Science and Research Committee on May 19th, 2022

[Denise Amyot]

That is a fabulous question. Thank you very much, Mr. Williams.

In fact what we need, as I said in my recommendation, is to ensure that the $40 million we got be given on a permanent basis. It was given as additional money, but just for two years. We need to ensure that it is every year. We also need to add $40 million to ensure that we can engage even more.

We do a project—and all of the funding we have is project-based—and what happens sometimes is that the company would like a bit more help, but no, you have to move to the next project, because you don't have funding anymore. We could help them more with the marketing. We could help them with looking at what the different uses of the product could be, and partnering maybe with someone else who has something that could be useful to add to this product.

There's a lot of support that could be offered, but we don't have access to this operational funding. When we were created, we, the faculty, were there to teach. It was not to do research. We have incredible faculty who can do the research, but we don't have that support to be able to provide even better services.

Because we are across the country, imagine the powerhouse of what it could offer to this country, from a productivity point of view, an innovations point of view and a commercialization point of view. I really think—

[Ryan Williams, Conservative, Bay of Quinte, ON]

Madam Amyot, I'm so sorry to interrupt you. We only have so many minutes.

I think I heard that you have 8,000 research partnerships producing over 5,500 products at our colleges. Do you know the economic value of that per year?

[Denise Amyot]

I wish I could have the money to do such a study. Unfortunately, I don't. I know that one of my colleagues has done it, and it's just amazing.

I'll give you one example. Earlier, we were talking about jobs created in Calgary. There's a college in Shawinagan, Cégep de Shawinigan . It's very tiny. There are 1,100 students there. They have amazing research capacity. They have 45 full-time researchers there, and they were able to attract a company that has created 300 jobs because of the type of applied research they were doing. This gives you an idea of the economic impact that those can have.

I have other stories of companies that were going to close because their product was not in demand anymore or it was not popular. They approached the college. Guess what? Now they are producing a lot of products that are on the market, and not only in Canada but around the world.

[Ryan Williams, Conservative, Bay of Quinte, ON]

Ms. Amyot, who owns the IP that you develop through your systems?

[Denise Amyot]

The company owns the IP. That's what is so special about colleges in Canada.

[Ryan Williams, Conservative, Bay of Quinte, ON]

Thank you so much.

Mr. McCauley, I think what you're doing in Calgary is also incredible. Can you explain a little bit more about inventor-owned IP policy? What does that entail?

[Dr. Edward McCauley]

Our IP policy is very similar to that of many other universities across the country, where it's the creator who owns the IP.

As the IP is being commercialized, there's a negotiation that takes place, in some cases between the university and the inventor, for a share of that IP. We have very, very simple procedures at the University of Calgary for how that is done, and that creates very clear procedures. Companies, for example, in CDL-Rockies, which are part of that, have put up their hands and said that the University of Calgary is investable because of clear IP and clear procedures around the IP commercialization.

[Ryan Williams, Conservative, Bay of Quinte, ON]

I wish I had two more hours, but thank you.

Madam Chair, it's off to you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Thank you, Mr. Williams. You are always on the mark. We're so grateful to everyone.

We'll go for the last five minutes to Ms. Diab, please.

[Lena Metlege Diab, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and thank you very much to all our presenters this evening.

I have a question for Genome Canada, and whichever one of you would like to answer it can feel free.

I was quite intrigued, actually, by your opening remarks. You talked about shared research projects, health, climate action, food insecurity and the fact that you've supported 6,000 trainees. I think I wrote that down here.

Can you speak to me a bit more about that and the biological code, as you called it? I found that very interesting, rather than the digital code. I'd be very interested, as I'm sure the committee would be, to hear a bit more on that perspective.

[Dr. Robert Annan]

Sure. Thank you, Ms. Diab. I'll say a few words about that.

We work very closely with research institutions such as, for instance, Dalhousie University in Halifax and our partners at Genome Atlantic, which are funded by the provincial government in Nova Scotia, to build projects that are going to involve the university, hospitals and often companies.

For instance, we have a phenomenal project out of the pediatric hospital affiliated with Dalhousie, the IWK, that's looking at rare genetic diseases. It's part of a network we call the “all for one” network, which is linked to pediatric hospitals across the country. It has phenomenal researchers and includes a wonderful node at the University of Calgary that President McCauley knows about. They're working very closely together, and they train students who are doing genetic analysis and bioinformatics and are working in the clinic to help families with kids who have rare diseases get faster diagnostics and better care. That's a really close partnership that involves the Government of Nova Scotia as the health care system, the university, the hospital and trainees.

