Science and Research Committee on April 25th, 2023

[Krista Jones]

As I said at the beginning, I believe that the investment by Volkswagen and in Volkswagen is a good investment for Canada to make.

That was not the point of my example. The point of my example was to point out that while we make investments like that—and you could look at other ones recently—we need to make equal investment in the part of the ecosystem that is growing or scaling companies to get better and best outcomes. That is where you have the full Canadian-headquartered, Canadian-owned environment in place. It is not an either-or.

[Stéphane Lauzon, Liberal, Argenteuil—La Petite-Nation, QC]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

Over to you, Mr. Blanchette‑Joncas.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm going to take some of my precious time to propose a motion, which I would like to preface with some remarks.

A few months ago, I put forward a motion to have the committee study research and scientific publication in French. The committee did some work on the study, and I put forward a new motion to invite the Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry to appear.

When he was here on February 2, I submitted an explicit request in writing to obtain information from the industry department. Specifically, I was looking for detailed data on the funding given to universities by the granting councils.

We gave the department time to gather the information. We waited, and the committee received the initial reply on March 21. It was clear that, after a month-and-a-half-long wait, the information provided in response to my question was incomplete. The committee, acting in good faith—myself included—reached out to the department again to request the missing information.

Again we waited—this time until March 30. Then the committee made a decision, based on a strong consensus, to once again invite the minister to talk about the funding and the underinvestment in research, and to ask him to provide the committee with all the information I had originally requested on February 2.

As a fair-minded person, I wrote to the minister, myself, on April 17 to tell him that the information we had requested on February 2 was important and that the committee needed the information to draft its report on research and scientific publication in French. I made it clear that the committee needed all the information it had asked for in order to gain a full understanding of the situation.

Yesterday, April 24, the committee received more information, but unfortunately, it was only a partial response, yet again.

This is how fair-minded I am. When I personally handed the letter to the minister, I also sent it to him by email, and I even reached out to the heads of the three granting councils. That means everyone was aware of the request, even the minister's chief of staff. I identified the three main categories where the information was missing, so I think the request was pretty clear.

I am forced to repeat myself again, today. We have waited, not one, not two, but three months for answers. Still, here I am, having to follow up on my initial request for the third time. I'm having to use my allotted committee time, which—I repeat—is precious given that I have less of it because of my party's status.

I am nevertheless happy to read you my motion. I think that's what you'd like me to do, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

Actually, I think we can get to the motion, but I know that the minister is working on this. It's 20 years of information. He has some partial reports and he's trying to get more information to us.

Later on in the meeting, I was going to suggest that we have a subcommittee meeting during the first hour on Tuesday so that we can look at the studies coming forward, including this study, and get that scheduled into our meeting so that we know that we'll have the answers you're looking for.

At this point, we know that your request is active and we're trying to get responses. That's from what I understand. I am new in this chair, but I have been reading all of your requests from previous meetings and I know that it's an active request.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Obviously, I don't doubt your good faith, but I'm having to follow up on this again.

I listed all the dates and the whole sequence of events, and I have to tell you, I don't think the government is taking this seriously. It should be transparent and provide the response to a legitimate request, which—I repeat—had the support of the committee members. The fact that the department, meaning the government, isn't providing a response is perplexing. Why is the government doing this? Does it respect the committee or see it as important?

Last week, the committee even had to delay giving the analysts drafting instructions for the report because it was missing information. Therein lies the rub. This is a very serious matter, and I feel it is my duty to bring it up again today. I'm going to read my motion, and I hope it will be adopted unanimously, so we can once again ask the department to send us all the information we asked for.

My motion reads as follows:That the committee ask the Department of Industry to provide the missing information relative to the question asked by Maxime Blanchette-Joncas to the Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry during the meeting of February 2, 2023, that it do so before Thursday, May 4, 2023, at 11:00 a.m., and that the missing information provided be as follows: i) the number of scholarships granted in English…

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

If I can just interrupt—

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

I'm in the middle of reading my motion, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

We're not in committee business. My suggestion is that we move this to the subcommittee discussion on Tuesday so that we can get it scheduled in.

