Mr. Chair, members of the committee, colleagues and friends, I am happy to be back with you. Thank you for the invitation.
Today, I have chosen a somewhat unique and possibly slightly provocative angle to talk to you about participatory science and citizen engagement, so I am going to give a very brief summary of the initiatives undertaken by my office and the Fonds de recherche du Québec in this area. I will focus on three of our programs: Audace, Dialogue, and Engagement. I will be speaking mainly about the Engagement program.
One of the main triggers that prompted us to develop our citizen science strategy relates to disinformation, misinformation and fake news. I have been very concerned about these phenomena for several years, so it started well before the COVID‑19 pandemic. Of course, it was all exacerbated with the pandemic.
How do we combat fake news and disinformation? How do we counteract them? It is not simple, as we all know, but it is truly essential for our democracies.
A number of studies show that increasing scientific literacy, that is, providing life-long science education, is one of the most effective measures for combating disinformation. We must therefore urgently increase scientific literacy in Canada. We are all working on this together, but we must do a lot better.
We should also be offering our fellow citizens of all ages better education about social media and how they work, so that everyone is really able to choose the most reliable sites. The fact that a site is at the top of the list of results when you do a Google search does not necessarily mean it is the best one. It is therefore very important to have better education on all aspects of this.
So how can citizen engagement and participatory science help to combat disinformation? What approach do we use at the office of the Chief Scientist of Quebec? Our Engagement program has existed for about three years and invites our fellow citizens to submit ideas for research projects to us. We then meet with the people who have proposed them, and we put them in touch with researchers who are interested in the subject in question and have expertise in the field. Then they train a small team that will work together to develop a much more detailed version of the project, something that often takes six to 12 months.
Next, the project is evaluated by a peer committee that includes members of the public. For the projects that are funded, we grant funding on the order of $50,000 over two years, and the researchers and individual members of the public work together to ensure that the project produces results. The way we build science and develop our arguments, the advancements, setbacks and uncertainties—it is all very important, increases scientific literacy, and helps to combat disinformation and fake news.
One of the primary objectives of the Engagement program is better understanding of the scientific approach. Participants in the program are very proud of their projects and become valuable spokespersons for explaining science, research and scientific data where they live: in their families, in their communities, and, very often, in the media and to you, our members of Parliament.
So it is one small step, but it helps us to advance our battle against disinformation and the lack of scientific literacy in Quebec. We hope to be able to ensure that over the coming years, programs like this will be developed all over Canada.
Thank you.