Science and Research Committee on Nov. 28th, 2022

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

Thank you.

Mr. Banerjee, you mentioned funding. It always comes down to funding, as you know.

Canada is the only G7 country that wasn't able to produce its own COVID‑19 vaccine. How do you explain that?

[Arinjay Banerjee]

I think it has been widely acknowledged that we didn't have biomanufacturing capacity in Canada. Again, for me, it's very refreshing to see that we are making those investments. We may not be as impactful for COVID-19, but COVID-19 is probably on its way to becoming endemic, and we may need seasonal shots.

Perhaps it's not too late for us to develop homemade vaccines to continue with the booster programs moving on, and hopefully the industries will stay. We at VIDO are fortunate to have received funding for a vaccine manufacturing facility.

I think this has been a huge learning step for us, and hopefully we'll continue to build on it and not lose momentum.

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

Thank you.

Mr. Banerjee, you said recurrent funding was crucial for research and development.

From what you've seen and experienced, what would you say are the consequences of Canada's current disinvestment in science and research?

The facts speak for themselves. Canada is the only G7 country that has cut its research and development spending over the past 20 years.

In concrete terms, what consequences is that decision having, given what you are seeing?

[Arinjay Banerjee]

My colleague previously alluded to a loss of trainees, and I really believe in curiosity-driven science. I'm part of Let's Talk Science and I talk to school kids. You see the spark in their eyes. The children, by nature, are extremely curious. Our kids are very curious. If you take away the ability for them to live on with their curiosity, what would you do? I can't imagine my life in a country or in a world where I can't be curious. I think that's what science enables us to do. We can retain our curiosity.

You wanted some metrics. With regard to the loss of trainees, when we lose trainees, we are losing not just.... I can only speak to virology. I'm a virologist by training. However, every facet of science is dependent on the next generation of scientists.

I only recently transitioned from being a postdoc to having my own lab, so I really know how difficult it is to be a postdoc with the salary we pay our postdocs in Canada. I try to make every effort to pay them a livable wage so that they'll continue their postdoc studies and see science as a career that's possible financially and in terms of having a family life. That's what I'm trying to create within my lab.

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

Thank you.

Given the facts we just talked about and since you brought up funding, I'd like to hear what you think the federal government's priorities should be. Should it focus on moonshots, new structures or new programs—

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Monsieur Blanchette-Joncas, I'm sorry. That's your six minutes.

If you would like, you could ask Mr. Banerjee for a written answer.

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

I would like a written answer, please, Madam Chair.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Thank you so much, Monsieur Blanchette-Joncas.

Just let me say thank you again to all our witnesses. You're very gracious. We appreciate your time and expertise.

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

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

Thank you.

Again, thank you to all the witnesses here.

I'll continue with Mr. Banerjee, especially because I see proudly displayed behind you a book on bats by my friend Brock Fenton and others.

You talked briefly about monitoring. I'm a bird biologist and once actually had funding from a health agency to monitor birds for West Nile virus for one season. It helped us immensely in our work. We were just trying to calculate bird population trends, but as soon as we discovered there was very little West Nile virus in the bird population, they seemed to lose interest.

These moonshot programs are, by their nature, very collaborative big projects that involve different scientists from different aspects. I'm just wondering how you would see something like your project, One Health, organized. Is it international? Is it Canadian? How do you see the organization and the funding of it flowing?

[Arinjay Banerjee]

Thank you for the question. It's an excellent question.

This is something we do have an application in for, under the New Frontiers program, the transformation stream, which is about $24 million. It's a big enough program, but it's also extremely competitive, and the program funds only about six grants.

My take on One Health comes from an infectious disease perspective, because that's my bias, but we are also cognizant of the idea that infectious diseases also depend on climate change, animal health, human health and the health of the environment in general. This program, if I were to propose it, would certainly be an international program. We can't do world-class science in silos, but Canada does have an opportunity to lead it. We have all the ingredients in Canada to lead an international moonshot program, starting from surveillance, with what I would perhaps call intelligence gathering and risk assessment—we have colleagues who are exceptional at modelling and identifying which pathogens are likely to be the next epidemic or pandemic—therapeutics and vaccine development.

