Science and Research Committee on Feb. 2nd, 2023

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

Minister, I would like you to come back to my question about concrete measures. You talked about vigilance. However, the statistics show that only 0.4% of scientific publications in Quebec are in French. So vigilance is not producing results.

At present, French in the sciences is in its death throes. I hope you will be able to answer this question...

[François-Philippe Champagne, Liberal, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

I am open to your suggestions, if you have any.

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

Perfect, so I am going to offer you my suggestions.

A number of witnesses have told us that it would be possible to have incentive criteria to make sure there is equitable representation of French, which is one of Canada's two official languages. That is the case at Telefilm Canada, for audiovisual production. It is also the case at the Canada Council for the Arts in the field of literature, to promote representation of francophone content.

Would the government and yourself, as the minister, be prepared to commit yourselves to instituting genuine linguistic diversity and substantive equality of the two official languages in the sciences, and, of course, to imposing language criteria, to ensure genuine representation of French in the sciences in Canada, as you do when it comes to equity, diversity and inclusion?

[François-Philippe Champagne, Liberal, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

I am prepared to listen to everyone who has suggestions. The goal is to do better, together. We are all parliamentarians here today.

I would therefore be happy to hear those of you who have good ideas about what we could do to improve the representation of French in scientific publishing. In fact, we are doing comparisons and looking at what is being done elsewhere, in France and Germany for example. I am always open to adopting best practices. I imagine that the committee chair will be submitting a report when the study is finished, and we are going to look at it carefully to study all your proposals.

We have made sure that there was good francophone representation on the evaluation committees and that a good proportion of francophones were receiving funds, but if there are better ideas, you know me and you know that I am always open...

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

I'm going to continue, Minister, because time is passing.

[François-Philippe Champagne, Liberal, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

Go ahead.

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

On the subject of the evaluation committees, you said that francophones represented one third of the members on the funding bodies. However, I would draw your attention to the fact that the people who make up those committees do a self-assessment of their language proficiency. I will give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that they are acting in good faith, but you understand that the fact that they took a French course that lasted a few hours in high school does not mean that they are fluent in French and are capable of evaluating a funding application in the sciences.

I now want to draw your attention to another good idea. The Government of Quebec has committed to funding the Service d'aide à la recherche en français, to assist francophones everywhere in Canada. That was a request from Acfas. For almost two years, Quebec has been supporting the development of scientific research in French outside Quebec. Where is the federal government in this? We don't get answers. I have questioned Mr. Vats, your Assistant Deputy Minister for science and research, and I have not received an answer. I would like to hear your views on this.

[François-Philippe Champagne, Liberal, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

I will be pleased to talk about it with Rémi Quirion. He is a great partner. We draw a lot on what is done in Quebec, because Quebec often has very good ideas when it comes to research, and certainly when it comes to the sciences and innovation. We work hand in hand with Mr. Quirion, who has sat on a number of committees that we have created.

If there are ideas that we can implement to improve the situation, we are open to that. That is why I brought everyone here this morning. It's good for me to hear you, but it is also good for all the people around the table. It gives us ideas for trying to improve things together.

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

That is a good idea. To follow up on the status of French in the scientific community, would you be prepared to create a permanent committee to include the funding councils, the department, and representatives of civil society?

[François-Philippe Champagne, Liberal, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

We had initiated a study to find out how to do better in the sciences, and I recently received an analysis from Frédéric Bouchard, who will be submitting his report in the near future. I will be happy to talk about it with the committee. There are several recommendations. If you have a recommendation to make on this subject, I will be happy to look at it.

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

Thank you.

How much time do I have left, Mr. Chair?

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Corey Tochor]

Thank you so much. Time is up unfortunately, MP Blanchette-Joncas.

We are now moving to the NDP with MP Cannings for six minutes.

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

Thank you.

Thank you, Minister, for being here today.

At our last meeting about moon shots, one of our last witnesses on that idea was Dr. Alexandre Blais from the Université de Sherbrooke talking about quantum physics. One of the points he really emphasized during his talk about how we should do moon shots was that, before we could even think about it, we have to support our young scientists. You mentioned supporting young scientists yourself in your opening remarks.

However, while we are putting big money into big ideas, we seem to have left our young scientists completely behind in Canada. You have members from the tri-council here, and they provide valuable scholarships that keep these young people alive, basically, while they're doing their master's thesis, their Ph.D. or their post-doctoral fellowship. However, certainly for the graduate scholarships, those funding levels haven't changed in 20 years and these people are living in poverty.

