Science and Research Committee on Nov. 21st, 2022

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Good evening, everyone. I call this meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number 23 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Science and Research.

Today's meeting, as you know, 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 using the Zoom application. Pursuant to Standing Order 108(3)(i), and the motion adopted by the committee on Monday, September 26, 2022, we are continuing the study of international moon shot programs.

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

Please wait until I recognize you by name before speaking. For those participating via video conference, click on the microphone icon to activate your mike. Please mute yourself when you are not speaking. For interpretation for those on Zoom, you have the choice at the bottom of your screen of floor, English or French. For those in the room, you can use the earpiece and select the desired channel.

I'll remind you that all comments 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 this regard.

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.

I also see that Ms. Sonia Sidhu is joining us tonight. Welcome.

I would now like to welcome all our witnesses.

We are absolutely delighted tonight to have the Right Honourable Mr. David Johnston, former governor general of Canada. From the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, we have Dr. Alan Bernstein, president emeritus. From the Climate Emergency Unit, we have Mr. Seth Klein, who is the team lead.

To all our witnesses, we are delighted you're joining us and I welcome you.

Each witness will have five minutes to speak. At the four and a half minute mark, I'll hold up a yellow card. We aim to be fair, so it's five minutes. They'll let you know when you have 30 seconds left to go.

With that, we will turn it over to the Right Honourable David Johnston for five minutes. Welcome.

[The Right Hon. David Johnston, 28th Governor General of Canada, As an Individual]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I am honoured to be here today and to have the opportunity to speak to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Science and Research.

One cannot overemphasize the importance of your subject: moon shot innovation. Innovation begins with curiosity and moves to creativity, but very simply it means doing things better.

Given the time limits, let me speak in bullet points.

My recommendation is very simply this: Canada's moon shot is to become the Athens to the new Rome.

We will do so by practising what I call the “diplomacy of knowledge”, engaging with the world through international education and research, with students and researchers coming here from abroad and our students and researchers travelling and engaging abroad. We will be global citizens, and our research power enhanced through international collaboration.

I've left with you three documents.

The first is my address in Vancouver on February 16, 2012, to the American Association for the Advancement of Science on the diplomacy of knowledge. The second comes from a chapter in my book The Idea of Canada: Letters to a Nation. This was a letter to His Highness the Aga Khan on the importance of pluralism and practising the diplomacy of knowledge. The third is “Canada's International Education Strategy (2014-2019)”, prepared for the then international trade minister by a task force chaired by Dr. Amit Chakma, then president of Western University. I recommend that you review this remarkable report—updated—and craft a renewed strategy for the next decade.

In the interest of time, of these three documents I will simply state five propositions that come from my address to the AAAS.

First, in our modern globalized world, the well-being of nations will be defined more than anything else by how well they develop and advance knowledge. Second, the opportunity to share information has never been so ubiquitous and so cheap. Third, communication is so fast and easy—thus so we change. Fourth, ideas are improved when shared and tested through action. Fifth, we must promote independent practices that have served us well, but we must also broaden what and how we learn.

Now let me move to some opinions under four themes on benefits.

Theme one is the benefit of international students recruited to Canada.

First, they pay international tuition fees and spend money while here and support high-quality jobs quite enormously. Second, they comprise Canada's seventh-largest export sector, while in Australia it's the third-largest export sector. We should aspire to make it Canada's largest export sector.

Third, they provide highly skilled labour as teaching and research assistants and are our most desirable source to become permanent residents. One hundred per cent of Canada's population growth comes from immigrants, which we need to support our aging population, and their children outpace young “already here” Canadians in educational and entrepreneurial attainment.

Last, climate change and population dislocation pressures over the next several decades will force more emigration and thus more immigration to this country. Canada, with the world's second-largest land mass and 20% of the world's freshwater resources, will face significant international pressure to significantly increase its current population of 38 million.

Theme two on benefits is about Canadian students being abroad for study, research work or volunteering.

First, they become global citizens with a much broader perspective. From my observation of my five daughters, who began international exchanges as teenagers, that experience is transformative. They become more curious, tolerant, judicious, empathetic, self-reliant, creative and resilient. Seen through broader understanding and their new entrepreneurship, they promote Canadian cultural values and Canadian business abroad.

Second, together with international students here, they promote the intercultural harmony we see in our domestic public education system, where young people from different cultural backgrounds are educated together. As a nation, we can project this Canadian experience onto the world stage as peaceful, collaborative pluralism.

