Science and Research Committee on Nov. 14th, 2022

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

I'm with you on some of your arguments, but let's go back to these 10 chairs, because it shows a little bit of the institute's direction. How many of those 10 are working on humanities or social sciences versus STEM or natural sciences?

[Dr. Martine Lagacé]

Most of the chairs in francophone research are in social sciences and humanities—which says a lot, by the way. It says a lot. It means that traditional, pure science is almost completely left out of French research, research en français.

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

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Thank you, Mr. Tochor. We appreciate that.

Now we're going to go to Ms. Diab for six minutes, please.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I would like to thank the two professors who are appearing, Ms. Lagacé and Ms. Lewis.

Ms. Lewis, I saw that you had raised your hand. I'm going to give you a few minutes now to answer the question Mr. Tochor asked Ms. Lagacé.

[Nathalie Lewis]

Thank you.

My thinking somewhat follows what was said by Ms. Lagacé. That aligns precisely with what I said about linguistic diversity, which goes beyond language and involves how one's ideas and one's mind are organized. It isn't just translation; it is also being able to think in French. Having studied at the University of Ottawa myself, I can say there are really different ways of organizing scientific thought. That diversity is a strength and I think it is important to preserve it.

In addition, the international Francophonie is not a minor thing. There is a francophone audience outside Canada that also deserves to be able to dialogue with us. As well, it can help us to understand experiences, particularly those in the South, that will prompt us to revisit the scientific perspective we bring to what we do. Translation alone is not always sufficient to reflect this diversity; it is just one solution. Publishing or science in French has to be encouraged in order for these multiple ways of thinking to emerge.

There is a system that drives us and drives my colleagues. You mentioned the Université du Québec à Rimouski, a city in eastern Quebec. There are few anglophones and anglophone students in that region, so there have to be sciences in French, whether they be the humanities and social sciences, a majority of which are in fact published in French, among francophones, in non-commercial journals.

To reflect this diversity, health sciences, applied sciences or social sciences also deserve to be thought about and published in French. Translation is a good option, but it is not the only one that should be promoted.

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

Right.

Thank you, Ms. Lewis.

I have a supplementary question. What role do postsecondary institutions play in ensuring that their professors are able to publish in French?

It's easy for you, Ms. Lewis, because you are in Quebec.

In your case, though, Ms. Lagacé, how can you answer that question concerning Ottawa, which, as we all know, wants to be bilingual?

[Dr. Martine Lagacé]

As I said a little earlier, at the University of Ottawa, we try to support our researchers by creating various initiatives so they can produce knowledge and know-how in French. I mentioned the University of Ottawa Press, for example, which is bilingual and publishes pedagogical works in French, such as textbooks. I also talked about the Collège des chaires de recherche sur le monde francophone.

At the University of Ottawa, we have also, very recently, adopted a knowledge mobilization strategy that offers a huge amount of support for producing research in French and English. We have also developed multiple research partnerships, including with the Consortium national de formation en santé and the Institut du Savoir Montfort. We are working closely with partners at the international level, including in France and Belgium.

This how we are trying to create, but it is not sufficient. We are in an ecosystem. The federal granting agencies should be making more efforts to promote collaboration among francophone researchers in Canada. The research community is complex and we should combine efforts more with researchers in Moncton, Quebec, the West, and francophone Ontario. To do that, we need the help of the granting agencies, and, I reiterate, a Canada-wide strategy.

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

That's right. You concluded your remarks with that recommendation, establishing a federal strategy. Can you tell us a bit more about that?

[Dr. Martine Lagacé]

I talked about a federal Canada-wide strategy to support research and scientific publication in French. It would recognize the importance assigned to research and the advancement of knowledge in French in Canada. It would allow the Canadian scientific community to play an even more noteworthy role, not just in Canada, but also elsewhere in the world. In fact, that was one of the recommendations in the 2021 study by Acfas.

We therefore need to coordinate all federal actors—the departments, agencies and research councils directly involved in research and science in French at universities that are strictly francophone or have a francophone mission. We need to provide better synergy, that being what I believe is the key word: better joint efforts or better collaboration to maximize the effects of each of the things done by the actors involved. That would ensure stable funding.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Vice-President Lagacé, I'm sorry—

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

Thank you, Ms. Lagacé.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Thank you, Ms. Diab.

Thank you, Vice-President Lagacé.

I will now give the floor to Mr. Blanchette-Joncas for six minutes.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I would like to welcome the witnesses who are joining us this evening for this important study.

Good evening, Ms. Lewis. It is a pleasure to see you again. You are a frequent flyer at international francophone meetings relating to the humanities and social sciences, particularly in your field of expertise, sociology. Very recently, two weeks ago, you were in Tunisia to participate in the first ever Rencontres de la sociologie francophone.

Could you tell us about that experience? What countries were the participants from? Were the issues similar for every country? What did you observe on that trip?

[Nathalie Lewis]

Thank you.

The participants largely came from the international Francophonie, in particular North and Sub-Saharan Africa. There were also a lot of European researchers and some researchers from North America. Last week was not a convenient time for North American researchers, since we are in the middle of the university session.

In terms of observations, I noted that young francophone researchers strongly wanted to meet other francophone researchers to discuss scientific issues. That need was real. As well, as I said earlier, attention was turned toward Canada and the role it could play, as opposed to other francophone countries on the African continent that are more affected by French colonization. I would remind you that we were in Tunisia.