When the Ontario science policy network did a survey in 2021, it found that 45% of respondents don't have enough to get by. They struggle financially every month with 87% reporting stress and anxiety about their finances. More than half are living with no savings at all. They found that 32% of graduate students considered dropping out of their program due to financial concerns.

We've been telling the government about this for a year now, it seems. I was hoping to see something in the fall economic statement about it. I'm praying that there's something in the budget coming up that will address this problem in a serious way. These people I think are 48% behind where they should be, had we kept up with inflation.

What I'm saying is that we can make it our first moon shot to make sure that our young scientists don't have to live in poverty and worry about that, and instead get on with their lives and do the good work that they need to do. We're losing 38% of our Ph.D.s overseas every year because conditions are better in every country except Canada.

I'm just imploring you to fix this and make it our first big moon shot.

[François-Philippe Champagne, Liberal, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

First of all, I would like to say thank you, MP Cannings, because you've been a big voice. I think we meet some of the same people. Thank you for bringing the human dimension to all that, because it's all about people, at the end of the day. I'm grateful for the work you're doing. I say that as a colleague who esteems you very much and what you're doing.

I am as preoccupied as you are in terms of the relative numbers we've seen and where we need to be and where we are. Trust me. I'm always raising my voice to do more for our students, for our graduates. It's certainly something we're looking at. You're quite right. We have made record investments, since 2016, of $14 billion, but we need to also measure the relative performance in terms of these grants to the students. I'm very well aware of the statistics. I can assure you that it's something I take very seriously. I think Canada's success in the future depends on talent, and talent is the young people you talk about. We've met the same people. I think we were together in some of these fora.

I'm very sensitive to that. As you appreciate, I don't have the last say in all of that, but certainly it's something that is very top of mind. I want to thank all the young Ph.D. students, researchers and graduates who are coming to Canada. We're still a big magnet for talent, I can tell you. If we've been able to attract the likes of Stellantis in Canada, BASF, GM and POSCO, they realize....

Of the five things I say, the first thing is always about talent. We are a magnet for talent. We need to continue to be, and I'm grateful for your help in making sure we achieve that.

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

I just would add that whenever we lose young people to other countries, that's a loss. We have trained them and spent big money, and as some of the people have pointed out, we're losing in the order of $640 million a year in lost training talent. We have spent that money training someone who then goes to the United States, the U.K., Germany or wherever to carry on that work and work on those countries' big scientific challenges, their moon shots.

That's my one ask. I will perhaps get back to other things, but that's the one point I want to make in this round. Please, let's support our young scientists before we go off spending.... I'm all for moon shots, but let's do this right before we go on to other things.

[François-Philippe Champagne, Liberal, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

I would say, MP Cannings, that it's top of mind for me, as well. I'm grateful that you're with me on that, and that we think about the human dimension of science. I think it's very important. I think everyone here would agree. I think we're in violent agreement on this one.

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

Right. Okay.

[François-Philippe Champagne, Liberal, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

If we want to do more, we need to do more. We are grateful for these young scientists, and certainly we're looking into that.

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

Okay. I will watch the budget carefully.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Corey Tochor]

Thank you, MP Cannings, for being so on top of your time.

We will move on to MP Mazier for five minutes.

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

Thank you, Minister, for coming out this morning—I guess it's afternoon now.

Minister, during this study we've heard from experts on how nuclear energy is important for Canada's economy and environment. You mentioned that you want Canada to lead. Do you want Canada to lead when it comes to nuclear energy?

[François-Philippe Champagne, Liberal, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

Definitely. If you want me to expand, I've been talking to.... We've done a number of things in the SMR field in Canada—as you would know as a colleague—with the CANDU. You know my previous business background. I'm very familiar with the technology that is in South Korea and many places in the world. I think that's something we should be able to promote and that we should be behind. I think the SMRs, small modular reactors, are a great way, for example, to help communities develop resources in more remote locations. I've been talking to a number of Canadian companies. We've been financing some of these projects across the nation, and certainly I am very optimistic as to what we can achieve together.

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

Okay. Good.

Are you aware that your government excluded nuclear power from the green bond framework?

[François-Philippe Champagne, Liberal, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

Yes, I'm very familiar with that. I think the answer to that for Canadians is that it is not up to Canada to create the definition. As you know, in international finance, these are definitions that are agreed to globally or internationally. You can call yourself whatever you want, but to qualify for the green bond under the markets, it has to meet certain criteria. That's my understanding of why that was not included. However, on the other hand, are we supportive? Are we putting money behind nuclear? Definitely.

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

Are you aware that your government's current environment minister tweeted, “Japan says 'sayonara' to nuclear energy; can't wait for us to do the same!”