Theme three is on trade investment benefits. International students returning home and Canadians abroad become our best ambassadors and unpaid trade commissioners. The people-to-people contacts and friendships allow Canada to tap into a much broader talent pool. They encourage all Canadians to develop broader, more inclusive views.

Finally, there are the research enhancement benefits.

Research and development are built on enhanced talent pools. International education is a splendid foundation. From this base, collaborative partnerships are created and expanded institution by institution, collaborative alignment by alignment and country by country across the globe.

Canada is already a collaborative choice. We have less than 2% of the world's population and over 4% of the peer-reviewed STEM articles in the leading scientific journals. More than half of those articles have international co-authors. This expanding base of collaborative talent helps Canada significantly in contributing to and drawing from the research strengths of the U.S.A., with which our bilateral partnership is already the most beneficial in the world. Our ability to bring in other international partners helps to equalize Canada's contribution.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Sir, I hate to do this.

[The Right Hon. David Johnston]

Bernard Shaw once wrote, "Some men see things as they are and say why, I dream of things that [ought to be] and [ask], why not”.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Will you forgive me?

I've had the most wonderful conversations at his house, so I feel terrible. I have to be fair to everyone.

With that, I'm going to go to Dr. Bernstein for five minutes, please.

[Dr. Alan Bernstein, President Emeritus, CIFAR]

Thank you, Madam Chair. I'll try to be brief.

First of all, I'll just say at the outset that I agree with what David Johnston just said. Second, I commend the committee for focusing this meeting, at least, on the importance of international moon shots. I say that in light of the ending of COP27, when climate change is very much on everyone's mind.

We all know that the issue of climate change in the world will only be addressed—here I'm quoting Gordon Brown, the former chancellor of the Exchequer in the U.K.—with science and research. Only science and research gives us that hope. In that sense, it's very much like the pandemic that we would like to be through but are still in the middle of. Again, science and research have offered hope, and not just hope, but drugs, vaccines and diagnostics that have really saved the world from this emerging new virus.

Let me go on to a few other things.

I think the pandemic has brilliantly demonstrated what science—working across political and disciplinary boundaries, fuelled by global collaboration and the prior decades of fundamental science—can do in a remarkably short period of time. These RNA vaccines have been unexpected game-changers and have certainly saved hundreds of millions of lives around the world, including probably about a million here in Canada. Climate change will also only be addressed by decades of prior science, powered by global collaboration.

Here, I want to stress the words “moon shot”. Climate change will not be addressed by incremental science. Climate change, like COVID, will only be addressed by moon shot science. That's why I think your choice of that word—to every member of the committee—is commendable. I think it's appropriate.

I want to now address this question: Can Canada contribute to moon shot science? I think this is an important question that this committee and all of us need to deal with. To that, my reply is very clear. There have been two recent moon shots that have changed the world: artificial intelligence and RNA vaccines. I think nobody would argue with those two, actually.

Artificial intelligence, deep learning or reinforcement learning were developed right here in Canada by Geoff Hinton in Toronto with his students and by Rich Sutton and his trainees in Edmonton with his students. The result of that has really transformed the industry of every kind of science and has unleashed trillions of dollars' worth of investments from around the world. That has been a true game-changer.

How did that happen? I know it happened because both Geoff and Rich were working in the States. With regard to your point, Madam Chair, they were thinking of leaving the United States for Canada because of our values, the state of our democracy and the state of our cities. They moved here, facilitated by CIFAR, the organization that I've had the honour to lead for the last 10 years. They moved to Toronto and Edmonton, respectively.

I'll go back to a point that David Johnston made.

Toronto, Edmonton and Montreal—because Yoshua Bengio was one of the trainees that Geoff trained—are now booming as a result of the artificial intelligence boom that was created by the fundamental science that was funded by the federal government through CIFAR and then through NSERC back in the early 2000s. I think there's an important lesson there in terms of what we're capable of and the role of government in catalyzing that moon shot.

The second one is RNA vaccines, and perhaps this is something that committee members are not aware of. Let me go through four really pivotal contributions that Canadians have made to these vaccines.

The Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine—which has been administered to more individuals on the planet than any other COVID vaccine—and the Johnson & Johnson-Harvard vaccine used an adenovirus vector technology. That technology was developed by Frank Graham when he was a professor at McMaster University.