With Canada's infrastructure investment through BRIFs and CBRFs, we have capacity in Canada to develop vaccines and therapeutics and to test them. Finally, there are colleagues who are very good at developing policies who could come up with outbreak mitigation policies.

An international One Health program led by Canada but would have global impact is what I would see as a moonshot program.

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

Thank you.

I also want to pick up on something that Mr. Blanchette-Joncas was mentioning and that you were commenting on as well, which is just the basic support for the people in science, especially the students. We've heard before in this committee and in other studies the fact that the amounts for scholarships funded by the tri-council for master's programs and Ph.D. programs haven't gone up since 2003. Post-doctoral fellows are a little better off, but we need to increase the amounts of those and the numbers just to keep students here in Canada so that they can be there for these moonshots and other things.

I wonder if you could comment on the value of this government making those investments.

[Arinjay Banerjee]

I fully agree. I'll give you an example. A post-doctoral fellow in my lab was considering moving to the U.S. because they have a K99 fellowship program. The funding from it gives you a much higher salary, and you also get investments to kick-start your own lab. In some ways the government is investing in the top talents to keep them in their country. I'm very glad the CIHR has now come up with a targeted fund that's very similar to the K99 program, but it is still not as broad and wide as we would expect in Canada.

Most colleagues of mine, most post-doctoral friends of mine, go to Boston or somewhere else in the U.S. for a post-doctoral studies, and they find jobs. Why can't we keep them in Canada and offer them competitive salaries so they can kick-start their own laboratories and chase blue sky science? I think there is absolute merit to doing that and to keeping our trainees here in Canada. I fully agree.

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

Thank you.

I want to turn to Ms. Murray and Dr. Rudnicki to comment on that as well. You're coming from, perhaps, a slightly different space but....

[Dr. Michael Rudnicki]

I've had students tell me that they're going to write up their master's thesis and not pursue a Ph.D. because they can't afford to live. This is an equity issue. If you don't have parents helping you, you can't pursue a graduate degree. The approved pay for post-doctoral fellows is $42,000 a year from CIHR. Well, if you have little kids at home and you're trying to make rent, you can't live on that in Toronto, and it's very hard in Ottawa. Both spouses have to work, but they're living in a tiny apartment and they don't have a car. It's very hard to live, so people are leaving.

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

That's right. It's $17,521 for master's and Ph.D students.

[Dr. Michael Rudnicki]

That's correct. It's below minimum wage.

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

Do I have much time, Madam Chair?

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

You have 20 seconds.

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

I will cede my time. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

You're always so gracious, Mr. Cannings. Thank you for that.

We will now go to the five-minute round. This time we go to Mr. Mazier. The floor is yours.

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

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for coming out this evening. This is going to be for all of you, and you'll all get a chance to answer this question.

According to a report released by the Vancouver Public Library Skilled Immigrant InfoCentre, 33% of biotechnology and life sciences employers in Canada are reporting skills shortages and 20% have job vacancies in their companies.

How significant is the skilled labour shortage in the Canadian biotechnology industry?

[Dr. Michael Rudnicki]

It's huge.

We're working very hard to address that with our training programs. We know from talking with companies like Stemcell Technologies that without our programs, they would have a hard time meeting their needs.

We need training. We need a full slate of students and post-doctoral fellows coming up. This is true across the sector, but people are not going into STEM because they think that it's not a way to pay their bills.

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

Dr. Banerjee, do you want to take it?

No. Okay, we'll ask another set.

When referring to potential solutions to address the skilled labour shortage in Canada, the president of BIOTECanada, Andrew Casey, stated, “I think you've got to look at the suite of things that may influence someone’s decision like the school system, the immigration policy, the tax policy”.

Do you think that if Canada recognized foreign credentials more quickly, we could attract more skilled labour from around the world?

[Dr. Michael Rudnicki]

I think we have to have accelerated certification programs. Often—

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

Could you expand on that? What does that mean?