Science and Research Committee on Jan. 31st, 2023

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

Thank you, Dr. Blais.

In your opinion, how could the federal government concretely help you develop quantum research?

[Dr. Alexandre Blais]

Thank you.

The National Quantum Strategy, which represents a $360 million investment over seven years, was announced just a few weeks ago. It's a great first step.

On the other hand, this initial strategy, if I can call it that, uses existing programs to distribute funds very evenly but also randomly in response to small grant applications from small groups across the country. This approach will yield some nice research, but it will be uncoordinated, and that will prevent it from being a moonshot program. So it's time to be a little more strategic.

That's why I really like the idea of moonshot programs. The most important thing is to support centres of excellence in quantum research, which are few and far between in this country. They can really help bring the community together. With their ecosystem and research excellence, they're able to produce the results needed to make moonshot programs happen. That takes resources, obviously.

In short, my message is that we need to put a little more strategy in the National Quantum Strategy.

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

Thank you, Dr. Blais.

You spoke of resources. We'll come back to talent attraction and retention later.

Canada lagging behind in its R&D investments is nothing new. It's the only G7 country to have reduced its investments in research and development in the past 20 years. Only a few months ago, Science magazine—not just any magazine—denounced the situation and expressed concern about researchers coming to Canada for their research but getting no funding.

This sends the wrong message. If you look across the border, you see that the Americans have doubled their funding for research through the National Science Foundation. So you can see that the brains will inevitably drain to the United States. How do you keep the brains here if the federal government isn't investing?

[Dr. Alexandre Blais]

That's an excellent question.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Corey Tochor]

I'm sorry, Dr. Blais. I'm going to have to get you to give a written submission for the answer to that question, because we're out of time.

[Dr. Alexandre Blais]

Will do.

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Corey Tochor]

Thank you very much, Mr. Blanchette-Joncas.

Now we'll go on to the NDP. MP Cannings, you have six minutes.

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

Thank you.

I'm going to allow Dr. Blais to continue on that line. I was going to go there anyway eventually, but I'll go there right now.

We've been hearing a lot in this committee and elsewhere in Parliament lately about the insufficient funding for training new talent—students and post-docs. The scholarships that are provided by the tri-councils have not gone up in 20 years.

It's all very well to have moon shots and great ideas and so on, but what I appreciate about your presentation is that you really set the background for what we need to do to make these moon shots successful.

On that specific item, what do you feel we have to do to make sure that students stay here in Canada to do their training? What would help to build your labs and help build the research programs? Is it important to make sure that the funding increases so that they can live dignified lives while working on these very important programs?

[Dr. Alexandre Blais]

Thank you for the question.

There's a lot to say here so I'll limit myself to a few ideas.

First of all, student grants haven't increased for several years, so right now, students are quite frankly living below the poverty line. So that really needs to change.

Getting more young people into science and technology should be everyone's mission, and it's hard to do that right now. Scholarships alone will not do the trick. We also need to start early, and for that we need a national program to get young people interested in science and technology. Without that, we won't make it.

I would add that this isn't the first time the quantum field has changed our lives or been on the verge of it. It did that with the laser and today's computers. Without the quantum field, we wouldn't be talking to each other today on Zoom.

If we look at the results of that first quantum revolution, which happened around the 1950s, we can see that Canada doesn't have the requisite industries, including semiconductors, or businesses like Apple, Facebook and company. In research, Canada was there from the beginning of that revolution, but later on those industries didn't take hold in this country. They moved to the United States instead, and now they're in Korea and Taiwan.

So we need to invest more in research, but in a strategic way. We have to be ambitious and make choices. You can't excel at everything. That's why I really like the idea of moonshot programs. You have to choose the specific programs in which you will excel. Also, the entire chain, from basic research to marketing, should be a priority.

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

Thank you, and I would like to continue on that.

You mentioned the Canada first research excellence fund and explained why it was a good model. It had long-term flexible funding. Do you see this as simply a model for moon shot programs, or is it something into which we could inject more funds, obviously? How do you see that fitting in with the idea of moon shot funds, whether its for aging, biodiversity or climate change, as you mentioned?

Is this fund something that we can build on, or should we create something like it for moon shots that is perhaps even more ambitious?

[Dr. Alexandre Blais]

It's a good model to be followed, I just don't feel it's exactly the program we need. The Canada First Research Excellence Fund supports one institution in its mission. A moonshot program, on the other hand, should encourage several Canadian institutions to work together. The CFREF doesn't forbid it, but that's not its central focus. Canada needs a program with a different vision that's a little more global.