Moderna, the brilliant company that founded RNA vaccines, was founded by Derrick Rossi, also a Canadian. He is also a former graduate student of mine, I'm very proud to say.

Lipid nanoparticles, which are essential for protecting the RNA of an RNA vaccine, were developed by Pieter Cullis at UBC. Every RNA vaccine administered on the planet now uses the patented technology that Pieter Cullis developed in Vancouver.

Finally, how the immune system works and the role of sentinel cells presented by the RNA vaccines—the so-called dendritic cells—were first identified by the late Ralph Steinman, who won his Nobel Prize for that work while working at Rockefeller University.

Canadians are capable of doing it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Dr. Bernstein—

[Dr. Alan Bernstein]

I will now stop. I'm happy to try to answer your questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

It's the worst part of this job—having to stop listening—but there are great questions they'll want to ask you.

Thank you so much for your testimony. We're so glad to have you all here.

We'll now go to Mr. Klein for five minutes.

Welcome.

[Seth Klein, Team Lead, Climate Emergency Unit]

Thank you very much, Chair Duncan, for this invitation.

I'm joining you from the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh nations, otherwise known as Vancouver.

It's an honour to be in such distinguished company today. In truth, I'm not entirely certain why you invited me. I'm not a scientist or an engineer, although I am indeed interested in the speedy mass deployment of research and technology. I'm a public policy researcher and writer. For 22 years, I was the founding B.C. director of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. More recently, I'm the author of a 2020 book that I believe some of you are familiar with, entitled A Good War: Mobilizing Canada for the Climate Emergency. I believe it's the ideas in this book that prompted this invitation.

When it comes to the climate crisis, and to borrow an apt phrase, “Houston, we have a problem.” I am not the first person to equate the urgent need for dramatic action on the climate emergency with the moon shot. David Suzuki has frequently done so. Just last week, a Guardian editorial directed at the world leaders gathered at the COP meetings in Egypt, running in 30 media organizations across 20 countries, stated the following:

Time is running out. Rather than getting out of fossil fuels and into clean energy, many wealthy nations are reinvesting in oil and gas, failing to cut emissions fast enough and haggling over the aid they are prepared to send to poor countries. All this while the planet hurtles towards the point of no return—where climate chaos becomes irreversible.

Then, they wrote this:

Solving the crisis is the moonshot of our times. Getting to the moon succeeded within a decade because huge resources were devoted to it. A similar commitment is needed now.

Let me speak specifically to the Canadian context.

As a country, for the last 20 years, and despite all our climate pledges and commitments, the best we have managed to do is plateau our emissions at a historic high. We have failed to actually bend the curve. The last year for which we have GHG data is 2020, and we did see a notable decline that year. However, recall this was the year of lockdown, with so much travel and economic activity suspended. Most analysts predict we will see an increase again in 2021, when data becomes available.

The federal government is now taking climate action, but that action is nowhere close to the speed and scale the crisis demands. I think we will, in coming years, see a slow bending of the curve of our carbon pollution, but not nearly at the pitch and pace the science demands. The federal government's climate policies will be modestly successful, but not moon shot successful. There's no comfort in that. As the great climate writer Bill McKibben said, to win slowly on climate is to lose.

Why have we seen so little progress on this task? One of the key reasons, I contend, is this: If you survey our federal and provincial climate policies to date, what they almost all have in common is that they are voluntary. We remain stuck trying to incentivize our way to victory. We encourage change, offering price signals, rebates, tax cuts and credits, but we do not require change and are not driving change through direct government investments.

The government's flagship climate policy remains the escalating carbon price, which, it hopes, will cajole private investment in the right direction. To be clear, I support carbon pricing. However, as a focal point, it is a strategy that will see us condemn our children and grandchildren to lives of profound disruption and catastrophe. This is no way to prosecute a battle for our lives.

My book seeks to excavate a historic story from another time, when we faced a civilizational threat: the transformation of Canadian society and the wholesale retooling of our economy, in order to prosecute the Second World War.

I want to quickly share some lessons from that precursor moon shot with you. When I'm giving talks and interviews, I'm invariably asked, “How do you know when a government gets the emergency?” In reflecting on our wartime experience, and now also on our pandemic experience, I've distilled my answer to what I call “the six markers of emergency”. These are the markers that indicate—or when you know—that a government has shifted into genuine emergency mode.

