Science and Research Committee on Feb. 2nd, 2023

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Corey Tochor]

Now, moving on to our two and a half minute round, we'll have MP Blanchette.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Minister, you said earlier that the shift to English in the sciences was also happening on the international scene, particularly in France and Germany. I am quite aware of that. However, there is a marked difference between the situation in those countries and ours, and that is what I want to draw your attention to.

Here, the shift is not to a foreign language, which is neutral; rather, it is to another national language, the effect of which is assimilation. This needs no further proof, since your government is the first to recognize the decline of French in Canada.

I want to understand. From your point of view, are you fully cognizant of this situation?

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

I understand it well; I live in Quebec. You are talking to someone who is very aware of this situation.

We are also monitoring best practices elsewhere in the world. What I want to say to Canadians and to Quebeckers is that this is not a Canadian phenomenon, it is a global phenomenon. However, we are trying to see what we can do.

The difference in Canada is that this transfer is happening to another official language of the country. We are also studying the rate of publication in German as compared to publication in English in Germany, and we are trying to understand the levers we can use in a similar situation. As I say, I am open to ideas.

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

Thank you, Minister.

So I am going to review the ideas I have already submitted and add a bit more. I hope your colleagues will be able to take note of them and draw on them extensively.

We have to take a look at the self-assessment done by reviewers at the funding councils of their own language proficiency, to make sure they are truly bilingual and truly understand French.

We could fund the Service d'aide à la recherche en français as Acfas has requested and as the Government of Quebec has already been doing for almost two years.

We could implement linguistic incentive criteria for the Canada research chairs. You are doing that at present on issues of gender and underrepresentation of people of various ethnic origins, but at present no language criteria are applied to funding of the Canada research chairs.

We can also create a permanent committee to monitor the language situation in the sciences and the status of French in this field.

In 2016, your department created the Advisory Committee on Federal Support for Fundamental Science, the Naylor committee, which produced the report entitled "Investing in Canada's Future: Strengthening the Foundations of Canadian Research". You can do the same thing in French.

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

We have already done it. I would inform you that Frédéric Bouchard is the chair of the Advisory Panel on the Federal Research Support System. In fact, I met with him the day before yesterday. He is a francophone from Montreal and we talked specifically about the language issue. I am extremely sensitive to these issues.

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

Thank you, Minister.

We also have to increase the funding for the university presses and academic journals in French, and make that funding stable.

On that subject, I would like to take advantage of your presence here to make two requests, that I would like the Minister to respond to in writing.

The first is to provide the committee with the number of funding and scholarship applications in French and English, in Canada's francophone and bilingual universities, broken down by university and funding body, for the last 20 years.

The second request concerns the funding granted by each funding body to each Quebec university over the last 20 years.

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

If the information exists, we will submit it to the committee.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Corey Tochor]

Thank you kindly.

We will get a written submission to his question.

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

I hope we have had the time to take notes of Mr. Blanchette-Joncas' requests, because he speaks quickly.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Corey Tochor]

We'll now go to the NDP and MP Cannings for two and a half minutes.

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

He spoke so fast.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Corey Tochor]

We have it on tape. Don't worry.

Mr. Cannings, your two and a half minutes start now.

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

Thank you.

Minister, I would like to turn back to moon shots.

I keep hearing on the radio and reading in newspapers and magazines, that the moon shot of our time is the fight against climate change. We can talk about AI, quantum, hydrogen and all of those things, but that's what we really have to put our efforts into and not just redouble but make 10 times...really increase our ambition and efforts.

One of our witnesses here, on the moon shot study, was Seth Klein. You may have heard of his work. He wrote a book called A Good War that compared what Canada did in the Second World War to what we need to do for climate action. He showed what we can do if we put our minds to it, and we found some of that out during the COVID pandemic. He outlined all the ways Canada tackled real difficulties during the Second World War and did amazing things, and he put down ways we should and could tackle climate change here in Canada.

I wonder whether you, as the minister of everything, have discussed this with your colleagues. Have you considered what we should be doing? We have to do a very great amount more than what we are doing on climate change.

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

MP Cannings, I agree with you again. I wish I had read his book, but I look forward to reading a copy.

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

I will loan you mine.

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

He's probably listening today. I will buy a copy and read it.

To your point, I would say that investment in AI is helping climate change, because, with AI, we can do the modelling for climate change better, for example. I think about quantum—I'm giving you examples where I think these technologies are cross-sector. With quantum, for example, we say we can develop better materials and save time developing these materials. In a way, we're helping the planet, because if we have a more sustainable economy it helps everyone.

I agree with you totally. That's the direction I have been given. The biggest moon shot project we have is climate change, but there is a lot of definition around that. Even when you invest in AI, you're indirectly investing. The Space Agency investment we made on monitoring the ozone project is helping that. RADARSAT through the Space Agency is helping with climate change. Climate change is across different things. I think these investments are helping, in that sense.

I agree with you. I'm always mindful that this is the biggest challenge we have. We always have that in our minds as we look at these investments.

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

I will quickly say that, without putting words in Seth Klein's mouth, I think what he would say is that we need a C.D. Howe to bring all of this together. Yes, we're doing AI, and everything feeds into it, but we need some very coordinated action on the part of government.

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

I'm doing my best. That's what I can say to the question.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Corey Tochor]

Thank you, MP Cannings. We are already over time by 47 seconds.

We'll move on to MP Lobb for five minutes.

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

The first question is in regard to the National University of Defense Technology. Have you been able to ascertain how many graduate students have studied at Canadian universities?

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

Like I said, I find the recent articles and facts brought forward unacceptable. I am concerned. That's why I said the university needs to do more.

We published security guidelines recently, and we even put money behind that, but I think you will shortly see additional guidelines in order to get to the bottom of that.

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

It's probably fair to say we're unsure how many potential research students are operating now, or have in the past.

The other thing I want to ask you goes back a couple of years. I'm sure you're familiar with the term “the Seven Sons of National Defence”. These are universities located in China with ties to the Chinese military technology area. They are banned in the United States. I'm sure you and Mike Pompeo talked about that, in your time.

Are there research students from the Seven Sons of National Defence currently doing research at Canadian universities?

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

I'm not familiar with the term you're referring to, but I can say that we are actively looking at putting in additional guidelines.

As you can appreciate, my jurisdiction is through the councils, but we're looking at something that would capture more universities because that's a shared jurisdiction with the provinces. Universities also get private funding. In the working group we have between Ottawa and universities, they've been asking us....

Like I said, when it comes to national security, we work together to provide guidelines.

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

Does anybody keep a database of these university students who are studying in Canada?

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

I certainly am not familiar with whether there is a database of that sort. I can tell you that we are working with the universities now on new guidelines.

I'm as concerned as you, sir. I look at these things as a former foreign minister. I understand these things back and forth. That's why, when we saw that the first time, I said that it's unacceptable. We're looking at best practices. The guidelines we issued were the first in Canada, I would say, to have very strict guidelines.

If you'll allow me, for Canadians who are watching, we also want to capture universities that would not be through the granting councils. We want to issue things that we hope all universities would adopt as best practices to make sure we protect sensitive research and IP in Canada.