Science and Research Committee on Oct. 17th, 2022

[Dr. Marc Fortin]

Is there a disconnect? I think we're all seeing the same data. The data speaks for itself. There is a decrease of publications in French. I can only speak for NSERC here. I cannot speak for the social sciences and the health sciences granting councils. For NSERC, we see, as I mentioned, only 10% of the grant applications being submitted to us in French. I think there is a consensus that there's a decrease in the presence of French in the research world.

There are many things we can do, as I mentioned in my remarks, collectively. One of the other witnesses earlier today mentioned the San Francisco declaration, the DORA declaration. To demystify this, this is an approach that decreases the emphasis put on the impact factor of journals. Typically, English-language journals have much higher impact factors. NSERC has adopted the DORA principles, and we're in the process of putting that in place, where research grant applications will be assessed with a different lens from the traditional impact factor kind of lens.

This is one action. We need to continue our work in promoting science in French. As I said, we are doing activities. We could do more. We need more funds to do that. With the data I presented to you tonight, which was a very small slice of data, we can continue to demystify the notion that the success rates are different at NSERC when grant applications are submitted in French or in English.

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

[Technical difficulty—Editor] because these people who are applying for these grants should be very confident. They're very smart. They're very accomplished to have made it through their undergrad or their master's degree or their Ph.D. or multiple degrees. It would seem to me that they would not be intimidated into doing it in English if their mother tongue was French. It must be their own personal preference.

Is that what I'm to take from this, that they are choosing to submit or publish in English versus French? It seems to me that it would be a conscious choice, not one of fear. Am I right or wrong there?

[Dr. Marc Fortin]

Perhaps I can relate my own personal experience. Before joining the public service, I spent most of my career as a professor at McGill University. I'm obviously a francophone. I was doing work in molecular genetics. I submitted my grant applications in English, because I did not have the support from my institution to translate my grant applications into French.

The reason I was writing them in English was simply that all of the products that were coming out of my research lab and my research group—by products I mean publications and theses—were in English. I would copy and paste and assemble the grant application because the products were available to me, and I did not have support from my institution to operate differently.

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

McGill is a very bilingual university. Is that still the case today, or have times changed? I'm guessing you probably graduated in 2000 or something, so do you know if times have changed?

[Dr. Marc Fortin]

I don't think I can answer that question. I left McGill 17 years ago.

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

Okay, I was close then.

The other point that struck me is that Ottawa U is a bilingual university, and the University of Moncton, I think, is considered a bilingual university. I think the one presenter was from the University of Alberta. What are the expectations at bilingual universities where there are very bilingual communities? I know there are French communities in Alberta, but what should the expectation be of the government, of the taxpayer, to try to provide a similar structure in Alberta versus Montreal, Ottawa or Moncton, New Brunswick?

[Dr. Marc Fortin]

We will of course welcome applications in either language, French or English. Again, it goes back to institutional support for researchers. That varies greatly, and this is what the data tells us at NSERC. Different institutions have different success rates in French and in English, so that seems to be an important factor.

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

I have one last quick question.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Thank you so much, Mr. Lobb and Dr. Fortin.

We're going to be glad to have you back, Mr. Lobb.

I owe an apology to Mr. Mazier, who I understand is also joining us tonight.

We will now go to Ms. Diab for six minutes. The floor is yours.

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

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I welcome the witnesses who are with us tonight.

Welcome to Ottawa, Mr. Matta. You represent Mount Saint Vincent University in Nova Scotia, which is in the riding I represent.

My question is twofold. You co‑hosted a major conference in 2019, the 2019 Quitel Conference. It was the 45th edition.

Could you tell us about it?

I'm going to ask you my second question right now, since we don't have much time.

You said earlier that you are co-organizing a conference for 2025 under the umbrella of Acfas, an organization that we have heard a lot about tonight. The theme of this symposium will be transdisciplinarity.

Can you give us some details about each of these conferences?

[Chérif F. Matta]

Thank you, Ms. Diab.

The Conférence de chimie théorique et numérique is also called QUITEL or CHITEL. This acronym basically refers to a conference bringing together chemists and theorists from Latin languages, be it Romanian, Spanish, Italian or French. It is a large conference with some international prestige and is held annually, except during the COVID‑19 pandemic.

