Science and Research Committee on May 9th, 2023

[Lena Metlege Diab, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

What about research and teaching?

[Justine De Jaegher]

A big issue for our members of course is that an increasing number of Canadian academics are working from contract to contract, from semester to semester. Those contracts generally are teaching-only contracts, so there's no research as part of that academic job. Really, the heart of the academic job traditionally has been a mix of research, teaching and service. We believe that's the model to move forward with, and it's one that has being eroded.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

Thank you very much.

We now go to Mr. Blanchette‑Joncas for six minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Welcome to the witnesses who are contributing to today's important study.

The last time graduate scholarships were indexed was two decades ago. Mr. Chair, I defy you to find one thing that hasn't gone up in value in the past 20 years. I put the question to the government, and I'm still waiting for an answer. I think it's still looking.

For two decades, we haven't been supporting the next generation of scientists. That makes for great problems and even greater consequences. We could spend the whole day going through the list: financial insecurity, mental health effects, the labour shortage, the appeal of the job market and the brain drain. Without graduate students and post-doctoral fellows, there is no next generation, there is no science. Without science, there's no innovation, not to mention the loss of our scientific sovereignty.

The report entitled “Investing in Canada's Future: Strengthening the Foundations of Canadian Research”, more commonly known as the Naylor report, was commissioned by the Liberal government in 2016. The report flagged problems with Canada's scholarship ecosystem when it came out. They were known then.

Trying to make itself look good once again, the government commissioned a new report five years later. The “Report of the Advisory Panel on the Federal Research Support System”, known as the Bouchard report, came out on March 20, 2023. It, too, addressed the scholarship problem, saying this about government awards for university research trainees:

As a result, they have not kept pace with increases to the cost of living nor with research trainee compensation trends around the world. This situation has significantly eroded Canada's position as a global hub for the attraction and retention of research-enabled talent and this erosion will be accelerated by the increase in investments by our global peers.

I'm not making it up. It's in a report the government, itself, commissioned. I could go on and on, and of course, I could give you concrete examples to show why Canada is at the bottom of the pack and why action is so desperately needed.

Although I'm very glad that the committee is doing this study, I don't know how many more studies, reports, consultations and panels it will take for the government to understand this: if it doesn't do something now, it will be too late. Our neighbours and competitors are desperate to snap up the best and brightest. As you know, scientific research doesn't just happen in a tiny room in the dark. It happens on the world stage. While our competitors sprint ahead, we are crawling along at a leisurely pace.

Nevertheless, I'm going to ask some constructive questions about the current situation. They are for Mr. Lacroix.

I'm very glad you're here today, Mr. Lacroix.

You said the government needed to increase not only the amount of federal scholarships, but also funding for research overall. It's true that most students are funded not by federal scholarships, but by research grants provided to the professor they are working for.

If all the government did was increase the value of scholarship awards, how do you think it would affect those researchers?

[Michel Lacroix]

Thank you for your question.

If only scholarship amounts went up and grant amounts didn't, it would likely create a huge gap between students receiving scholarships and those who depend solely on research grants. It's already hard enough for these students to successfully complete their studies. They absolutely need support. Not only does it mean less financial insecurity, but it also affects their ability to join the scientific community when they have to rely on professor-funded research grants.

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

Thank you, Mr. Lacroix.

Do you have any statistics on how many students receive federal scholarships versus how many receive research grants through their professors, and even how many receive nothing at all?

[Michel Lacroix]

Unfortunately, I don't have those figures with me, but I will get them to you as soon as possible.

There are federal and provincial grants, aswell as funding for scholarships and for research grant contracts. Answering your question is a bit tricky. I would need more information.

Are you asking only about federal scholarships and grants, or are you asking about provincial scholarships and grants as well?

It doesn't matter how you'd like it broken down. I would be happy to follow up with the information.

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

I'll gladly give you more information, Mr. Lacroix. I'm asking about anything that falls under federal scholarships. That will also give you an opportunity to shed light on your reality.

Mr. Lacroix, according to Statistics Canada's Postsecondary Student Information System, on average, master's students need 2.13 years to obtain their degree, and Ph.D. students need approximately 4.84 years.

The Canada graduate scholarships master's program and the Canada graduate scholarships doctoral program provide funding for a maximum study period of two years and three years, respectively.

I'd like you to talk about the impact of imposing a limit on master's and Ph.D. students. They take longer to figure out their research project than the full duration of the funding.

Should the scholarship cover a longer period?

[Michel Lacroix]

Yes, it would be a great idea to ensure that funding was not abruptly interrupted in the middle of the graduate student's research. The issue is complex, but one thing is very clear. In most fields, three years for Ph.D. studies is not enough.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

All right. Thank you.

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

Mr. Chair, I would just like to ask Mr. Lacroix to kindly provide his answer to my first question in writing.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

Okay. Thank you.

Now, for six minutes, we have Richard Cannings from the NDP.

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

Thank you.

Thank you to the witnesses for being here today.

I'm going to start with Ms. De Jaegher.

We all agree here that the fact these scholarships and fellowships haven't increased in 20 years is unbelievable, but there are many other factors that aggravate that. There are many other factors behind what universities are going through, what students are going through, what your members, the teachers and professors, are going through.

I want to go back and look at some of the historical context. You touched on this just a few minutes ago. You mentioned how, historically, the government investment in post-secondary education has been declining. I don't have the numbers in front of me, but it has gone down from 75% to 45%, and with that we have rising tuition.

