Science and Research Committee on Oct. 31st, 2022

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Mr. Vats, in November 2021, the Government of Quebec announced that it would provide financial support for creating a new service to assist research in French, a recommendation that had been made by Acfas. That service will be offered to francophones across Canada.

The request for funding was also sent to the federal government. Will the federal government contribute to funding the service to assist research in French?

[Dr. Nipun Vats]

I'm not aware of any commitment to do so.

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

Would it be possible to get an answer from your department, Mr. Vats?

[Dr. Nipun Vats]

Certainly. We could do that. I will say that we have provided support to Acfas activities, but with respect to that specific initiative, I don't have that information.

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

Thank you, Mr. Vats.

Several witnesses we have heard at the committee's recent meetings presented concrete, realistic suggestions to counteract the decline in French in research and scientific publication in Canada.

Has your department previously considered implementing certain measures to promote research and scientific publication in French?

[Dr. Nipun Vats]

I don't think we've looked at specific measures in that regard. I think we've focused a lot on the range of issues around ensuring equitable review. We generally don't, except through the grants that are provided through the councils, fund publication in either official language, so we don't normally have such a policy.

Madame La Traverse might have specifics on whether there are any such programs within SSHRC, but as a general policy, we don't have any specific funding in that regard.

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

To be sure we understand, Mr. Vats, are there criteria in granting your funding designed to promote or increase the presence of French in research and scientific publication in Canada?

[Dr. Nipun Vats]

I don't believe there's anything specific to that effect.

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

Thank you, Mr. Vats.

Ms. La Traverse, I have taken a look at your impressive professional career, one of your accomplishments being to develop international expertise at Global Affairs Canada.

Based on your experience, how would you assess the role that Canada can play as a scientific leader within the global francophone community?

[Valérie La Traverse]

I think we have a very good opportunity to demonstrate leadership within the global francophone community. As I said earlier, the fact that we are a bilingual country with francophone strength in the sciences presents a good opportunity to develop collaborations in that regard.

We are currently developing an international approach. As I said earlier, we are in talks with Switzerland, Belgium and France. We are also developing collaborations in Africa...

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

Forgive me for interrupting you, Ms. La Traverse, but time is flying.

You say you are currently developing an approach. Does that mean that there is no strategy within the government at present to extend the influence of French as a scientific language globally?

[Valérie La Traverse]

There may be a strategy at Global Affairs Canada, where I worked. At present, we are collaborating very actively with the members of the Francophonie. At the SSHRC, however, we have always worked very closely with France...

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

To your knowledge, is there a strategic plan at the SSHRC, or even at Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada?

[Valérie La Traverse]

I am not aware of a strategy, properly speaking, but...

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

I would appreciate it if you would provide us with a more detailed answer from the department.

A few moments ago, I presented data collected by the Canada Research Chair in the transformations of scholarly communication that showed that between 1980 and 2014 there was a 25.6 per cent decline in scientific publishing in French in the social sciences and humanities.

Do you consider that decline to be a free fall or a normal decrease?

[Valérie La Traverse]

I'm sorry, I would have to have the information in front of me to answer you.

That said, at the SSHRC we support the aid to scholarly journals program and we give out the awards to scholarly publications. We also have a partnership with the Érudit platform, as you heard earlier.

So I was not entirely aware of the free fall you're talking about, because we do everything we can to support assistance to scientific publishing in French in Canada.

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

Thank you, Ms. La Traverse.

I am going to come back...

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Thank you very much, Monsieur Blanchette-Joncas.

Thank you to our witnesses.

We will now go to Ms. Diab for five minutes.

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

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Welcome to both of our witnesses. It's a very interesting panel. Thank you very much for being here.

I was very interested to hear from you, Madame La Traverse.

One of my questions was about institutions outside Quebec that are francophone in a French-language minority setting—Université Sainte-Anne in Nova Scotia, for example. I want to speak to you about the challenges researchers there have, as well as the institutions themselves. I want to ask what, if anything, your organization does to help those researchers and institutions.

[Valérie La Traverse]

As I mentioned, we have institutional grants for universities. We have supplements for smaller universities, which tend to be the francophone universities you're speaking about. We also, through our research support fund—as I mentioned earlier—have a calculation in which we provide, potentially, a higher proportion of indirect costs to those institutions.

I might add that those institutional grants can be used to support research activities in those universities. The university could choose to use that institutional grant—the funds—to promote French-language research in their institution.

I would also say that we're very active in terms of outreach. Our president visits these universities frequently—obviously, not during COVID. However, we are there. We go and listen. As I mentioned in my opening remarks, SSHRC, as an organization, believes in the bilingual character of our country. We make it a point to visit those institutions in order to understand what their concerns might be.

Dr. Vats referred to this earlier, and I didn't have an opportunity to say it: I would also add that 25% of our reviewers correspond in French in our merit review committees. That's quite an important figure. We also ask that all merit reviewers have bilingual capacity.

I hope that answers your question in terms of the support we provide for those minority-language institutions outside Quebec.

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

Yes, thank you very much.

Mr. Vats, I have a question. You started your discussion by saying that the total investments the government has made since 2016 have been $14 billion. You also talked about the connection between researchers, companies, institutions and government.

Can you elaborate a little bit more on that? Tell me where you see government playing a bigger role or an additional role in helping researchers publish in French vis-à-vis the institutions or even private enterprise, for that matter.

[Dr. Nipun Vats]

There are a number of layers to that.

At one level, a lot of what we're doing, in addition to supporting investigator-led, inquiry-based research, is also on the other end of it, trying to better connect the outputs of research to society and to the economy. That's done through some of the programs that have been developed through the councils. It's also done through some of the programs through ISED that try to promote innovations moving from the lab to the marketplace. Those sorts of business supports are provided in both official languages.

There's an effort to try to connect researchers across the country to companies across the country wherever the strengths may be, and a lot of our programs try to take that national platform approach.

I see that the chair has signalled time. I don't know if I have time to finish the answer.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

There are another 10 seconds, Dr. Vats.

[Dr. Nipun Vats]

Just as an observation, I think the more that you can connect knowledge.... The knowledge mobilization in both official languages is very effective. Enhancing the connections between researchers who work in English and who work in French means that there's a greater appreciation of the connections between what they do, and those synergies do pay off, so I think—

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Thank you, Dr. Vats.

Thank you, Ms. Diab.

We will now go to Monsieur Blanchette-Joncas for two and a half minutes, please.