nobody's minding the store, and it shows.

[The Chair, Liberal, Valerie Bradford]

I'm sorry.

I need to caution you as well. We are still having some trouble with your sound today. I hear a little fuzziness. When you're answering questions, I'm going to have to ask you to speak a little more slowly just so your sound comes through.

Thank you both for your opening remarks.

Now we're going to open the floor to questions. Please be sure to indicate to whom your questions are directed.

We'll start that off, please, with MP Tochor for six minutes.

[Corey Tochor, Conservative, Saskatoon—University, SK]

We're going to talk just on academia for a bit to start, and a bit about the current landscape in the States and then in Canada. It would be interesting to hear our witnesses' take on it.

Included in some of the associated costs that universities spend money on are the DEI programs. We see that American universities, such as the University of Michigan, have spent over a quarter of a billion dollars in the past few years. Of that cost, 56% was on salaries.

It got me thinking. How expensive is this project in Canada? Do either of the two witnesses want to take a stab at what that might be?

No.

It would be probably be in the millions, if not billions. This is while we have a crisis of every university and every group that comes in here representing students, professors or research asking for more money.

We have dollars that the taxpayers have provided Ottawa to provide studies—I'll open this up if either of you has comments—such as one at the University of Waterloo for $37,524, called “From Furries to Sport Fans”. This is a study that was done at the University of Waterloo.

Do you have any comments on that spend?

[Dr. John Robson]

Yes. If I may, the thing is that it's not just the direct cost, large as it is, since universities, being creatures of the state, are hugely bureaucratic these days; it's the impact on education and morale.

At our universities, pro-Israel speakers are chased away by thugs, whereas people are invited in to spew anti-Semitism. There was a lounge just opened somewhere that's for non-whites only. This kind of thing does not have just a monetary cost; it's hugely demoralizing.

There's another thing. The Bouchard report talks about this DEI and says how we must have this perspective and that perspective and so on. Jonathan Kay once said, “Ok so who wants to go up on the first Oral Tradition-powered rocket?” It forces people to make claims about the nature of knowledge that they know are false. That's deeply corrupting. That would not happen in private universities. To privatize universities is not to destroy higher education, but to reinvigorate it.

[Corey Tochor, Conservative, Saskatoon—University, SK]

Thank you.

Along that vein—

[Philip Kitcher]

May I say something?

[Corey Tochor, Conservative, Saskatoon—University, SK]

Yes, please.

[Philip Kitcher]

Thank you.

I think it's terribly easy to pick out one program that sounds as though it's incredibly fruity and start in on it. It's very easy to target something, as Senator Proxmire did for many years in the United States, that seems to be worthy of the Golden Fleece award, as he called it.

To be honest, what you should be looking at are the statistics as a whole. You should be looking at the track records of research programs in various universities. You should be looking at which of those seem to have led to profitable and useful things—not necessarily financially possible, but humanly possible—that have issued results that have made human lives better.

That's the sort of statistical basis you need. Please don't wave your hands in the direction of something that comes to you in a catchy phrase and think necessarily that's indicative of the whole thing.

With respect to DEI—

[Corey Tochor, Conservative, Saskatoon—University, SK]

I'm just going to go on to the next question.

I'd like to explore a bit more of the things that Dr. Robson talked about that are happening on campus. We have heard testimony on the importance of diversity of viewpoints as opposed to conformity, which critics say is currently being pushed by universities.

Could you elaborate on the benefits of diversity of viewpoints and the ways in which modern universities harm them? The example that you highlighted is one of the areas that I believe is harming our society.

[Dr. John Robson]

This is my own story.

I've taught at four major North American universities. I've also worked for two of Canada's major think tanks. When I taught at the University of Calgary and I went to see the chairman at the end of my first year, I said, “I'd love to stay on. This is great. I think the students like me. I have good reviews,” and so on. He said, “Oh, we wouldn't have hired you if we'd known you were conservative.” I said that seemed a bit strange, and he said, “Oh, no. We just don't like ideology.” I said, “With respect, sir, we're sitting in your office under a six-foot red square silk flag of Che Guevara.” He said, “That's just decoration.”

At the end, I also had a student tell me, “I'm a graduating senior in history, and in four years, you're the first professor I've ever heard criticize the Soviet Union.” That was in Calgary. That was 30 years ago.

This is not a healthy environment. This is not a place where students are being exposed to a variety of viewpoints and are being challenged.

