Science and Research Committee on Nov. 28th, 2022

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Colleagues, I call this meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number 24 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.

Tonight, based on Standing Order 108(3)(i) and the motion adopted by the committee on Monday, September 26, 2022, we are continuing the study of the international moonshot programs.

I would like to make a few comments for the benefit of the 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, and please mute yourself when you are not speaking. With regard to interpretation for those on Zoom, you have the choice, at the bottom of your screen, of floor, English or French. Those in the room can use the earpiece and select the desired channel.

I will remind you that all comments should be addressed through the chair.

Members in room, if you wish to speak, please raise your hand. Members on Zoom, please use the “raise hand” function. The clerk and I will manage the speaking order as best we can, and 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 see tonight that we have Mr. Powlowski, Mr. Williams and Mr. Garon joining us. Welcome to you all.

Now I'd like to welcome our witnesses.

We have Dr. Art McDonald, former Gray chair in particle astrophysics, professor emeritus at Queen's University and, of course, a Nobel Prize winner. He is appearing as an individual.

We also have, from the Gérard Mourou Center for Ultrafast Optical Science, Dr. Brandon Russell, who is a research fellow.

I would like to welcome you both. Our committee is very excited to hear your testimony. You will each have five minutes to present. At the four and a half minutes, I will hold up this green card, which lets you know there are 30 seconds left. We aim to be fair, so please wrap up your discussion to be within the five minutes.

With that, I welcome you again.

Dr. McDonald, the floor is yours for five minutes.

[Dr. Arthur McDonald, Gray Chair in Particle Astrophysics (Emeritus), Queen's University, As an Individual]

Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak to you this evening.

I want to let you know that Canada is in a position to compete at the very forefront of the fields of particle physics and astrophysics internationally through the presence of SNOLAB, which is the lowest radioactivity laboratory in the world, two kilometres underground near Sudbury. SNOLAB experiments are addressing questions that are also the strong focus of the largest accelerator facilities in the world, including the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, Fermilab in Chicago and the J-PARC accelerator in Tokyo. In the future, the results of these experiments at SNOLAB can have as great a scientific impact as we had with the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory, for which a Nobel Prize was awarded in 2015.

These questions are absolutely fundamental to our very existence and to our knowledge the composition of our universe and the way in which it has evolved. They're the top of every list of scientific questions internationally.

First, what is the nature of the dark matter that holds our galaxy together and appears to have five times as much mass in the dark spaces between the stars as in the stars themselves—and us, of course—in ordinary matter? We have a very remarkable and complete picture of how the universe has evolved since the big bang, which was about 13.5 billion years ago. The gravitational effects of dark matter are essential for an understanding of that, which has now reached a complete nature, with the exception of, “What is the dark matter?” It's completely unlike any of the particles or any of the matter that we have identified on earth in any of our experiments to date.

The Large Hadron Collider is trying to produce them for the first time here on earth, hoping that they have as high energies as are necessary and as were available in the original big bang to do it. We know that those dark matter particles exist in our galaxy. We are moving through them. With our experiments at SNOLAB, we are creating an ultralow radioactivity environment to get rid of everything else, except perhaps signals from those dark matter particles hitting our various detectors.

We've made considerable progress on the development of detection techniques already at SNOLAB. There are major international collaborations, in some cases, with more than 400 scientists from 90 institutions and 14 countries that have designated SNOLAB as the location for larger-scale experiments such as ARGO. It'll push the sensitivity for dark matter detection by factors of hundreds of times greater than today's sensitivity, to the point—ironically, for me—where the only interfering background in the experiment will be neutrinos.

Such experiments will cost upward of $300 million, with substantial contribution, however, from international partners. A lot of those contributions are being spent here in Canada. At least one of these will be seeking funding within the next 10 years.

Secondly, from a physics question, it appears that the big bang produced equal numbers of particles and antiparticles, such as positrons, the antiparticle to electrons. Almost all of those antiparticles have decayed away, leaving us a universe dominated by the ordinary matter from which we and the stars are formed.

There's a theory as to the fact that that decay in the early universe was dominated by processes involving neutrinos. The experimental programs at Fermilab in Chicago and J-PARC in Tokyo are dominated by searches for properties of neutrinos that are needed in the theory in order to understand how the antimatter decayed in the early universe. These are multi-billion-dollar programs with strong, international participation.

A further part of this theory is explored by the ultralow radioactivity measurements at SNOLAB. Neutrinoless double-beta decay is the rare radioactivity we seek.

