Evidence of meeting #26 for Science and Research in the 44th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was young.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
The Vice-Chair Conservative Corey Tochor
Challenge all you want, but the clock says you're over already.
Conservative
The Vice-Chair Conservative Corey Tochor
Thank you so much for the questions. More importantly, we're really grateful for the answers we heard today from Dr. Young.
Now we'll move on to MP Bradford.
Liberal
Valerie Bradford Liberal Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to both of our witnesses today. Obviously these are two areas that, in my opinion, are ideal for moon shots.
My first questions will be to Dr. Blais. Back in December, Minister Champagne made the announcement about the quantum strategy at the Institute for Quantum Computing, which is located in Waterloo. Can you tell us how that quantum strategy is going to contribute to the advancement of science and innovation?
Scientific Director and Professor, Institut quantique, Université de Sherbrooke
Yes.
Thank you for the question.
One key aspect of the strategy is to use existing programs, particularly those of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, and Alliance Missions grants, which foster collaboration between university laboratories and industry. So, about half of the resources come from the council and are aimed at bringing products to market. A lot of money also goes to industry internships like Mitacs.
However, like I said in one of my previous answers, I feel there's room for more strategy in Canada's National Quantum Strategy, including supporting and fostering collaboration between centres of excellence, such as moonshot programs. This could help take us even further than this first draft of the strategy allows.
Liberal
Valerie Bradford Liberal Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON
My next question is this: How can co-operation among quantum researchers, industry and government be facilitated?
Scientific Director and Professor, Institut quantique, Université de Sherbrooke
Thank you for the question.
Dr. Young talked a bit about this in one of her responses. Several issues come into play here, some of them related to intellectual property.
Intellectual property agreements need to be clear. They are usually negotiated one university at a time, and as far as I know, we have no national guidance on this. So that can make it a bit more complex, because if you have multiple university partners, each will have their own ways of doing things with respect to intellectual property.
Having said that, I think the Alliance grant program is a good start, because it helps businesses work together with industry.
On the other hand, in the quantum field, we must never forget that we have to do much more than work with industry. Fundamental discoveries have yet to be made. If we only support research done by university laboratories and industry, we risk missing out on a lot of basic research that's needed to develop technologies. It's important to monitor that, but we shouldn't just invest in the research aspect.
Liberal
Valerie Bradford Liberal Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON
I'll go very quickly to Dr. Young.
In your opening statement, you really made a compelling case for further research in brain strategy. I was just wondering if you can tell me if you're working on anything with respect to brain injury. We know that it can be from either repeated concussions or a traumatic event, such as an accident. What's your experience with that, and what research is being done in that area?
Executive Director, Canadian Brain Research Strategy
I am not as familiar with that area. However, in the lab I worked in at MIT, we focused on Alzheimer's disease, but we also had somebody in the lab studying brain injury. We could see that there were some similarities in how the brain was reacting in the immune response, for example. This is again going back to the point that fundamental knowledge about the brain is going to benefit all of these different areas, whether you're talking about a brain injury or about Alzheimer's disease.
In fact, the Canadian Concussion Network, which is a network of researchers and patients, and Brain Injury Canada, which is a non-profit foundation, are all part of this coalition as well.
Liberal
Executive Director, Canadian Brain Research Strategy
That is a really good question.
At a national strategy level, we're really focused on what will help the entire ecosystem, but we have different national strategies to ask the specific science questions. We have a national dementia strategy. We have a national autism strategy being developed. That is where you get the experts in the field asking the specific science questions, but we want to enable the scientists to be able to tackle these questions.
Conservative
The Vice-Chair Conservative Corey Tochor
Thank you so much for the questions and answers. I'm sorry, but we're out of time.
We will go on to the next round of questions, which are for two and a half minutes.
We're going to start with MP Blanchette-Joncas.
Bloc
Maxime Blanchette-Joncas Bloc Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Dr. Blais, I'm going to address you again and go back to the questions I asked earlier.
In your last comments, you mentioned the National Quantum Strategy. From what I understand, or deduce from your message, investing in the strategy is a good thing, but it lacks vision and coordination by the federal government. The strategy has no clear direction.