It's worse in the humanities than it is in the sciences, but it's getting into the sciences too. This is not—

[Corey Tochor, Conservative, Saskatoon—University, SK]

I have to cut you off. I have one last question. If we run out of time, please submit a brief for both the last question and this one to fully explain your answers.

In terms of peer review, in your view, is having peer review currently fitting the purpose in our studies?

[Dr. John Robson]

It's totally broken. It's pal review.

The reviewers aren't paid. They don't go and look at the data. They just sort of go, “Yes, that sounds all right.” Retraction Watch publishes, and then you get this endless retraction of peer-reviewed papers.

The system is busted through and through. As for the idea that it has to be public because a private system would be corrupted, the public system is deeply corrupted.

[Corey Tochor, Conservative, Saskatoon—University, SK]

Thank you very much for your testimony today.

[The Chair, Liberal, Valerie Bradford]

Mr. Kitcher, you have time to chime in for a bit if you'd like. Do you have an answer on that? No?

You muted yourself. Maybe you could submit an answer in writing, then, so that we can move on. Thank you.

We will turn to MP Chen for six minutes, please.

[Shaun Chen, Liberal, Scarborough North, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you again to the witnesses and for coming back for today's meeting.

I'll start off with Professor Kitcher.

You spoke about the dangers of the privatization of research. Could you tell us a bit more? Do you have any examples in which privatization of research is being tailored to the needs of wealthy or powerful corporations and does not necessarily support broad research for the greater public good?

[Philip Kitcher]

It's all over parts of the pharmaceutical industry. You only need to look very broadly at the kinds of drugs that are made, the kinds of drugs that are marketed and the ways in which, for example, drugs that are addictive were pushed. I'm thinking of things like the Sackler family.

There is a huge amount of stuff that doesn't get produced even though it would do good, because it turns out to be unprofitable. This is a terribly sad story.

I co-authored a study with a young student at Columbia early in the 21st century in which we took a hard look at the ways that the needs of people around the world were being met by big pharma. It has gotten much better than that in the years since, but there's still a lot wrong with it.

Privatization is driven by profit motives, and people who can't pay don't tend to get the drugs they need, even when those drugs have already been developed.

[Shaun Chen, Liberal, Scarborough North, ON]

There has been a lot of conversation around pharmaceuticals and the insurance industry, given the recent events in the U.S. With respect to the example you just gave, would you say that more public funding is needed to support research that is not created in the interest of powerful corporations and for profit motives?

[Philip Kitcher]

Yes, I would say that. In my view, this is terribly important.

I must confess that while Dr. Robson comes from a family of academics, I come from a family of poorer people. I was a great beneficiary—and my mother before me was a great beneficiary—of the fact that various medicines were universally available in Britain to people who couldn't pay.

That is something that any serious ethical medical system should strive to replicate, and if the drug companies are making that impossible, then the drug companies should be regulated.

[Shaun Chen, Liberal, Scarborough North, ON]

I'll turn to Dr. Robson.

You talked about universities acting as “creatures of the state”. You have a doctorate. Your family, as you said, includes professors.

What are your thoughts on academic freedom? Do you believe that it currently exists and that professors, researchers and graduate students have academic freedom to pursue the research interests that they are interested in pursuing?

[Dr. John Robson]

I think that academic freedom is in very poor shape these days. The atmosphere on campus is such that if you speak up in class to say that you're in favour of free markets, that you're in favour of Israel or that you think there might be some arguments in favour of America's role in the world, then you really do risk getting chased off campus, and sometimes literally chased off campus.

If you are putting in for a grant, of course you have to say that it will help with climate change and will help with DEI. All of these things are obligatory nowadays. I think, again, that this is just very harmful.

When I went to college years ago, my father said, “Don't study English. The profession's lost its mind.” By the way, I should mention that my father's parents never owned a car. My grandfather, who made good, was the poor boy on scholarships. I can play the poverty card too, if it will help my credibility here.

The critical point is that, as John Stuart Mill said, the state should require that children get an education and make sure that they can afford it, but a state-delivered education is a contrivance for moulding people into conformity. This is what universities now do. The one who pays the piper calls the tune. I want to add that I think it's a very impoverished vision that if they're privatized, all they'll do is sell to the highest bidder. What they'll do is go out and raise money philanthropically in large amounts from the generous people who live in our wealthy country, based on their devotion to research.

You see what's happening in the pharmaceutical industry. What have our lavish subsidies done about that? The Soviet Union had purely public sector research for 70 years and didn't invent one single useful drug.