The two foremost international experiments of this type, each of them in excess of $300 million, have declared that SNOLAB is their location of choice for their site. We may also need an expansion of SNOLAB, which could cost in excess of $200 million in order to accommodate these future large experiments.

These are moonshots, building on Canadian leadership in one of the most fundamental and internationally visible areas of science, and we have the stepping stone to that through SNOLAB, although, granted, going two kilometres down doesn't exactly seem like a moonshot.

SNOLAB was created by a CFI program in 2003 that was designed to bring international scientists to Canada to work with Canadians—

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Dr. McDonald, I am so sorry to interrupt. You're giving us such interesting material.

However, to be fair to everyone.... I know our colleagues will have many questions for you. I apologize for interrupting.

If I could go to Mr. Russell now, for five minutes, the floor is yours.

[Brandon Russell, Research Fellow, Gérard Mourou Center for Ultrafast Optical Science]

Thank you. Hello, everyone.

I would first like to thank the committee for inviting me to discuss the research that is being performed in the field of plasma physics at the Gérard Mourou Center for Ultrafast Optical Science. My name is Brandon Russell, and I am a research fellow at the University of Michigan, where I recently completed my Ph.D. in electrical engineering.

Although I am currently working in the United States, I grew up in Alberta and attended the University of Alberta for my undergraduate degree. During my time at the University of Alberta, I was initially involved in research in the field of nanotechnology. However, through an internship at the Stanford linear accelerator national laboratory in California, I was introduced to the field of plasma physics. This is an extremely exciting and impactful field of research, and I have been passionate about it ever since.

My graduate studies were focused on progressing the high-energy frontier of this field, wherein large ultra-intense lasers are used to create extremely energetic plasmas. My current research is focused on creating the theoretical framework needed to design experiments for the next generation of laser facilities that are currently being constructed around the world, including the extreme light infrastructure, ELI, in Europe and the ZEUS laser system at the University of Michigan, which will be the focus of this speech.

Prior to the funding of ZEUS in 2019 by the National Science Foundation, the University of Michigan had the Hercules laser system. Hercules was a mid-scale laser system, taking up several standard laboratory spaces. This laser was built under the leadership of Gérard Mourou, using the technology of chirped pulse amplification for which he jointly won the Nobel Prize in 2018. This technology allowed the laser to reach extremely high intensities, large enough to accelerate electrons to a significant fraction of the speed of light. In fact, the Hercules laser held the Guinness world record for the most intense laser in the world. Many experiments were run on this laser, both by students and researchers at Michigan and by external collaborators. These experiments studied a diverse range of topics, including particle acceleration, X-ray generation for medical and materials studies, and the study of magnetized processes relevant to astrophysics.

Since then, many similar laser systems have been constructed throughout the world, including many more powerful lasers called petawatt laser systems. For reference, the United States power grid operates at around one terawatt, a thousand times less than the power of the laser pulses generated by these petawatt laser systems.

In North America, many of these laser systems belong to LaserNetUS, a network of laser systems that researchers can apply to for time to run their own experiments. Although the majority of these lasers are at U.S. institutions, the Advanced Laser Light Source in Quebec also belongs to this network.

These mid-scale laser facilities allow us to tackle scientific problems with a significant impact at the level of fundamental science and with the potential to have great societal impact. Some of these problems include accelerating electrons to energies comparable with those of conventional several-kilometre-long particle accelerators, creating compact X-ray sources for diagnosing advanced materials and ultra-fast medical imaging, proton acceleration for cancer therapy, and nuclear fusion as an alternative energy source.

However, it should be noted that nuclear fusion experiments are generally performed at large-scale laser facilities, including the National Ignition Facility in California. Recently, there has been an international push—largely in the United States, Europe, and Asia—to develop a new generation of multi-petawatt lasers that can access an extremely energetic regime of physics where strong-field quantum-electrodynamic processes can be studied. These processes that appear in this regime are theorized to occur in the most extreme astrophysical environments, like those surrounding black holes and highly energetic stars known as pulsars.

Given a high enough laser intensity, we could access this regime by simply shooting a laser into a vacuum. However, such intensities are far outside the reach of current laser technology. Instead, we can achieve similar results by colliding a high-energy electron beam head-on with a laser beam. Several facilities around the world are currently racing to apply this concept, including the University of Michigan, where the ZEUS laser has been purpose-built for this concept.

The ZEUS laser was funded by the National Science Foundation to be a user facility where researchers can apply to run their own experiments. The facility recently ran its first experiment, successfully demonstrating operation of the first components of the laser system, and it is expected to begin operation at full power in late 2023. At that time, it will be the most powerful laser in the U.S.