First, it spends what it takes to win. Second, it creates new economic institutions to get the job done. Third, it shifts from voluntary and incentive-based policies to mandatory measures. Fourth, it tells the truth about the severity of the crisis and communicates a sense of urgency about the measures necessary to combat it. Fifth, it commits to leaving no one behind, and sixth, it centres indigenous leadership rights and title, as these, too, are vital to success in our context.

During the Second World War, the Canadian government hit the first five markers big time. Likewise during the first year of the pandemic emergency response, our government for the most part passed the first four markers, but with respect to the climate emergency, so far at least, our governments are failing on all six counts.

I welcome any questions. I'm happy to elaborate on any of these emergency markers.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Thank you, Mr. Klein. Thank you so much.

Again, thank you to our witnesses. We're delighted to have you. We're now going to go to our questions. You have a committed, eager committee.

Tonight we begin the six-minute round with Mr. Mazier.

The floor is yours.

[Dan Mazier, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

Thank you, Chair.

Mr. Johnston, I read the remarks you gave in Vancouver. You mentioned the ability to develop and advance knowledge. It will be the new currency and the new passport to success. You went on to discuss how easy it is to share information in today's world through the Internet. You said, “This sharing is made possible by the communications revolution brought about by the rise of the internet”.

Can you expand on the importance of the Internet and cellular connectivity in advancing knowledge?

[The Right Hon. David Johnston]

First, it's a dramatic change in how we communicate. What brought western Europe out of the dark ages into the industrial revolution in the 15th and 16th centuries was the development of the printing press. Other nations had it. China had it. Islam had it. That printing press transformed western Europe into democracies, into people who learn by reading and studying and so on, but it took three centuries for it to reach the majority of the populace in western Europe.

The Internet, which does all of that and more, reached the majority of the world's population in less than a decade. It's a dramatic change in how we communicate, and it really is a wonderful period in history because we have so much opportunity to share our knowledge so widely.

The other thing I would say is that what I'm recommending today has to do with the culture of innovation. It's a cultural thing.

I remember John Evans, that wonderful university and other leader, saying to me one time as two fellows who enjoy hockey, “David, do you think we could ever get Canadians as interested in research as they are in hockey?” I said, “John, that's probably a bridge too far, but it's worth trying.”

That's what I'm driving at, that education is the foundation for moon shots, and I mean education on an international scale. Canada has the moon shot to be the best in the business in that kind of thing, by using the new digital revolution to permit us to lead as certain countries in western Europe led with the printing press.

[Dan Mazier, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

Excellent.

We're talking about an all-of-Canada kind of approach as well, but unfortunately, as you know, many rural and remote Canadians have no access to the Internet to speak of. In fact, the report by the Canadian Internet Registration Authority found that urban Internet speeds are 380% faster than rural speeds, not to mention that the rural price they pay is exorbitant compared to Canadians who pay for Internet and cellular services as well. This prevents many rural Canadians from participating in the economic growth opportunities that you mentioned.

I think actually a good moon shot program for Canada would be for Canada to connect all Canadians with reliable Internet services. What do you think?

[The Right Hon. David Johnston]

I had the wonderful privilege of looking at that over 20 years ago when I chaired the information highway advisory council with two reports, one in 1993-94 and the other in 1994-95. John Manley was the minister. Kevin Lynch was then deputy minister of industry, and Mike Binder was the associate deputy minister of spectrum. It was the best public task force thing I've ever done. We established the goal of Canada being the leader in the world in using digital communication. Extending it for equality of opportunity in all corners of the country was a very fundamental objective because Canada is a country that stands for equality of opportunity, especially with respect to educational opportunities.

Our report was filed and a number of recommendations followed. That one came along but has come along far too slowly. I think if Canada is to fulfill my great belief that we can have equality of opportunity and excellence too, we really must make those communication devices available to all corners of the country. When we don't, we miss a great opportunity.

[Dan Mazier, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

Thank you.

As you know, the U.S. is being very aggressive with their moon shot program.

What are your thoughts on how we—as Canada, their neighbour—compete for a moon shot program? What should we do as a government to move forward and act competitively?

[The Right Hon. David Johnston]

The first thing we do is recognize what an important resource it is to be living side by each with the United States. So many of us had our education in the United States. So many of us have had the opportunity to work on joint research projects with them. So many of our institutions have benefited from Americans who have come north, such as two of the individuals whom Alan cited just a moment ago. That's a great privilege.

