Science and Research Committee on May 16th, 2023

[Valerie Bradford, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to our witnesses for returning to our committee. We really do appreciate your input.

President Hewitt, you mentioned that, of course, federal funding is just one source of funding for these students. Obviously, it hasn't been increased since 2003.

I think you already alluded that perhaps the provincial funding has decreased. You said that the other pockets of funding are provincial funding and post-secondary institutions.

Can you tell us about the trends on those two pockets of funding and how they've increased, maintained or decreased over the years?

[Dr. Ted Hewitt]

I would certainly have to defer to my colleagues to put together some data for you.

I know that in terms of the process, quite often in universities—and again, it may be a question for university association reps to answer—internal policies in effect prevent students from holding, say, a federal scholarship or bursary and also other funding made available by the university.

This is also the case in Ontario, for example. It's long been the case that if you hold a SSHRC doctoral fellowship, you cannot hold an Ontario graduate scholarship. The purpose of this is not to avoid stacking, but to ensure that money can be spread around as much as possible to support more students as opposed to raising the amounts that are available to individual students. We totally understand why that's the case, but that doesn't make it okay.

We have to figure out a way—we've all said this—to raise rates that individual students are receiving within the context of that system or to allow them to have access to increased funds in order to live properly, in effect.

[Valerie Bradford, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

Yes, understood.

Also, we know that in many other countries the private sector is much more engaged in funding research. I was wondering if you could make some suggestions as to what the federal government could do to encourage the private sector to get more involved in this.

Could there be matching funding? What would you suggest so that we can encourage our risk-averse private sector to step up, because they can benefit from this?

[Dr. Ted Hewitt]

Excuse me. Is that question for me?

[Valerie Bradford, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

Yes, and then I also want to hear President Adem's views on this.

[Dr. Ted Hewitt]

As Dr. Adem mentioned, there are programs that do rely on contributions from the private sector, such as Mitacs, and I think they work very well.

Also, I would say that Canadian universities have had reasonable success in attracting industry to support projects on a contract basis. In universities, a lot of that funding is used to support students. I'm not sure what the current value is, but back in the day when I was at Western and VP of research, it was already well over a billion dollars, so I'm sure it's much more than that.

I think there are other options that can be applied as well through some of our partnership programming that Dr. Adem mentioned, and that SSHRC also maintains, where those contributions can help to support students—absolutely.

I'll stop there and allow my colleagues to weigh in.

[Valerie Bradford, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

Yes, and I just want to say that I know the colleges are very effective at having partnerships, particularly in manufacturing and things like that, because they benefit directly from the research.

Go ahead, Dr. Adem.

[Dr. Alejandro Adem]

Yes, absolutely. The colleges are excellent partners for industry. We have a large program called Alliance. The budget is close to $300 million per year. It's a partnership program with industry for not-for-profits focusing on strategic priorities for the private sector, as well as for Canada and the government priorities.

We're delivering on the quantum strategy, quantum science and quantum technologies. We're now delivering jointly with SSHRC on reducing carbon emissions in agriculture. We had one on small nuclear reactors.

There are a lot of partnerships. Indeed, everyone's goal should be to get more investment from the private sector into research, because government cannot pay for all of it. It's a mistake to think that.

[Valerie Bradford, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

Also, it's the private sector that benefits from this.

Also, in response to our second study that we did at this committee on top talent, research and innovation, we heard that through the work of the Canada research coordinating committee we're developing the tri-agency training strategy. It aims to be “trainee-centric, evidence-based, and transparent while communicating a shared vision among the tri-agencies and upholding the principles of equity, diversity and inclusion”.

Also, the “Report of the Advisory Panel on the Federal Research Support System” wrote that the Canada research coordinating committee and other efforts haven't “fully achieved harmonization and the support system remains fragmented”.

Dr. Adem—

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

I'm sorry. We've run over the time.

[Valerie Bradford, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

Can I ask a question for him to provide it in writing?