This facility has already brought together talented scientists and students for the design and construction of the laser, and it will continue to bring in researchers internationally to perform experiments. Collaborating on novel, highly impactful experiments at this facility will allow students to receive a unique set of skills and gain useful connections for their future careers.

For these reasons, I believe the work being done at the University of Michigan and generally in the field of plasma physics is in line with the motion adopted by the committee. I hope that what I have talked about can give insight into how laser-plasma physics, which already exists at a few institutions in Canada, may be expanded upon to bring in talented researchers.

I would, again, like to thank the committee for giving me the opportunity to speak about this work being done at the Gérard Mourou Center for Ultrafast Optical Science at the University of Michigan. I am happy to take any questions.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Thank you very much, Dr. Russell.

We're delighted to have you and Dr. McDonald here tonight. I know that our committee is eager to ask both of you questions.

We will now hear from our members. We begin with a six-minute round.

Tonight we begin with Mr. Soroka. The floor is yours.

[Gerald Soroka, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses.

I'd like to start off by asking my nephew Dr. Russell a question. He was invited to be here tonight. There's a little bit of nepotism there, I guess you might say. Now you can understand why I don't understand what he's talking about half the time.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Gerald Soroka, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

You did have to leave Canada to go to the United States for plasma physics. What do you think we can do to improve and have better research or have a better understanding of plasma physics here in Canada?

[Brandon Russell]

That's a very interesting question.

I think this is generally true for all fields of science, including what Dr. McDonald talked about. I believe that Canada needs to develop some sort of unique facility with unique capabilities that bring an international interest so that people trained elsewhere can come to Canada to work or Canadians will have a place to work.

Such a facility should be strongly advertised, provide internships to graduate and undergraduate students and provide clear long-term career paths so that you could stay in the field of plasma physics and continue contributing to it while staying in Canada. This is effectively the model of the national laboratories in the United States, which hire a significant fraction of graduate students from many areas of science.

[Gerald Soroka, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

With that, are you saying that a lot of other countries are coming to the States simply because of the facilities they have, or is it just the amount of money they're contributing to it?

[Brandon Russell]

It's definitely the facilities. There are a significant number of facilities in the U.S. LaserNetUS, which I mentioned, was developed around four years ago and was developed for this purpose of bringing more people to the U.S. and creating a united effort in developing plasma physics.

They were falling behind Europe and Asia, which were developing far ahead of the U.S. They have multi-petawatt facilities that are being created, such as the ELI, the extreme light infrastructure.

[Gerald Soroka, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

With the ZEUS laser system being built in Michigan, do you have a dollar figure to give us an idea of what that would cost us here in Canada?

[Brandon Russell]

Yes. The initial funding from the National Science Foundation was around $16 million U.S. There have been some operating costs that have been added on to that since.

[Gerald Soroka, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Through this ZEUS laser system, what is the primary thing you're hoping to accomplish? What is the moonshot thing that you're hoping to develop from this system?

[Brandon Russell]

The ZEUS laser facility's primary or flagship experiment is this colliding beam experiment, which will allow us to access a new regime of physics that nobody has really been able to look into previously.

However, there are so many diverse and vast research areas that you can go into in plasma physics by using this laser. Specifically, even on the HERCULES laser system, we've had many spinoff companies come from that, including a form of LASIK eye surgery. We also have the ability to study things like nuclear fusion, medical imaging and cancer therapy on the facility.

[Gerald Soroka, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Thank you for that.

I'd like to now ask some questions of Dr. McDonald.

You mentioned the SNOLAB. You want an expansion of it. Is this an increase in size or just an increase in the research that you're planning on doing there?

[Dr. Arthur McDonald]

It's potentially an increase in size, possibly generated by the fact that the scale of these experiments in the areas of both dark matter research and neutrinoless double-beta decay may be larger than the cavities that presently exist.

I think there are a couple of stages that could be accommodated within the existing facility, but over the next five to 10 years there need to be plans made, because basically the world is saying that this is the place they want to come for these frontier experiments. They are, in a sense, the other half of the sorts of things that are being studied at these major billion-dollar accelerator facilities around the world. Canada has an opportunity to step forward with support for SNOLAB to attract the world and significantly large experiments, which may within the next five years or so require an expansion.

[Gerald Soroka, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Basically, this is one of those facilities that Dr. Russell talked about that we need in Canada and that we actually have here. How many other facilities around the world are similar to SNOLAB?