For this conference, the entire Latin world was convened until 2019, except for Canada. Two of my colleagues and I had organized this conference in Montreal. All presentations, both oral and poster, were in two Latin languages, French and Spanish. Of course, presentations in English were welcome. There is no discrimination with regard to languages, but the vast majority of presentations were made in French and Spanish, the two dominant languages of this conference. Indeed, both languages have strong roots in South and Central America and Spain.

From what I heard, this conference was a great success and generated considerable linguistic interest. Many French-speaking Canadians, who are not from typically bilingual universities or provinces, such as Saskatchewan, attended this conference. One student, from the University of Saskatchewan, I think, won an award for the best presentation.

In any case, this conference emphasized the importance of expressing cutting-edge science in Latin languages. You will be surprised to learn that the participants of this conference were attending presentations in Romanian, even if they more or less understood what the presenter was saying. So this was the QUITEL, or CHITEL, conference of 2019.

Talks are underway for a conference in 2025. This will be a conference on transdisciplinarity. Why address this topic in French? It is because the main philosopher who invented this field of philosophy of science is a researcher of Romanian origin at the Centre national de la recherche scientifique français, Basarab Nicolescu. This philosopher pushed this field of study, where researchers try to find out what the different disciplines have in common, instead of just trying to put the different disciplines together to tackle the same problem. So it's a transgression from top to bottom of the discipline. This conference brings together artists, poets, particle physics researchers, mathematicians and mathematician-artists, who are going to make art out of mathematics.

I'll give you one last example because I think my six minutes are almost up.

The mathematics that is used in stock market forecasting is very similar to the mathematics that physicists use in statistical physics, which is the basis of thermodynamics. They predict the laws of thermodynamics based on the underlying atomic and molecular laws. This is the same mathematical background that is used in banking and in physics.

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

Mr. Matta, excuse me for interrupting, but I only have a few seconds of speaking time left.

You have given us some practical suggestions.

Could you now talk to us about equity, diversity and inclusion, or EDI, in the way French is treated?

[Chérif F. Matta]

Yes.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Ms. Diab, I'm sorry to interrupt you. That is your six minutes.

Perhaps you would like to ask Professor Matta to table his answer.

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

All right.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Thank you, Ms. Diab.

Now we will go to Monsieur Blanchette-Joncas for six minutes.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Dr. Fortin, you mentioned in your opening remarks that only 10% of the applications you receive at NSERC are written in French, yet we know that the proportion of francophones is much higher in Canada.

Why does your funding agency receive so few applications in French?

[Dr. Marc Fortin]

There's no single answer to this question.

As I mentioned, at NSERC, we work very hard to ensure that the evaluation of grant applications is fair. I say that humbly.

Since there are variations among academic institutions, it's unlikely that success rates will vary because of NSERC processes, because the same processes are applied to all universities.

Variations in success rates for English or French applications by institution appear to be due to several factors.

So there's not just one factor at play. For example, careers at the graduate level, both master's and doctoral, must be encouraged in French. We need to stimulate French-language publishing and support universities. As I said earlier, we need to demystify the issue of success rates.

Success rates in French and English vary between NSERC, SSHRC in the humanities and CIHR in the health sciences. So we shouldn't generalize. There's still work to be done to demystify things in this regard.

A witness earlier talked about training to eliminate unconscious bias. We already offer this type of training. There's still work to be done on that, and we could do better, but there's a collective effort to be made. I don't believe that all of these variations stem from a single cause or factor.

We do a lot in terms of promoting science in French, and I mentioned several hundred activities. We could do more, of course.

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

I'm trying to get a clear understanding of what you're saying, Dr. Fortin.

You say that in your organization, there is no systemic bias against French-language applications. This would be due to external factors, and that's why your organization receives only 10% of grant applications in French right now.

Is that correct?

[Dr. Marc Fortin]

I would say that this is a multifaceted problem, and no one organization can be held responsible for it.

We're seeing it a little bit internationally as well, aren't we?

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

Let's focus on NSERC.

Do you have any data on the success rate of applications submitted in French, compared to those submitted in English?

[Dr. Marc Fortin]

Of course.

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

Do you have them with you? Can you share them with us?

[Dr. Marc Fortin]

I have some.

Of course, we have—

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

I'll give you a pretty stark example. The success rate at the Canadian Institutes of Health Research is 10% lower for French-language applications than for English-language applications.

We're wondering if this is widespread across Canada's funding agencies.

Is this the case?