We are over time for your intervention this morning. I'd like to get to the schedule. It is a serious request and we know it's serious, but I think we need to have that discussion with more time than we have right now.

I'll move on to Mr. Cannings for six minutes.

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

I was very clear in my request, Mr. Chair. I said that I was going to seek unanimous support for the motion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

I was looking around the room and I could see that there wasn't unanimous consent.

We'll go to Mr. Cannings for six minutes, please.

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

I have a question, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

Okay, go ahead.

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

May I request a vote to seek unanimous consent?

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

No. You can if you're going to challenge the chair, but I've said this isn't committee business. This doesn't relate to the report that we're doing right now, so we would need to have notice on it.

Mr. Cannings, go ahead—

Mr. Blanchette-Joncas.

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

Mr. Chair, I take it that you disagree with holding a vote.

[Stéphane Lauzon, Liberal, Argenteuil—La Petite-Nation, QC]

I have a point of order.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

Go ahead, Mr. Lauzon.

[Stéphane Lauzon, Liberal, Argenteuil—La Petite-Nation, QC]

I'd like to check something. For a motion that's already been adopted, is it possible to vote on it again if it hasn't been amended?

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

Thank you, Mr. Lauzon.

Go ahead, Mr. Lobb.

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

Thank you.

As the chair would well know, and Mr. Blanchette-Joncas would know as well, you're welcome to read your motion at any time you want, but it's out of order.

To be honest, it's out of order for this meeting, so let's just discuss it on Tuesday, if that's what we're going to do and if that's okay, with no disrespect.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

Thank you.

We have some good witnesses here and we're having a good discussion. We will have that discussion on Tuesday when we get into subcommittee. Thank you for bringing it forward, and thank you, Mr. Lobb and Mr. Lauzon.

We go over to you, Mr. Cannings, please.

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

Thank you.

I'd like to direct my first questions to Mr. Leaman.

You mentioned the issue of indigenous knowledge and western teachings. It's an issue that I've dealt with in my previous life as a biologist in large-scale ecosystem planning and national efforts.

One thing that I took from those experiences was the proprietary nature of indigenous knowledge. In many cases, it's proprietary not just to a nation but to a family within that nation.

I'm just wondering if you could expand on it, as I'm very interested to hear your thoughts on this issue. You've mentioned this, but it's a big subject. You talked about data frameworks and open data Perhaps you could spend some time telling us how this fits in with our normal view on IP and innovation.

[Jarret Leaman]

Thank you for that question.

We are looking at IP, and I was talking about the Indigenous Institutes sector. We heard earlier in the meeting about universities and colleges, and those would be an indigenous representation of that, which we currently have. We have nine of them in Ontario. How do we encourage research to happen at those indigenous institutions that are based on reserve or within a community?

We understand from the government reports that there's no universally accepted definition of “indigenous knowledge and cultural expression”, which presents both an opportunity and a challenge, but generally we know that the terms refer to traditional knowledge and ways of being.

From the youth we engaged with and from the young professionals we talked to, we heard a strong desire to further understand the intersectionalities between the knowledge and the indigenous data sovereignty principles and data management and classification, particularly in the video and digital media. What that means is this: How are the frameworks that we currently have set up going to support, for example, the collective interests of an IP of a sovereign nation that operates within the jurisdiction of Canada? How does that go out to the world while respecting the UN's position and our commitment on indigenous data sovereignty? I think there's a lot more study needed.

It's complex and it's not going to be the same everywhere, because different nations have different approaches, but what we do know is that collection of data and turning it into IP, or using it, is a very sensitive subject and topic for our community.

As somebody who has a grandparent who went to residential schools, I know that is why we're so careful about our data and about how our knowledge is being used. I think we have to think of a process or a co-creation process through the community in order to understand the value of this topic and how it can really help the indigenous community prosper economically.

We have lots of great indigenous innovators, and they're contributing a lot today. Let's bring them forward.

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

Again, my questions are usually around this, just so I can understand better.

Do you have any specific examples of indigenous innovators who've gone down that path, specifically dealing with indigenous knowledge, and who've come to a conclusion or come to a place where everyone is comfortable? What lessons might that have for us?