Science and Research Committee on Oct. 31st, 2022

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

I come from the biological sciences, so I'm very familiar with what that's like.

Just to continue again, I would just perhaps like to get some clarification on your recommendations around the differences between the natural sciences and the social sciences, and how your recommendations to this committee and to the government would differ.

[Yves Gingras]

If we want to help the diffusion of the social sciences and humanities in Canada, the first thing we have to do is put a basic, stable thing in place for Érudit. Érudit was created 25 years ago. I was sitting on the board of SSHRC, by the way, and the English Canadians were saying, “Why do we need Érudit?” I said, “You don't understand. That's the future.” Now they understand it.

That's why I say Érudit would be able to absorb the journals in English, also. As we have shown, most are francophone. Some are bilingual, from New Brunswick, and so on. Érudit is the basis to look at.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Professor Gingras, I'm sorry, but I have the worst job. You provide this interesting testimony, both of you, and I have to interrupt. I feel very badly about this.

We're now going to go to the five-minute round. I think that will take us to 8:30 p.m. I believe the Conservative Party is giving their time to Monsieur Blanchette-Joncas.

If that's correct, Monsieur Blanchette-Joncas, the floor is yours.

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

It is indeed I who will have the floor, Madam Chair.

Professor Gingras, I am going to turn to you again. I would like you to give me some more details concerning the funding granted by the federal government. Should the weight of the impact factor be reduced in evaluating grant applications?

[Yves Gingras]

I have always taken the same position on that subject: the impact factor is not well understood. The article gets confused with the journal; that has been proven. It is connected with Lotka's law and is very simple to understand. I have made tonnes of speeches in the world. Often, scientists do not understand and review committees have to be told that they are prohibited from using impact factors, including the h index, which is false, since it is used differently by Google Scholar, Scopus and Web of Science.

So review committees have to look at CVs and not assume, as my colleague mentioned, that an article is necessarily good simply because it was published in Nature, for example. A lot of articles in Nature are never cited. It is not a synonym for saying it is good.

So the use of impact factors by review committees has to be prohibited. That is very easy to do. The three bodies simply have to adopt an internal regulation.

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

What other indicator should be considered, if we want francophones to be able to do research in their language, particularly in social sciences and humanities?

[Yves Gingras]

In social sciences and humanities, it is the same thing. When the review committees at the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, for example, see an article about Indigenous people that is published in the Revue d'histoire de l'Amérique française, they have to know that that is an excellent journal in French. If they don't know it, they are not competent to sit on review committees. That is reality. They think that if it is written in English, it is better. It's the language tax.

When members are appointed to sit on review committees, the agencies have to make sure they appoint people who are familiar with the field, anthropology or sociology, for example, and are familiar with the good journals in France and Quebec in those fields. I am thinking, for example, of Recherches amérindiennes au Québec, which is an excellent journal, but it is in French. We must not forget that the people applying for grants are evaluated by their peers, by their colleagues. If their colleagues are ignorant, they are going to evaluate them negatively by mistake.

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

I am going to ask you one last quick question, Professor Gingras, since time is flying.

In evaluating funding applications, should the funding agencies include criteria that favour research and publishing in French? Of course, we agree that this applies to certain sciences. Should that be an aspect to consider?

Similarly, should there be representative funding for francophone content, in particular?

[Yves Gingras]

No. Personally, I don't believe in that. Science is based on excellence and on peer review. We just have to make sure that the peers have the tools to do the review properly.

The choice of the language of publication is up to the researcher, based on their publishing strategy. When I work on Brother Marie-Victorin, I write in French in Quebec. When I work on Albert Einstein, I write in English in an international journal, because my audience is not the same. When I write about electrons, my audience includes all electron experts, including the Chinese and Japanese. So I can't start burying my text and creating artificial journals.

The idea was mentioned earlier of creating synopsis journals. I would remind you that in the 1980s, a journal called médecine/sciences was created. It too was a failure, because the dynamics of science were misunderstood. Science is a sociological community that has its rules, and you have to know what they are before trying to transform them.

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

Apart from the impact factor, are there other notable factors that contribute to the decline in the presence of French in the social sciences and humanities?

[Yves Gingras]

No. In my opinion, the primary cause of this decline in the social sciences and humanities is the pressure toward so-called internationalization, which is conflated with anglicizing. I could give you examples in the case of France, and even of Quebec. People decide that an article published in English in the United States is surely better than another published in French. On the contrary, I think is more accurate that it's easy to lie when there is no one around to contradict, as the saying goes. For example, I know of studies about Quebec written in English and published in Australia that are incorrect. However, since the papers were written in English and published abroad, they are considered to be better.

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

Do you have any other suggestions for us, to ensure a francophone presence in scientific research and publication?

[Yves Gingras]

You keep saying "publication". You know that in my opinion, in science, the question of publication has been settled. In the case of teaching, however, professors hired at francophone universities must give courses in French. If a student pays tuition fees to a francophone university but their chemistry or physics course is taught in English, that is a false representation. In that case, they might just as well have gone to an anglophone university.

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

To conclude, I would like to hear your opinion about international relations, particularly with the francophone countries. Is there potential for us to transmit francophone scientific knowledge?

[Yves Gingras]

I believe that is the case. If we ask researchers in the social sciences and humanities whether they publish in the journals, we have to analyze, sociologically and empirically, what the people themselves do. Personally, I publish papers in both French journals and Quebec journals, for example. The rules of reviewing have to be modified accordingly, because that is the basis on which grants are awarded. We must not forget that the researcher themself is plugged in internationally. In other words, they speak French when they are in Paris and they speak English when they are in Toronto, and that seems to me to be a normal dynamic.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Thank you, Professor Gingras.

Thank you, Mr. Blanchette-Joncas.