Since my return, I have been receiving requests for guidance about maintaining science in French. However, as was mentioned earlier, the present system does not encourage francophone researchers to write and publish their work in French. Ms. Lagacé pointed this out earlier. But the fact is that the demand is there. In the present system, the way grant applications are considered favours publication in certain types of journals, generally not many being francophone.

Young francophone researchers are having to deal with this problem and we see declining interest in the Francophonie, even in countries where the scientific language is French. The present model is clearly pressuring researchers to opt for English.

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

Thank you, Ms. Lewis.

Could you give us a few recommendations to counteract the model that pressures researchers to publish in English?

[Nathalie Lewis]

Making the researchers individually responsible means expecting a lot from them, because there is an international model for publishing this way. Instead, we need Canada-wide assistance to encourage bringing research in French together. That calls for scientific publishing, which itself calls for scientific journals.

Being involved in a francophone science and environment journal, an international open access journal, I can tell you that managing a non-commercial francophone journal is a heavy burden to bear, on top of our jobs, to the point of being kind of scientific volunteer work. It is hard to operate those journals. Canada-wide assistance for francophone publishing could be, first, a way of somewhat counteracting this slowdown of science in French.

The recommendations in the 2021 Acfas report spoke volumes. French very simply needs to be promoted as a language of science. At the international level, numerous studies have shown the effect of what are called national languages, be they Portuguese or Spanish, that are often used only in the country, while the international language is English. At present, I think French can and must play an international role. Canada, with a stronger association, could help us in that regard.

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

Thank you.

Could you tell us about your experience? I see that a large majority of your publications, as a researcher, are in French. I congratulate you on that. However, I would like to understand what prompted you to choose to do research and scientific publication in French.

In addition, what could you suggest to young researchers to interest them more in doing research in French?

[Nathalie Lewis]

I also publish in English, but yes, for some years, I favour publishing in French. That is quite simply in order to transmit, as I was saying earlier, a way of thinking that is not expressed in the same way—

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

I'm sorry to interrupt you, but Mr. Blanchette-Joncas' speaking time is up.

Monsieur Blanchette-Joncas, would you like to ask for a written answer?

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

Yes, it is.

Professor Lewis, could you send us your answer in writing, please?

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Thank you very much.

With that, we will go to Mr. Cannings for six minutes. Go ahead, please.

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

Thank you.

I thank the witnesses for being with us this evening.

I'm going to start with Professor Lagacé.

To get something clear, you talked about a low success rate in funding competitions, presumably for francophone applicants, yet, at least from NSERC, we heard Marc Fortin testify that of the applicants from the University of Ottawa who applied in French versus those who applied in English, the francophone applicants had a higher success rate. There seems to be some difference in that. I wanted to point that out.

You also suggested giving francophone researchers help in translating from French to English. I assume that's so they could do their research in French and publish in English.

We've heard from other witnesses that if you want them to apply in French, even though they are francophone, they need help from other francophones to figure out how to best fill out those applications in French. It doesn't seem logical on the surface, but they were surrounded by people applying in English who could help them in English.

We seem to have this dilemma of accepting that the lingua franca of world publishing, at least in science, is English. It seems to me that there's little that Canada, as a country or a federal government, could do to to change that.

What, specifically, could the federal government do to encourage French research in Canada, especially in the natural sciences, which is a world I come from? How can we help that while still recognizing this big elephant in the room, which is that everybody in science in the world is publishing in English?

[Dr. Martine Lagacé]

Thank you for your question.

It comes down to financial support, or even oversight by the federal granting councils, of the production of knowledge in French, and making it accessible and disseminating it in French-language minority communities and universities. I think we can start with that.

We cannot require that a researcher submit their grant applications in French or in English. However, I can tell you about our observation, which Professor Lewis has also made: there is an idea among francophone researchers that our success rate at obtaining grants and an international reputation depends on our willingness to produce knowledge in English.

Does that require the granting councils, the federal actors and the universities themselves to promote knowledge in French more? I think that is how it will happen. Why do many francophone researchers make the choice to switch from French to English? Surely there is a reason for that and the success rate at obtaining grants is a factor. We have figures that show that francophone researchers who submit grant applications in French, including to the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, have proportionately less success.

Recently, I was asked to help, as a reviewer, in the study of about 80 grant applications from all over Canada, including the Université de Sherbrooke, the Université du Québec à Montréal, the Université de Montréal, the University of Ottawa, and the University of Calgary. Absolutely all those applications were written in English, although some of them came from entirely francophone teams.

What is going on among francophone researchers? Have they given up because they know the success rate is too low? I don't have the answer to that, but I think the federal government has to promote knowledge in French. It does that now, but it can do it more. It also has to offer more support for the three granting councils. In addition, we have to recall that grants have not been reviewed for several years. We should maybe think about that, particularly for francophone researchers.

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

I want to comment on something that we've heard as well. It's the difference between research in the social sciences, where French seems to be holding its own, and research in the health sciences and the natural sciences, where it has declined. I'm assuming that's because in the social sciences, a lot of the research is in francophone communities in Quebec, for instance. It's logical to publish that research in French, because that is the audience you're looking at. Is that true?