There are some figures around the inflation that's happened in the last 20 years, but I'm just wondering if you have more specific inflation numbers for students. They are looking at housing, at food and at tuition. Tuition has gone up astronomically. Do you have numbers that combine those three things and compare that to real inflation and at what rate these scholarships should be increased?

[Justine De Jaegher]

Absolutely.

In the early 1990s, we saw a major cut to the Canada social transfer from which Canadian post-secondary just has never recovered. There's been a steady decline in public funding as a share of total revenue for universities and colleges since then, and as I said earlier, the difference is being made up predominantly by tuition fees and increasingly by international student tuition fees.

Last year we issued a report, which I am happy to share with the committee, on the affordability of post-secondary education. It did find that tuition fees over that same period have well outpaced increases in both housing and food. Housing, notably, has also well outpaced the cost of inflation, so that's telling.

Really, what we've been advocating for on the graduate student scholarships point of things is we would like to see the awards increased by $185 million in 2023 and then by an additional $55 million per year ongoing to increase both the value and the amount total of awards.

We do also support our science requests around indexing those awards to inflation to make sure that we are at least addressing and capturing inflation moving forward.

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

Moving now to the idea of the brain drain, I've seen statistics. Thirty-eight per cent of Canadian graduate students end up going overseas for various reasons. Part of that is funding for research. Maybe there are other factors, like the precarity issues you talked to.

Do you have more information on why students are moving overseas and the loss we are facing? I ask because we've invested millions of dollars in educating these people.

[Justine De Jaegher]

Absolutely.

We can share more data as well, but I'll say anecdotally from the recent survey we conducted of members, part of it is there's a pipeline of academics, if you will, of early career researchers and graduate students who ideally will become Canada's full-time academics in the future.

In addition to the erosion of the real value of graduate student scholarships, we've also seen an erosion of that academic job. Even students who perhaps want to pursue their graduate studies in Canada are looking down the road and saying, “Well, this is not an industry in which I can have a career in Canada, so I'm going to build my skills up elsewhere.” Again, we're seeing it's now roughly a third of contracts that have no research at all for our members, and they are determined from semester to semester and contract to contract. There's absolutely no job security there.

It's all part of the same conversation. The graduate student scholarships absolutely need to increase, but we also need to protect the nature of the academic job in Canada to make sure that folks want to do their innovative research here as well.

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

I have one minute, and I have one more question.

The United States has always been our competitor and neighbour. Can you comment on recent investments the United States has made into research, specifically in universities?

How does that compare to Canada and how might that exacerbate the situation we find ourselves in?

[Justine De Jaegher]

Under the Biden administration, there have been significant investments made in research, including basic research.

I'll also note that the stipends for graduate students are substantially higher in the United States. The common retort we'll hear to that is of course tuition fees are higher in the United States, but they are actually increasingly shrinking if we look at the public colleges and universities in the United States, rather than also having data that encompasses the private system.

Stipends for post-docs, for example, in the United States are $53,000 a year, whereas they're $45,000 here. That is a pretty significant difference—

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

Thank you.

Now we'll go to our next round of five minutes each, starting off with Mr. Tochor from the Conservatives.

[Corey Tochor, Conservative, Saskatoon—University, SK]

Thank you so much.

Thank you to the witnesses for the testimony so far.

Madam De Jaegher, you talked about inflation. We know that right now, 1.5 million Canadians are relying on food banks and one in four Canadians is missing meals to deal with runaway inflation.

What other stories are you hearing from members and students about how they're dealing with inflation?

[Justine De Jaegher]

It's huge. Speaking to graduate students specifically, as I said, they have that additional burden of tuition fees that have absolutely been skyrocketing above even the cost of housing. The cost of housing is huge. The cost of groceries is huge. A lot of times it comes down to, “Am I going to choose between groceries or paying my rent this month?” We hear those stories.

It's really a shame, because we want those folks, our members and graduate students who will hopefully become our members, to be able to focus on their studies and on their research work that is, hopefully, going to create the innovations we need to address some of the major issues we're facing, from climate change to food security and any number of issues. That's where we'd like to see their energies focused, not on making ends meet.

[Corey Tochor, Conservative, Saskatoon—University, SK]

You talked about rents. We know that nationally, rent has doubled in the last eight years. Does that impact the students' ability to conduct themselves? Typically, you have a roommate in university. Have you heard of students being added to rental units just to make ends meet? How are students actually making ends meet?

[Justine De Jaegher]

Yes, absolutely. There's a higher proportion of students who are living with more and more roommates, certainly, in smaller and smaller spaces. We hear this a lot in particular from international students, who are paying three to four times more in tuition fees every year, and face that higher amount of cost of living.

It's all part of the cost of living challenge. A big way we can address it, at least around this table, is by increasing the direct funding these students get. Of course, there are other ways to tackle these many issues, including supporting housing initiatives, but that's one concrete way we can support students.

[Corey Tochor, Conservative, Saskatoon—University, SK]

The next government.... If you had two choices—index the supports as they are now but have a new government that doesn't worry about inflation, or have a government that keeps inflation flat—which one of those scenarios would you prefer?

[Justine De Jaegher]

I'm going to provide perhaps an annoying answer in that we actually....

Again, it's a serious issue that we're seeing in our sector. We can't dilute it to one solution. At the end of the day, we need to be looking at cost of living across the board—certainly housing, certainly food and certainly tuition—but we also need to be looking at direct funding, making sure they're at least keeping pace with inflation and ideally addressing the backlog in funding from 2003 onwards.

I'm afraid I cannot choose one. I think it will require many solutions.