Science and Research Committee on Nov. 14th, 2022

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Colleagues, I call the meeting to order. Welcome to meeting 22 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Science and Research.

Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format pursuant to the House order of June 23, 2022. Members are attending in person in the room and remotely by using the Zoom application.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(3)(1) and the motion adopted by the committee on June 16, 2022, we are continuing the study of research and scientific publication in French.

I'd like to make a few comments for the benefit of the witnesses and members before we begin.

Please wait until I recognize you by name before speaking. For those participating by video conference, click on the microphone icon to activate your mike, and please mute yourself when you are not speaking.

For interpretation for people on Zoom, you have the choice at the bottom of your screen of floor audio, English or French. For people in the room, you can use the earpiece and select the desired channel.

As a reminder, all comments by committee members and witnesses should be addressed through the chair.

For members in the room, if you wish to speak, please raise your hand. For members on Zoom, please use the “raise hand” function.

The clerk and I will manage the speaking order as best we can. We appreciate your patience and understanding.

In accordance with our routine motion, I am informing the committee that all witnesses have completed the required connection tests in advance of the meeting.

Tonight I am pleased to welcome to our committee, appearing as an individual, Nathalie Lewis, professor at the Université du Québec at Rimouski. From the University of Ottawa, we have Martine Lagacé, associate vice-president, research promotion and development.

Each of our witnesses will have five minutes. At four and a half minutes, I will hold up this yellow card. It lets you know you have 30 seconds.

Because we have interpretation, if notes were not submitted in advance, could you make sure to speak a little slower so that we have translation?

With that, we welcome you. Thank you for coming.

We will go to Professor Lewis for five minutes, please.

[Nathalie Lewis, Professor, Université du Québec à Rimouski, As an Individual]

Good evening and thank you for your invitation.

I am going to get right to the point, since five minutes is short.

Canada is a country where French is one of the two national languages. As a francophone citizen, I could discuss that aspect, which is of primary importance for me. However, I am instead going to devote my speaking time to scientific publishing in French, another aspect that I also consider to be important.

Canada is a relatively neutral country within the Francophonie. I have just come back from Tunisia, where I attended a scientific event on the Francophonie. I have seen Canada's influence on other francophone countries, that is, the impact of Canada's French and positive image in relation to the Francophonie. Our country can play an important role in this regard...

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

I'm sorry; I'll have to stop for a second. We're having trouble with the interpretation.

Can we try again?

Colleagues, we're going to suspend briefly to try to sort this out. While they try to work out the interpretation issues, perhaps if Vice-President Lagacé is willing, we could go to her while they try to work out the interpretation in the background.

Would you be willing?

[Dr. Martine Lagacé, Associate Vice-President, Research Promotion and Development, University of Ottawa]

Absolutely.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Thank you so very much.

The floor is yours for five minutes, please.

[Dr. Martine Lagacé]

Thank you.

I would first like to thank the members of the committee for allowing me to speak this evening, both as associate vice-president of research promotion and development at the University of Ottawa and as an individual, as a francophone researcher who produces research documents in both official languages. I will perhaps explain a little later what I describe as slippage on the part of francophones, who sometimes have a tendency to switch from French to English in their research.

Why are science and scientific publication in French a major subject for the federal government?

As the 2021 Acfas report points out, research, and more comprehensively science in French, has a profound impact on the vitality of francophone Canadians and on their ability to flourish and their sense of linguistic well-being. Far from simply expanding the francophone Canadian pedagogical, academic and professional lexicon, it provides scientific expertise that is indispensable for creating training programs, for various policies, and for appropriate services for francophone minority communities.

By producing and disseminating solid pedagogical resources, research in French makes possible a continuum of high quality education, ensures succession in francophone communities, and promotes a Canadian francophone scientific culture whose influence extends beyond national borders.

Let us understand one another clearly. The question being raised this evening goes well beyond our francophone communities. It is also the future of Canada's scientific diplomacy, its ability to influence the destiny of a community of 300 million speakers, global citizens, on every continent. The future of research in French is therefore the future of Canada's scientific, industrial and humanitarian presence in the entire world.

As a G7 member country, Canada also plays a leading role and can therefore have an influence on many international issues, be they economic, environmental or other subjects. Our community's capacity to produce robust analyses and studies in French is therefore an addition to the sphere of influence that contributes so much to our country's reputation. Unfortunately, and you have certainly heard this, we are seeing a rapid erosion of Canada's scientific production in French.

