Science and Research Committee on June 6th, 2023

[Dr. Mona Nemer]

Mr. Chair, mentorship is an issue that is very close to my heart. It's one that is extremely important. Mentorship and role models matter. In our system, we actually don't value this. We don't have prizes for mentorship, and in our institutions, we don't systematically take into account the different implications for many of our researchers. I think this is an area that would certainly benefit from the review you're undertaking.

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

How does the Canadian government collaborate with the academic institutions and other stakeholders to ensure a holistic approach in promoting equity of access to financial resources across genders within scholarship and post-doctoral fellowship programs?

[Dr. Mona Nemer]

Mr. Chair, this is a difficult question for me to answer. I left the university five years ago as VP of research, but I know that at the time there were programs, including for infrastructure, for which institutions had to make a commitment regarding diversity and a number of other criteria, so I believe it's through the different programs.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

Great. Thank you very much.

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

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I want to talk more about equity, diversity and inclusion.

A Radio‑Canada report on May 3 indicated that 95% of funding from the three granting councils had been awarded to scientific research projects for which the applications had been written in English. I'd like the chief science advisor to give us her opinion on that.

Did the three granting agencies apply the principles of equity, diversity and inclusion?

Does the chief science advisor recognize the importance of writing funding applications in French and having scientific publications in French?

How does she explain the fact that 95% of the $8 billion in research funding awarded between 2019 and 2022 went to applications written solely in English? I'd like the chief science advisor to share her opinion on that.

[Dr. Mona Nemer]

Mr. Chair, that's a fundamental issue.

Canada is a bilingual country. There are two official languages. People, including scientists, should be able to express themselves and work in the official language of their choice. It is extremely important for the granting agencies to adopt measures to process applications in either of those two languages. I believe that this is the case, but that would be a question for those agencies to answer.

Since I've spent the vast majority of my career in Quebec, I have an idea of how things work. Often, my francophone colleagues in Quebec prefer to write their funding applications in English, because they say that it increases the pool of peers able to review the application. It's a personal choice, then.

That said, I believe that it's important to ensure that the system can process applications in either official language.

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

Thank you very much, Ms. Nemer.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

Thank you. That's two and a half minutes.

We look forward to getting that report that Mr. Blanchette-Joncas is referring to tabled. That's our next hour in camera.

We go over to you, Mr. Cannings.

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

Thank you.

It's been a bit of a mystery to me as to where and at what level these decisions to set the amounts for scholarships are made.

Are they set at the tri-council level? Do they get a funding envelope from the government and part of that is to go to the scholarships and fellowships? Do they set the amounts of scholarships and decide that they should keep it low and give it to more students?

We've had some testimony to that effect. I'm just wondering if, in your career at those levels, you know where those decisions are made.

[Dr. Mona Nemer]

Mr. Chair, the only programs that I remember where the government had set the amount and the number of scholarships and fellowships specifically were the Vanier and the Banting programs. For the others, I wasn't there. I don't remember.

As you know, the granting council is given an envelope for certain things and then they have to do a Treasury Board submission. This is where things get worked out. That's all I can say.

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

I've kind of been to coming to an understanding of that.

If that funding envelope is such that now.... For the past 20 years, it seems those decisions have been made to keep the levels of the scholarships the same as they were 20 years ago in order to help more students get funding, yet in an ironic way, we're not supporting them because we're paying them poverty wages.

Again, I just want you to comment on whether it's time that we should change that paradigm and say that we have to pay these students a living wage or we're going to lose them.

[Dr. Mona Nemer]

Yes, Mr. Chair, it's exactly that. If the pie is the same, then how do you divide it up?

Tough choices have to be made.

I think it's counterproductive to underpay the trainees when we need them. If they have to work outside of their studies, it is very clear that it delays their graduation. That's also counterproductive. As a country and a society, our investments are best used to pay them properly and have them finish their training as soon as possible and be a valuable part of society.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

Thank you.

Thank you for your testimony as well as your answers, which are going to be very helpful for our study.

We do have to get to votes now.

Before we suspend, I have a reminder for Mr. Lobb.

If you can come back into the meeting through the in camera link, we can then start discussing the “Research and Scientific Publication in French” report. Hopefully, we'll get that to a point where Dr. Nemer can see that valuable work by this committee as well.

We will suspend until that votes are over in at least the next 10 minutes or so.

[Proceedings continue in camera]