[Dr. Arthur McDonald]

Well, there are facilities that are similar, but they are not as deep and they are not as clean. When you come to the ultimate experiments that are pushing the frontiers of science and trying to get those questions that have not been answered yet in terms of the model for how the universe has evolved, you want to have the best.

Canada is basically the best right now, and that's why these major multi-million-dollar experiments supported strongly by other countries are targeting SNOLAB as their location. Canada has an opportunity to step forward by recognizing that we have unique opportunities here. Fortunately, Vale, the mining company, has provided the depth to us on an ongoing basis. We have eliminated cosmic rays to a greater degree than anyone else in the world. It's the only laboratory that has also made the entire laboratory free of dust that contains radioactivity, and it is therefore an advantageous place to site these big experiments.

[Gerald Soroka, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Basically, this is our moonshot program here in Canada, and if we don't continually keep investing in it, we're going to lose what we have here. What kind of—

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Mr. Soroka, I'm sorry to interrupt. That was such an interesting exchange among you all. Thank you, Mr. Soroka.

We're going to go to Mr. Collins for six minutes, please.

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

Thanks, Madam Chair.

Thank you to both of the witnesses for their appearance tonight. I'd like to start with Dr. McDonald.

Sir, I know that the province made a substantial investment in the SNOLAB program just over a year ago, and I believe our minister was in Sudbury this past summer to make a very large investment. I think it was in the area of about $100 million. There seems to be cross-jurisdictional support from both levels of government to support, in your case, SNOLAB.

How would you suggest that the federal government deal with provinces as it relates to making investments in moonshot projects across the country? Do you have any suggestions for working with the provinces and territories in terms of making public investments into moonshot programs?

[Dr. Arthur McDonald]

Well, in testifying to the Bouchard committee on the future of scientific funding in Canada, one of the topics that I was asked to speak about was in fact the major research facilities. They shared with me the plans that have been put forward by the government, which I think go a long way towards addressing how Canada deals with what are really national labs, even though they're essentially university labs in a number of cases. I certainly would like to see more government involvement and overview of these laboratories.

I think one thing that was completely omitted in any of the documentation I've seen so far is the role of the provinces in such situations, and there certainly have been situations in the past in which a smaller province has sited a major national facility and has been asked to come up with substantial amounts of funding. I think the existence of this major research facilities committee and overview on such national labs should lead to a dialogue with the provinces. In some cases, it may be inappropriate for the degree of matching that's been asked for in the past to be included. I think it's a topic that needs to be on the agenda, along with the establishment of such committees.

If I may, the types of projects I was talking about are international projects for experiments, as opposed to facilities, as opposed to something that is expected to house maybe multiple experiments, but they're large-scale on the Canadian scale, certainly. It would be appropriate to consider seriously whether this structure that's being set up for the overview of facilities should be expanded to consider international programs of this scale that are being situated here in Canada—the experiments I'm talking about.

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

Thank you for that answer.

That leads me to the next question: How does the government prioritize the moonshot programs that are out there? What would you suggest?

We don't have a specific fund right now that is a moonshot fund, so if we're creating policy around making strategic investments, as we already have—I referenced the $100 million that Minister Champagne provided to your organization—and if the government's looking at coming up with a program, how does it establish or create criteria in relation to making strategic funding investments across the country?

[Dr. Arthur McDonald]

I will answer, but let me start by pointing out that the money recently awarded was in fact for the operation of the SNOLAB facility over the next seven years. It was not capital investment. It was matched, in fact, by the province, to a substantial degree.

How do you set priorities? It's very difficult. I don't envy you in terms of the advice you're going to give the government. Many things come into this. You want Canada to be doing the things that are important in science and that will have a short-term benefit for the Canadian public in health and in areas where you clearly want to be a world leader in order to provide the appropriate support to a Canadian populace.

However, I think it's important for Canada to also be a leader in basic science in certain areas where it has natural advantages. Obviously, in SNOLAB we have a natural advantage. We should be building on that, because we can be a world leader in natural sciences as well.

I would point out that the people we educate in Ph.D. degrees, for example, in very basic sciences, go on to a wide variety of other occupations. We did a survey 10 years after the SNO experiment stopped taking data. We found that 75% of people educated in the process of doing work on the basic science experiment were in a wide variety of other jobs. Twenty-five per cent of them were in academic positions. I'm pleased to say that 35% of them were women, which is high for physics, and it's increasing.

The other 75% worked for J.P. Morgan, the government and medical research laboratories. Basically, they were trained in evidence-based decision-making, which is needed in all aspects of our society. We could attract them because we had things at the frontier of science. They were trained in such things, including the frontiers of technology. They have gone out into society and are making contributions across the spectrum.