Am I right?
Scientific Director and Professor, Institut quantique, Université de Sherbrooke
I completely agree with that statement.
Bloc
Maxime Blanchette-Joncas Bloc Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC
Thank you.
I will now come back to attracting and retaining talent. I set the scene for this earlier when I mentioned Canada's lack of investment. Normally, when we look elsewhere, things don't look so bad here. In this case, however, things do look pretty bad here. Canada is at the bottom of the list in the G7 when it comes to investment in research and development.
You said we were building on an attraction-based model, but now we're making sure we also make an effort to retain talent. Canada is the only G7 country to have lost researchers in the past six years. I point to the efforts of the University of Sherbrooke and some other universities, but when it comes to graduate school completion, once again Canada is at the bottom of the G7.
It's all well and good to come up with a national quantum and other strategies or moonshot programs, but if we don't have the investments needed, how can we ensure we've got the best talent in our establishments and research centres like yours?
Scientific Director and Professor, Institut quantique, Université de Sherbrooke
Thank you for the question, but it's obviously not an easy one to answer.
I believe we need to keep attracting certain specific individuals by investing heavily in research chair programs. That said, some of these programs, like Canada Excellence Research Chairs, look really good on paper, but if you compare their resources with those in the outside world, they don't necessarily have enough to attract the A-list stars, if you will pardon the expression.
I think we need to continue exploring the research chair issue.
Bloc
Maxime Blanchette-Joncas Bloc Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC
In your capacity as professor and scientific director of the Institut quantique at the University of Sherbrooke, I'd like you to tell me what concrete impact the federal government's underfunding will have on the institute.
Scientific Director and Professor, Institut quantique, Université de Sherbrooke
We're certainly having trouble attracting the top talent. Canada had a head start in the quantum field, we were in it from the beginning. However, other countries are getting ahead of the curve.
The danger is that the same thing we saw in the first quantum revolution will happen again: we'll be there at the start, but we won't be able to bring things to market once we get to that stage.
Conservative
The Vice-Chair Conservative Corey Tochor
Again, thank you so much for the round of questions and answers.
We'll move to the NDP and Mr. Cannings.
NDP
Richard Cannings NDP South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC
Thank you.
I'm going to follow up on what Dr. Blais was talking about and direct my question to Dr. Young about the Canadian Brain Research Strategy. I guess what I'm concerned with, or interested in, is what other countries are doing. Are you modelling this strategy on strategies from other countries, maybe on brain research in other sectors?
Canada is a world leader in brain research, as we've heard many times. Are we in danger of losing that lead? I guess I'm comparing what we're doing with what other countries are doing. What do we need to do in the future?
Executive Director, Canadian Brain Research Strategy
To compare to other countries, the U.S., of course, is a natural comparison. They had their BRAIN initiative from 2014 to 2024, and it's been extended. As of last January—just over a year ago—they had invested $2.4 billion in their BRAIN initiative, and it will be more than $5 billion when they are finished at the end of their 10 years.
The distinction is that it's gone to 1,100 grants and “hundreds of researchers”. We cannot compete with that scale of funding in Canada, but we have other strengths we can leverage to make our smarter strategic investments. That is one of the comparisons.
The EU has also had a brain initiative for 10 years. It started in 2013. They are now in their last phase of investing in infrastructure, and that was to the tune of almost a billion euros. Japan also has one, and that started in 2014. China and Korea also have their own brain initiatives, and these all started around the same time.
There are also emerging brain initiatives in Australia and New Zealand and Finland. Even non-OECD countries in Latin America and the Caribbean are forming their own brain initiatives, and there is a brain research initiative in Africa as well.
NDP
Richard Cannings NDP South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC
What can we learn from all those other initiatives? Are there parts of them that are applicable to Canada?
Executive Director, Canadian Brain Research Strategy
The EU's was targeted initially on specific science questions but is now expanding to build the infrastructure for research. It's a valuable lesson.
I think we have a lot to contribute. We presented to the International Brain Initiative, where all these countries were present. Everybody was interested to hear our model, because theirs are all just about the scientist, while we see the strength in bringing all of these other stakeholders on board.