It's now my honour to say thank you to both of you. Thank you for coming tonight. I think everyone really appreciated your very interesting testimony. I hope that it's been a good experience for both of you, and I hope you will want to come back. We thank you very much.

Dear colleagues, with that, we are going to suspend while we get ready for our third and last panel.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Thank you, everybody. I apologize for the delay.

I call this meeting back to order.

We are on our last panel of the evening.

I would like to thank our witnesses. It is very gracious of you to share your expertise and to come on Halloween.

I would like to make a few comments for the benefit of the new witnesses.

Wait for me to call your name before speaking. If you are participating by videoconference, click on the microphone icon to activate your mic, and please put yourself on mute when you are not speaking.

Regarding the interpretation, those who are participating in the meeting via Zoom may choose, at the bottom of the screen, between Floor, English and French; those who are in the room may use the headset and select the desired channel.

I would remind you that all remarks by members and witnesses must be addressed to the chair.

I'd now like to welcome our witnesses.

We are very fortunate tonight to have, from the Department of Industry, ISED—Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada—Nipun Vats, the assistant deputy minister, science and research sector; and from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, we have Valérie La Traverse, vice-president, corporate affairs.

We'd like to welcome you both. You will each have five minutes to present. At the four and a half minute mark, I will hold up this pink card so that you know you have 30 seconds. We aim to be fair to everyone.

With that, Dr. Vats, we look forward to your—

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

If I may interrupt you, Madam Chair, with your permission, I would like to check whether it is possible to extend the meeting this evening by 10 or 15 minutes, to make up the time we lost because of technical difficulties.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

I will check with our clerk, Monsieur Blanchette-Joncas. I believe we have to finish at 9:30, but I will check with our clerk.

It's my understanding that we can extend. Would 10 minutes be appropriate, Monsieur Blanchette-Joncas?

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

Let's make it 10 minutes, Madam Chair. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Thank you, Mr. Blanchette-Joncas.

Thank you very much, and thank you to everyone who will be gracious in giving their time.

We will begin with Dr. Vats for five minutes, please.

[Dr. Nipun Vats, Assistant Deputy Minister, Science and Research Sector, Department of Industry]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I would like to thank the committee members for the invitation. I am pleased to be here with you today to testify.

I will take this opportunity to introduce, virtually, my colleague Valérie La Traverse, vice-president, corporate affairs, at the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. I know the committee has already heard testimony from representatives of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council on this subject. I hope the Committee will find it useful to get an overview of the issue, because we work in collaboration with the other funding council on this subject as we do on a number of others.

I would like to start by giving you an overview of science and research in Canada and then discuss research and scientific publication in French.

As the global economy changes, Canada has all the ingredients needed to thrive. To support and protect Canadian research and science, the government has made total investments since 2016 of more than $14 billion. These investments are helping to cement Canada's position as a world leader in research and innovation and are building a global brand that will attract talent and capital for years to come.

Our workforce is one of the most educated in the world. We have world-class research institutions from which half a million students graduate each year. That places us as having the highest share of university or college graduates among OECD countries. We should also be proud of our scientific community. Despite representing just half a per cent of the global population, Canada generates more than 4% of global knowledge.

World-class research is made possible through domestic and international partnerships, including collaborations between researchers, companies and research institutions. We are committed to preserving a collaborative and open approach to science and discovery, while at the same time protecting Canadian research and intellectual property against foreign interference, espionage and theft.

To help ensure that investments in innovation, science and research maximize benefits to Canadians, the government's 2022 budget also provided funding for the implementation of the national security guidelines for research partnerships.

In sum, there is a range of building blocks necessary to build a strong economy and a secure, collaborative research system.

On the subject of this meeting, research and scientific publication in French, it is essential that we treat our two official languages equitably in order to allow the entire extent of the excellence in research at Canadian postsecondary institutions to be known. At Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada and the research funding agencies in the portfolio, that is, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research council, we ensure that our programs are harmonized with the government's objectives in key areas, including promoting equity, diversity and inclusion, and aligning with the policies and laws governing the official languages and scientific publications.

While the department does not fund or directly coordinate scientific publications and journals, it provides funds through contribution agreements with independent third party agencies that are engaged in funding and carrying out research and training and in promoting the sciences.

In order to promote the official languages, these contribution agreements require that the recipient body deliver its communications and services in both official languages and contribute to guaranteeing harmonization with the policies and obligations of the Government of Canada under the Official Languages Act.

For example, the Council of Canadian Academies, which is funded in part by the department, publishes its project summaries and full reports in both official languages on its website, making this research accessible to everyone.

Within ISED itself, the communications research centre, CRC, regularly publishes its research findings in online academic journals such as IEEE, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, and Springer. The CRC website provides a link to these journal articles found on a third party website, along with abstracts. Along with this, the CRC ensures that the abstracts on the CRC website are available in both English and French. In addition to research publications, the CRC also has research-related stories and videos in both English and French on its website.

As the principle funders of research and associated training, the granting councils adhere to the relevant policies and laws that govern official languages and publishing. They have the systems, processes, personnel and capacity they need to thoroughly evaluate the scientific merit of an application, whether it is written in French or in English.

Maybe I'll just note here that you've already heard from my colleague Marc Fortin, from NSERC, about the success of French applications for NSERC competitions, and I think Valérie will speak a bit to you on SSHRC's core programs, which have success rates similar to or better than applications submitted in English for the talent grants, insight grants and partnership grants.

In the interest of time, Madam Chair, I'm wondering how much time is left.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Dr. Vats, I'm sorry. That is the time, but I know the committee is keen to ask questions and, hopefully, you'll be able to get more testimony shared with them then.

Thank you, Dr. Vats.

Now we will go to Madame La Traverse for five minutes, please.