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

You talked about sharing data and open science. Could you spend a minute expanding on that? We've talked before in this committee about how open science has not been the common practice in science. It's been a very competitive field, generally.

How does your strategy seek to change that, and how could we do that for other sectors in science?

[Dr. Jennie Young]

Thank you for that really great question.

There are a number of challenges that are brought up by open science. In Canada, we do have this culture of collaboration and sharing, despite the competition. However, there are often barriers for people who want to share their data. It's less about the culture issues, compared to a very competitive place, such as where I was at MIT; it's more about that infrastructure.

Dr. Blais also mentioned the need for staff to manage research that is being done. These are a lot of positions to enable the sharing of data, but there is no funding for those types of research positions, especially in the smaller centres. Those are the centres that would really benefit from being able to share their data and also to take part in research. Those are some of the challenges around open science.

I'm aware, and I think it's fantastic, that the government has a federal road map for open science and that the tri-agency is taking steps to try and make this happen for all grants that are funded by federal research. It makes sense. This is research done with public money, and it should be shared.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Corey Tochor]

Thank you, Dr. Young. I'm just trying to keep on schedule here.

Now we're going to move on to the five-minute rounds. We're going to MP Lobb.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Our last member asked a question on the idea of open science and open sharing. This was discussed at the industry committee about seven years ago.

When the federal or provincial governments fund an initiative, who is it that should have the ownership of that finding or that breakthrough research? Is it the research that received all the funding? Is it the university that hosted it? Should the government have some say in it or an ownership in it? What do most of the agreements look like today?

[Dr. Jennie Young]

Thank you for that really excellent question.

You have brought up a number of challenges around ownership of intellectual property and things like that that come out from open science.

I'll address your point about industry first.

Open science does not preclude commercialization and industry being involved. In fact, in Canada, Biogen and Roche and a number of other companies have invested in open science projects. This is only in Canada. These are large multinationals, and it's because they know we will share this data and because the level of the data that they are sharing is not going to lead to commercialization immediately. This is just collecting the initial information. There are many steps before it gets to commercialization.

I just want to put it out there that commercialization and open science are not necessarily at odds and that having intellectual property is not necessarily at odds with sharing openly. It depends on the situation.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

What do the agreements look like in that one example you provided me, Biogen?

[Dr. Jennie Young]

Biogen and Roche are funding a multiple sclerosis trial in Canada.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

In that trial, is there wording to the effect that if there are findings, they own the rights to those findings? Who owns the rights to those findings?

[Dr. Jennie Young]

I don't know the details of this exact legal agreement. Basically what they have allowed is.... They are collecting a data set on a number of patients and following them over a long number of years. That data is open. They get first access to look at the data, and then it becomes open to everyone and everyone can use that data for what they are interested in.

In terms of the agreements, you're right in that this is an area where, if there was more federal oversight or maybe a national policy that would help different organizations that are funding and supporting research draw up these contracts better, it would really enable open science to happen more efficiently, because people do want to do this. For example, a lot of the different funding organizations I mentioned—we have more than 25 at the table—are already funding open science. They have to go and make their own legal contracts every time, and it's difficult and inefficient.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

I think we all saw in real time during the pandemic that the taxpayer kind of pays two or three times. They pay their tax dollars and the dollars go into research to create a vaccine. When there is a vaccine created, they pay again. You don't get the insider price, really. You pay the full price, or the best price that your government can negotiate at a large scale. You'd hope in some cases that if there was a moon shot on some of these really breakthrough things like Alzheimer's, dementia, MS, ALS or what have you, the taxpayer would only....

It isn't too much to ask, I don't think. Anyhow, that's a larger discussion for a different day.

The other thing is just in regard to moon shots and different things like this on the commercialization front. Through the years on the industry committee and the health committee, I've heard different things. There are people who love to sit in their labs at universities. It isn't a knock against the individual, because they're obviously very brilliant, but they just like to be in the lab. They don't want to get involved with commercialization. It almost becomes a lifetime's worth of research, and that's fine, but if you do have something that could potentially be commercialized for the benefit of the human good.... Are there a huge number of cases like this out there, or is that an urban legend?

[Dr. Jennie Young]

I really—

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Corey Tochor]

I'm sorry to do this, Dr. Young.

Ben, do you mind if we can get that answer in a written form?

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Well, I'm tempted to challenge the chair on that ruling, but for this time I'll let it go.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!