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

No. We're over the time. Thank you. We have to watch the time, because we are getting close. We do have some permission to go just past the top of the hour.

We'll go to Mr. Blanchette-Joncas for two and a half minutes.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I'm going to continue with my questions.

Earlier, some colleagues said that Canada was a world leader in research. I like facts so much that I did my research. Canada ranks 18th out of 34 OECD countries for investment in research and development. It's also the only G7 country that's reduced its investments in research and development over the past 20 years. The last 20 years seems like a good number, a magic number for the government, because during that same period, the government also didn't increase its graduate scholarships.

Let's get back to the crux of today's study, which is the proportion of investments the government makes in research and, of course, how much it invests in its three granting agencies. A portion of that funding then goes to scholarships. At the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, or NSERC, there's been a decrease in recent years. In 2011‑12, 13.3% of NSERC funding went to scholarships, compared to 8.3% in 2019‑20, a 5% decrease in eight years.

Dr. Adem, if the government reduces its investments in the three granting agencies or doesn't invest in them, as we saw in the latest budget, would you agree that it's impossible for your organization to give out bigger scholarships?

[Dr. Alejandro Adem]

Inflation is having an impact, and it's the most important thing in the agencies' budget. I'm a mathematician and I see the extent to which inflation is bringing down the value of the dollar in our budget. We have to do the best we can with the same amount. Compared with the National Science Foundation in the United States, for example, our situation is totally different. We have to compete with other countries, and that's very important for Canada.

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

Thank you, Dr. Adem. If you had one wish for your organization, what would you ask from the government?

[Dr. Alejandro Adem]

I work with our colleague in the department. I want Canada to be a leader in all the sciences.

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

What do we need to do to be a leader, Dr. Adem?

[Dr. Alejandro Adem]

We need to invest in people and youth in Canada.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

Well done.

Mr. Cannings, go ahead for two and a half minutes, please.

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

Thank you.

I'm going to turn to Dr. Strong and just ask about the comparators that Dr. Adem mentioned.

In your field, what are the comparators internationally that graduate students are looking at, the funding prospects in other countries? We see that, certainly, after Canadian students get their Ph.D.s or doctorates, almost half of them go abroad. I'm wondering how we could look at those comparators and make investments here to keep them in Canada.

[Dr. Michael Strong]

Thank you very much for your question.

I would say there are at least two aspects that need to be addressed on that.

First off, many do leave the country to get enhanced training in techniques and methodologies that would not be available here, and that's very reasonable. We want to see that happening. We want to make sure, however, that we can bring them back, so we have to make sure that the early training programs have sustainability into their first return back to Canada. I think that would be a very important one to look at.

The second is that, as a comparator, we do look very carefully south of the border. The National Institutes of Health would be our major comparator, but we also look at Europe. The Wellcome Trust Foundation is a major training program.

We do look internationally to make sure we are comparable, but the major issue for us would be not only to sustain them while they get that training but also to create the programs that would bring them back, which then would enrich our knowledge base.

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

In terms of that comparability, how do we stack up? It sounds like we are paying out maybe half of what the Americans are paying. Internationally, with the Wellcome Trust, how do we stack up there?

[Dr. Michael Strong]

We are below what would be international averages that we should be looking at with regard to funding. On the exact percentage, we could give you that breakdown by major comparators, but there's no place where we would be exceeding it.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

Thank you.

Thank you so much to all our witnesses.

It's been said, but your contribution to Canada's science can't be understated, so thank you for everything you are doing and continue to do.

We're going to be continuing this study on Thursday in the first hour. In the second hour, we're going to be considering the draft report, version two, on the international moon shot programs. We will be providing drafting instructions for the support of the IP commercialization report. We'll be considering our first version of the draft report on research and scientific publication in French.

A distribution was sent asking for you to give us input on those. We have a lot of work to do on Thursday.

We are adjourning the meeting. Thank you.