I would say that we continue to establish those research partnerships with the great American projects, moon shots or not, as we develop our own. We will have our own moon shots. Alan gave us an illustration of what's happened with respect to the development of vaccines. Canada played a big part in that kind of moon shot.

My suggestion is a broader moon shot. It has to do with bringing innovation to the minds of all Canadians, beginning with very young people. For me, the single easiest thing to do that is relatively inexpensive. It's bringing international students here and sending our young people abroad. Build from that a pool of talent in which excellent research comes along and we'll develop a series of moon shots.

[Dan Mazier, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

Mr. Bernstein, is your organization doing any research on new technologies that have the potential to connect rural and remote Canadians with quality Internet and cellular services?

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Your time is at the end. I'm sorry, Dr. Bernstein.

Mr. Mazier, perhaps you'd like to ask Dr. Bernstein if he would be willing to table that.

[Dan Mazier, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

Please table that, if you have a response. That would be great.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Thank you.

Now we will go to Mr. Collins for six minutes, please.

[Chad Collins, Liberal, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Thanks, Madam Chair.

Through you, to Dr. Bernstein, I was so pleased that you mentioned McMaster University and their involvement and their contributions to the creation of the vaccine. I recently toured McMaster and their new mobility solutions area. I looked at the AI studies that they have ongoing and the autonomous vehicle programs that they're looking at.

It struck me during my tour that it didn't seem like the federal government was playing a role as it relates to funding. There were private sector investments, the university had its own money and I think there was even money from the U.S. government. My question to you would be what roles you see the universities playing as it relates to moon shot programs.

As a supplemental question to that, what role does the federal government play in terms of supporting those programs when the university picks up the torch?

[Dr. Alan Bernstein]

First of all, I think that's a really excellent question, Mr. Collins.

If you look at the history of innovation of all kinds—certainly in more recent times in terms of the pandemic and in terms of other advances—a vast majority started from fundamental research carried out by our universities and funded by federal governments.

I would just point out that the recent CHIPS and Science Act that was passed in the United States has a huge amount of money—I don't remember the exact amount right now—for a fundamental research in the United States. The reason for that is exactly what we're talking about. It's the strong belief that the engine of innovation starts with university research and with fundamental research. It starts with training those young people who are going to have that entrepreneurial spirit that Mr. Johnston has been talking about. It's that culture of of innovation.

For example, I'll give you a real-life example. A young women, Raquel Urtason, trained with Geoff Hinton on artificial intelligence. She now has a company in Toronto that employs about 50 with Ph.D.s in artificial intelligence who are developing self-driving, semi-autonomous vehicles, starting with trucks. There have been a number of articles in the “Report on Business” in The Globe and Mail on her company.

That research and that company all started from fundamental research started at the University of Toronto. It has now moved into the marketplace. She's raised, as a result, close to a hundred million dollars from the private sector to start her company, which is called Waabi. That's an example.

I take your point about McMaster. There's a huge amount of fabulous research going on at McMaster, which is leading to exactly the kind of innovation that we're talking about this evening.

It's not that I'm driving for fundamental research at universities, per se. The history lesson, if I could put it that way, is that only governments can fund fundamental research. The timelines and the risks are too high. That's why the U.S. CHIPS and Science Act explicitly recognizes that. What President Biden is saying is that he will invest in that fundamental research, but he also expects industry to then pick up what comes out of those universities and take it to the next stage.

That's something the U.S. does well. It's something that we still have a lot to learn about from our colleagues and friends south of the border in terms of how to do that better, including the great research that's going on at McMaster, which you referenced. I could give other examples of research at McMaster that I think is really fabulous.

[Chad Collins, Liberal, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Thanks, Dr. Bernstein, for that answer.

Madam Chair, I think I have about two minutes left.

I'm going to cede the rest of my time to my friend and colleague, MP Sidhu.

[Sonia Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton South, ON]

Thank you, Chad.

Madam Chair, I just want to ask a question of the Right Honourable David Johnston.

Dr. Johnston, I'm from Brampton, which is the home of many innovative and world-renowned companies. We have MDA, with the help of the federal government. MDA is based in Brampton and is developing leading-edge technologies from the iconic Canadarm3.

Can you expand on how strategic investment in Canada's space sector is advancing ambitious research and innovation? What can the impact be?

You also talked about the global citizen program. What role does diversity and inclusion play in generating bold and ambitious research?