At the same time, with our partners at Genome Atlantic, we work with a number of small companies in Nova Scotia on helping build out new industrial products. For instance, in aquaculture, when it comes to mussels, oysters and the changing climate, we have work that goes on to help breeding systems so that breeding stocks will be adaptable to the changing temperature of our oceans. That's with the small local businesses based out of Nova Scotia. In those cases, the students are the ones actually doing that work, working between the companies and the university.

It's really about these big partnership models. Whether it's in agriculture, aquaculture or health, we are always driving towards a real impact like that.

[Lena Metlege Diab, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

That's really fantastic.

We've talked a lot in these studies about the different partnerships, and tonight I think we even talked about those between universities and colleges. Again, here, it's about governments and different levels of government, but also hospitals and the private sector. I guess I picked a good question, because I am a Nova Scotian and I'm familiar with some of this.

I'd like to turn to the University of Calgary, followed by Madame Amyot.

Can you talk to us a bit about the partnerships that you've established between colleges and universities? How can we strengthen those partnerships? What can we as a federal government do to help you strengthen partnerships between the different educational sectors, but also with the private sector and other players in the economy?

[Dr. Edward McCauley]

Thanks. I can give you two examples.

One example is work-integrated learning. Instead of each institution in the city of Calgary doing its own thing, we created what we call the Calgary consortium, which includes SAIT polytechnic, Mount Royal University, St. Mary's and Alberta University of the Arts, as a collective to work with industry in the city to provide work-integrated learning opportunities for our students.

Rather than going in as one, we went in as a whole to attract federal dollars. In fact, federal dollars helped to support that consortium, so thank you. I think it's a really good opportunity.

The second example is that we were awarded a Canada first research excellence fund grant, as Madam Chair is well aware, in energy transition. The University of Calgary partnered with SAIT. I think it was the only university in the country to partner with a polytechnic on the Canada first research excellence fund. We established SAIT labs at the University of Calgary and labs at SAIT for ideas coming out of the University of Calgary to scale and prototype in the applied area.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Thank you very much, Ms. Diab, and thank you, Dr. McCauley.

It's my turn to say thank you. Thank you for being part of this initial conversation between the research community and parliamentarians. Thank you for your expertise. Thank you for being champions in your institutions and organizations. We look forward to learning more from you. Thank you for your time. We will say goodnight to you.

To this committee, who worked so hard, we have five minutes of business.

First of all, thank you all. You are just a tremendous group of people.

We have now finished the four meetings we agreed to have on top talent. Our analysts are hoping we could give them drafting instructions. Would the committee agree to issue the analysts the same drafting instructions, in a different motion, as the previous study? They would then draft a report including recommendations drawn from testimony.

Go ahead, Mr. McKinnon.

[Ron McKinnon, Liberal, Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC]

That's a great idea.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Thank you, Mr. McKinnon.

Go ahead, Ms. Gladu.

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

Yes, absolutely. The analysts did such an amazing job on the last report that I would be happy to have them take a crack at it, and then we can certainly give some consideration to any additions that we would want to make after the fact.

The other thing I would recommend is that if we're going to add committee business at the last minute—it seems like the committee is always going overtime—it might be prudent to plan 45 minutes for each panel session.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

That is a very excellent recommendation, Ms. Gladu.

Would everyone be comfortable with that? Hands up if they agree.

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

It looks like we have a majority.

To our wonderful analysts, we can do that, then, the same as last time.

I have one last piece, dear friends. Ms. Gladu, I take your excellent recommendation to heart. Thank you very much.

We've been given the go-ahead in order to provide a detailed budget for travel. Our excellent clerk has distributed a budget. First of all, is there agreement with the budget?

Yes, it looks like we have agreement. Excellent.

There's one last thing we need to pass, and I think there have been discussions among the parties. We need to have the exact dates to make sure it's a very accurate budget when we go to the Liaison Committee.

Does October 9-15 still work for everybody? Yes, it looks like there's agreement around the table.

With that, dear friends, thank you very much. The meeting is adjourned.