The ongoing decline in grant applications written in French, the low success rate in funding competitions, particularly at the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, and consequently the chronic underfunding of research in French, point to the rapid disappearance of science in French and thus of Canada's scientific diplomacy.

Of course, the three granting councils have been aware of that decline for many years, and the few measures taken have unfortunately not had very significant effects.

We are persuaded that in order to strengthen research in French and to support and disseminate publication in French, it will require closer collaboration among researchers, universities and the actors that fund research, particularly the federal granting bodies. In fact, in my view, "collaboration" is a key word this evening.

The University of Ottawa is privileged to be home to two cohabiting linguistic communities of researchers, francophone and anglophone, and to navigate between them. However, we are also observing a rapid decline in science in French at our university. We do our bit by supporting research and science in French at the University of Ottawa.

I am thinking, for example, of the University of Ottawa Press, the only bilingual press in North American, which publishes academic works in French and English. In 2019, the University of Ottawa created the Collège des Chaires de recherche sur le monde francophone, a truly dynamic entity devoted to supporting very high level research in French. The college brings together 10 holders of research chairs in French who are working on various subjects, such as cultural heritage, digital health or francophone immigration.

The University of Ottawa has also implemented a bilingual strategy for mobilizing knowledge, which supports our researchers in pursuing their work in their language, despite the pull that might be exerted by the decreasing number of publications in French.

I will conclude with a recommendation. The University of Ottawa would look very favourably on a Canada-wide federal strategy to support research and scientific publication in French that would recognize the importance assigned to research and the advancement of knowledge in French in Canada. Such a strategy would also enable the Canadian scientific community to play an even more noteworthy role not just in Canada, but also elsewhere in the world.

If time had permitted, we could have addressed the question of coordination among the actors.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Madame Lagacé, I am sorry to interrupt. I apologize, and you've been so gracious in taking over. We thank you.

I'm just going to hear from our clerk. Thank you very much for your testimony. We're glad you're here.

We are going to now try to go to Professor Lewis again to see if this will work. We'll start at the beginning.

[Nathalie Lewis]

Can you hear me better?

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

We hear you better, yes. Could you start at the beginning?

[Nathalie Lewis]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'm sorry about the problems with the sound.

Today, my remarks will focus on an aspect that I consider to be important for francophone scientific publishing.

I was talking about the privileged position Canada holds within the Francophonie and I think it is important to continue my remarks on that subject.

I believe that in the interests of the diversity of knowledge, science cannot deprive itself of French. Apart from being the tool of communication, however, it is how ideas are organized and structured that demands pluralism in languages and linguistic diversity.

In a world where current issues are crucial and complex, we cannot deprive ourselves of diversity. I am aware of this as an environmental sociologist. The organization of science demands that criticism and feedback be shared for all research and analyses at the international level. It is not a matter of publishing articles to pad a curriculum vitae or puff up a career—and we could come back to the upsurge in bibliometrics; rather, it is to circulate ideas and knowledge. This is central to the scientific method and it is what is important and dear to me as a scientist.

Today, we have to acknowledge the massive anglicization of science. One could hold forth at length about the causes, but that will not be the angle I take in my brief remarks. In fact, I want to stress the importance of the circulation of scientific ideas. Accordingly, as science is organized at the international level at present, that circulation takes place through scientific publishing, and that circulation must necessarily be international. Ideas have to mingle.

The work done in recent years around the language of science shows that English is the most used as the language of international scientific communication, and this reduces and impoverishes the essential scientific diversity I referred to earlier.

French, like others of what are called national languages, would be reduced to national dissemination. Here, I am not even referring to the dissemination of French in Canada. It poses a real scientific and epistemological problem in the connection between theory and practice. It deprives us, collectively, of what is cruelly missing for us to grasp today's complex issues: the mingling of multiple ideas across sectors and disciplines, and the essential, and today even vital, scientific imagination.

In Europe, it is interesting to look at what has been achieved by the cOAlition S and the leadership exercised by numerous researchers who have worked on the status of the language in science and publishing. On this point, Canada has a major responsibility to science and the Francophonie and to Canadians. It could occupy an enviable position in this regard.

Scientific publishing takes place in large part through scientific journals, that is, peer-reviewed journals, reviewed by other scientists who are experts in the same fields. We could come back to this aspect. Scientific publishing is the dominant tool or vehicle, which we will call it even if though is more complex, that allows scientific advances not only to be disseminated, but to be also circulated and debated and discussed. That publishing must reflect the importance of French in an equal position as a scientific language. That is no longer the case today, as we have briefly discussed.

