Science and Research Committee on Feb. 10th, 2022

[Dr. Robert Myers]

I would say that collaboration has been key to Perimeter's success, certainly in training graduate students. We're not a degree-granting institution and so we work with the University of Waterloo as well as universities throughout southern Ontario in all of our training programs as well as in doing the research.

I told you about Avery Broderick and Roger Melko. They're both jointly appointed here and at the University of Waterloo. Again, we have joint appointments with universities throughout southern Ontario. In fact, we have one associate faculty who's at the University of Dalhousie now in the math department there.

These kinds of collaborations I see as opportunities not only to work and to diversify or increase our reach but also to try to raise the level of research across the country. We live in a community and we'd like to see the entire community flourish.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Corey Tochor]

Thank you kindly, Madam Diab and Dr. Myers.

We now move to MP Blanchette for six minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to say hello to the witnesses and thank them for being with us this evening.

My questions are for Mr. Charbonneau.

Mr. Charbonneau, it was quite telling to hear the statistics you shared in your opening statement. They speak volumes. You said that the number of full-time researchers per million inhabitants in Canada had dropped by 4.8% between 2014 and 2018. During the same period, other countries experienced the opposite trend, with the number of researchers increasing by 4.9% in the United States, 8.9% in the U.K. and 20.6% in Germany.

Your colleague Mr. Patry, whom you probably know quite well, is a former president of the University of Ottawa and represents the U15 Group of Canadian Research Universities. He, too, told us that the number of researchers in Canada had shrunk, in particular, over the past six years. Unfortunately, Canada is the only G7 country to have experienced such a decline.

Talk to us about those striking statistics. Why is Canada missing the boat?

[Dr. Sylvain Charbonneau]

It boils down to the level of ongoing investment over the years. I think that speaks to the heart of the decline. As you know, Canada's population of university teachers is getting older and older, and few young researchers are taking their place. That may be one of the reasons why it's challenging to shore up the university sector.

It has to do with the investments made by the federal and provincial governments. Some of the programs out there are great—mitacs, for instance, sends students into the private sector to gain skills and experience.

I brought up the scientific research and experimental development program earlier. The shortcomings in that regard are clear. The government could have invested directly in research and the industrial sector. I urge you to take a look at the site Research Infosource Inc., which provides a ranking of the top 50 or 100 R and D spenders in Canada. It tells you exactly where things are happening on the R and D front in Canada. It's really helpful to see how things are changing.

Investing in major research programs is a long-term undertaking. I applaud the government on its $2.2‑billion investment in bio‑innovation and bio‑manufacturing, under the 2020‑21 budget. I think it will go a long way towards helping the health sector. As you know, Canada had trouble when it came to COVID‑19 vaccine research, and it's an area we are continuing to work on. I think this funding will do a lot on that front.

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

You brought up innovation, and in your opening statement, you told us that 32 countries had increased their R and D spending between 2014 and 2018. Unfortunately, over the past two decades, Canada has been the only G7 country to have reduced its investment in R and D. From 2001 to 2019, Canada went from number eight on the World Index of Healthcare Innovation to number 17.

You talked about recent investments. No one is against doing the right thing, but will the funding be enough to reverse the trend and make up for how far we've fallen behind over the past two decades?

[Dr. Sylvain Charbonneau]

There's a lot to say about that. I don't like drawing comparisons with Germany or the U.S., but it's hard not to.

In terms of business R and D expenditures, Canada is in free fall. I think we were at less than 1.5% in 2021, so very little investment is happening at the industry level.

The federal government wants to set up a research organization similar to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, in the U.S. It could adopt a model whereby R and D investment supported the creation of innovative technologies, while contributing to significant purchasing power. As you know, DARPA's success is thanks to the American defence sector. Federally, the U.S. allocates a very large share of departmental budgets to R and D.

That is a way to support innovation and commercialization of those inventions, while putting them in the government's hands. Many groundbreaking innovations have been commercialized and are now being used in cell phones, GPS being just one.

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

Thank you, Mr. Charbonneau.

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

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Corey Tochor]

You have eight seconds.

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

All right. Another member can have the floor.

[Dr. Sylvain Charbonneau]

Thank you, Mr. Blanchette-Joncas.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Corey Tochor]

Thank you for keeping it within six minutes. Not all members have done that tonight, so I recognize the good behaviour.

Moving on to the next member, we have MP Cannings for six minutes.

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

Thank you all for being here today.

I'm sorry that I was a little late in getting here, but I did try to listen to your testimony as I ran between the House of Commons and this building.

I want to start with Dr. Bedard-Haughn, simply because it's always wonderful to talk to a soil scientist. There's a soil scientist theme running through my family. My brother-in-law is a soil scientist. My father and my uncle worked for Agriculture Canada in Summerland in the soil building. It's not often that I meet a soil scientist again. It's great to have you before us.

With that in mind, because all of my connections to soil scientists are with Agri-Food and Agriculture Canada, or whatever it's called now.... They have a centre in Saskatoon.

I have a broad question about collaboration and co-operation between academic institutions, like the university, and government research that we have there. You talked about sharing resources and things like that. Is that something that goes on easily? Is it something that we should foster, in terms of infrastructure, equipment and collaboration on projects?

[Dr. Angela Bedard-Haughn]

It absolutely goes on, easily and naturally, to some degree. In a per-square kilometre basis, there are perhaps not as many soil scientists as there could or should be in the Prairies.

Some of my own collaborations, certainly earlier in my career, were very close collaborations with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada scientists. We're co-located; up until fairly recently, we had a number of the scientists co-located right in our building. The Ag Canada building was right next door, but we had some of those scientists sitting right in our building, sharing facilities and lab space here. It was only as our college continued to grow and some of those scientists retired that, eventually, the remaining few moved back next door.

Across all disciplines that are represented here, we see really strong collaborations with the centre right here in Saskatoon, Swift Current and the other centres across the Prairies. Part of that has to do with the complementarity of our expertise. It's something that we always work toward.

We can continue to work on making that simpler. As I alluded to, there is the potential for sharing infrastructure and trying to make it a bit smoother to be able to share some of those resources. We've worked through it and we have the systems in place now, but anything we can do to continue to expedite and simplify those types of processes would go a long way toward facilitating and strengthening those collaborations.

I would be absolutely remiss if I didn't indicate that—as I said earlier—much of the success comes from those close collaborations throughout. The original soil survey units were co-located right here in the building. We do much of our plant breeder work really closely with the breeders who are located next door. That is absolutely something that we need to continue to work on.

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

Is that something that happens at a lot of federal agriculture research facilities?

When I worked at UBC, there was a federal agriculture station at the university. I think that's been closed down now and those people have moved to Summerland, where my father worked. I kind of grew up at that station, in a way.

Is there a policy that you know of that helps collaboration?

[Dr. Angela Bedard-Haughn]

I don't know that it's an official policy, but it's certainly something that seems to naturally occur and be fostered. Part of it is that scientists get trained at universities and then go on to become research scientists at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, so those collaborations come quite naturally.

Also, part of that comes from the research scientists with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada who many times will work closely with universities so that they can work with graduate students and train graduate students. We have grad students who are often co-supervised with Ag Canada scientists, whether they're based here or elsewhere. Those students might come here, take their courses and then go back to the station, whether it's in Swift Current or Lethbridge, and do their field research in partnership with an Ag Canada research scientist.

In Summerland, of course, with the opening of the UBC Okanagan campus, that certainly strengthened their university partnerships as well. I did a sabbatical at the Summerland station, so I know that there are some excellent scientists and some excellent collaborations there.

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

Thank you. I think my time is pretty much up.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Corey Tochor]

You still have 15 seconds, Mr. Cannings.

[Dr. Sylvain Charbonneau]

You still have 15 seconds, so if I could—

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

Yes. Jump in there.

[Dr. Sylvain Charbonneau]

You still have 15 seconds, so if I could just add to the previous answer, yes, indeed, Canada is just too small not to collaborate, and the national labs are extremely important for the universities, and for the entire ecosystem, to be honest.

I could talk about quantum. We have a joint centre in extreme quantum photonics at the University of Ottawa with the National Research Council. I could talk about the largest nuclear magnetic resonance...in the country, purchased by CFI grants and located in a national lab. Or I could talk about the importance of having graduate students, as was mentioned previously, who are being co-supervised, with many of our adjunct professors in university—I'm talking probably across the board here in Canada—who come from the national labs. It's a very rich environment and should not be forgotten.

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Corey Tochor]

Now we're going to move on to the five-minute round.

We have MP Williams.

[Ryan Williams, Conservative, Bay of Quinte, ON]

Good evening and thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, everyone.

I'm going to start with you, Dr. Myers. I think Perimeter sounds amazing. They are things I could never understand, but I think they're incredible.

I want to talk about Canada's quantum potential. I know that we have some centres in Quebec, and we certainly have what you're doing. What makes our quantum potential different from that in the U.S. and how will Canada gain an edge as we move that forward in advancing and developing it?

[Dr. Robert Myers]

It's amazing that Canada is a player in that domain, but I think it's been decades, literally. We started in the early 2000s, or Mike Lazaridis, actually, started in the early 2000s, investing in and drawing attention to that particular area.

The investments that we see now around the world are just off scale in that particular area, so I think it's important to double down and bet on the excellence that we have here because of those past investments, but it's also an opportunity to collaborate. We've certainly talked about collaboration across the country, but I think there are also opportunities to collaborate outside and with those global players. Certainly, here at Perimeter, we're working with scientists at MIT down in Maryland and with Harvard out in California. These are leading research centres in their own right. It would be a real lost opportunity if we weren't working with the best in the world down south of the border there.

[Ryan Williams, Conservative, Bay of Quinte, ON]

That's fantastic.

Is there a difference in what we're doing? Do you collaborate also between the provinces and all those centres? I'm assuming that you'd have massive collaboration in Canada, correct?

[Dr. Robert Myers]

We actually have various programs. One of them is the affiliate program for like-minded faculty at universities all across Canada. I think it hits every province. We give them an opportunity to come here and collaborate with us. COVID was mentioned and, of course, it's on the tip of everybody's tongue.

A decade and a half ago, we started recording all of our lectures, all of our conferences and all of our seminars, and those are readily available to scientists all across the country. That's a resource that puts our research, the research that we're hearing about, centre stage for anybody across the country who's interested.