The current model of scientific dissemination requires that researchers publish and be visible—which is coherent, so far—and, whether or not they join, promote certain scientific journals over others. I cannot unpack the fine points of the traps of bibliometrics in these remarks, but that aspect is quite important and well documented. This way of building reputations does not affect just francophone scientific publishing, obviously, but it nonetheless throws up more obstacles.

Apart from this rankings race engaged in by the journals, we come back to the initial idea: the importance of international dissemination and the diversity of that dissemination, the aim of which is to circulate ideas, discoveries and research.

Let us come back to the preponderant position and the domination by journals most often associated with Anglo-Saxon commercial publishers. Today, we are witnessing a push toward uniformity in ways of thinking, and it is that phenomenon that it is important to revisit. We have to diversify our ways of thinking, writing and discussing.

And so a new approach, an exceptional redressing, special assistance to francophone publishing, which is regressing, must be given serious thought. This kind of differentiated assistance might seem unfair to some, because it is not egalitarian, but I will quote what has been said by sociologist François Dubé...

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Professor Lewis, I'm sorry to interrupt. The time is up, but you have an interested committee and they will ask you questions. Thank you both for being here.

We're going to go to our first round of questions. These are for six minutes, and tonight we begin with Mr. Tochor.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you to our witnesses here tonight.

I'm going to start with Martine from the University of Ottawa and the chairs you talked about. I believe you said there were specifically 10 French chairs.

[Dr. Martine Lagacé]

This is correct, yes.

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

On the website, I believe that I read somewhere that there are 94 in total. Is that a current number of how many chairs there are available at the University of Ottawa?

[Dr. Martine Lagacé]

Are you talking about internal or external chairs?

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

I would say internal chairs. What are the French ones? Are they referred to as internal or external?

[Dr. Martine Lagacé]

I think there must be close to about more than 70 internal chairs, yes.

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

There are 70 internal chairs.

You identified those 10, but what would be the breakdown of all the chairs, then? Is it just 10 of whatever that number is, or are there other ones that would work and publish in French but don't fall within those 10?

[Dr. Martine Lagacé]

Individual professors can decide to publish their work in either French or English, but aside from those 10, no, there are no other chairs, if I'm understanding your question correctly.

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

I'm just trying to understand. What you have control over is whom you assign those chair positions to. You assign 10 of I believe 94 just for French-only speaking and publishing professors, if that's correct.

[Dr. Martine Lagacé]

It is correct. These chairs were created to support publishing in French, which we tend to see moving backwards right now at the University of Ottawa. Many, many, many francophone professors tend to make the decision that if you publish in English, your impact factor will increase substantially. It will change your reputation internationally, because everyone knows in the world of research that if you publish, for example, in the Journal of Applied Gerontology, which is an American journal, your reputation as a researcher will increase incrementally.

If I decide to publish in a francophone journal, of course my reputation, my influence as a researcher, will be obviously reduced.

That's a fact, per se; hence the importance of creating support for francophone researchers with a translation service, for example, that could help them translate their publications from French to English and as such increase their influence and reputation worldwide.

Personally, as a researcher, I have often decided to switch from French to English in my scientific production, although I am a francophile. I can see quite clearly that when I publish in English, I have an impact that is not at all comparable to what I can have when I publish in French, since there is a bigger pool of readers. That is unfortunate and it prompts many francophone researchers to give up and decide to publish in English only.

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

Not to criticize, but if the problem is, to your point, that there are so many more people who would read English over French, it doesn't matter how many dollars we potentially could invest in trying to get more publications if the eyeballs are still going to be the same ratio. Is it actually going to accomplish what some believe needs fixing?

[Dr. Martine Lagacé]

It's also a matter of diversity of knowledge.

French will never disappear.

There is a big community of francophone researchers in the world. We could publish knowledge in English only, but we would be depriving ourselves of a diversity of ideas and knowledge. Of course, the readership is larger for scientific journals in English, but francophones still also have a duty to publish and disseminate research in French in various fields and to make sure that the reader has access to that knowledge also.

So I come back to one of our recommendations, which is to support francophone researchers so they continue to create knowledge in French. That calls for a translation service to help them disseminate their scientific production in English in a bigger pool. It would then circulate in both languages.

Actually, coming from a university where bilingualism is one of our core values, I would say that to be able to publish in both languages is extremely important for the creation and circulation of knowledge.

Francophones are therefore less privileged in this regard.

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

I'm going to run out of time here shortly, and I want to ask another question.

[Dr. Martine Lagacé]

Yes.