Science and Research Committee on June 6th, 2023

[Chad Collins, Liberal, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Thanks for that answer.

My next question would be along the lines of finding other ways and means to support postgraduate students. One of those areas that we've heard about from some of the witnesses is along the lines of housing. As we know, anyone who continues their education, either through research and development or through other connections to a university or college, might find today's housing environment a bit costly compared to where we were maybe 10 years ago.

I was looking to other witnesses to make suggestions as to how the government might assist. In my own municipality, McMaster University just recently constructed and opened a 30-storey, 450-unit postgraduate residence in downtown Hamilton, and I know that many of those units are offered by the university at under-market rate rents.

Can I ask—through you, Mr. Chairman—your thoughts as they relate to finding ways and means, either through other ministries or through other support mechanisms, to help postgraduate students lower the cost of living and help them ease the burden of increased costs that not only students and postgraduate students face today, but that everyone faces today.

[Dr. Mona Nemer]

Mr. Chair, for sure, any help is welcome.

In an ideal world, the institutions would work collaboratively with different levels of government to address the issue. I can tell you, when I was the vice-president of research at the University of Ottawa, the issue of housing was top of mind. The issue of building residences was also problematic.

At the same time, the university couldn't subsidize the housing because of the legislation and policies from the Ontario government. I will just say that it may vary from one province to the other.

It's certainly one area that would help, but we don't want them having a roof—which would already be a good start—but then starving, because as you know and you've probably heard, the number of graduate students going to food banks has skyrocketed in an unbelievable way.

[Chad Collins, Liberal, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Dr. Nemer, I think I have just less than a minute left.

In September 2022, the Office of the Chief Science Adviser's youth council released the report “Our Vision for Science”. The report found that women, visible minorities, indigenous peoples and persons with disabilities are not being proportionately represented in federal award processes.

How can the Government of Canada better ensure representation of students or researchers from under-represented groups within the graduate and post-doctoral funding system?

[Dr. Mona Nemer]

Thank you very much.

Thank you for referencing this report. It's an outstanding group of young people who did it. I think we need to review our criteria for allocating a lot of the scholarships and research funding. Many of them may favour the establishment and folks who, perhaps, come from certain groups and who are going about advancing their careers in certain ways that others don't have the means and the opportunities to do, so I think this is very important.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

Thank you, both, very much.

Mr. Blanchette‑Joncas, you have six minutes.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Good morning, Ms. Nemer. It's a pleasure to see you today.

I listened carefully to your opening statement, and I'd like to know whether you wrote it.

[Dr. Mona Nemer]

Absolutely. There's no doubt that I wrote the speech myself. I don't know whether it's been well received or not, but I did indeed write it.

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

Okay, Ms. Nemer. I'd like to tell you, with all due respect, that I found it quite weak. You said that scholarships have not kept pace with the cost of living. However, you failed to mention that there's been no increase, not just in the past five years, 10 years or 15 years, but rather in 20 years. That fact didn't seem important enough to mention. You also didn't indicate that Canada is the only G7 country since 2016 to lose researchers.

You're telling us that Canada is a leader in many fields, but you don't indicate that, among the G7 countries, it's the only one to lose researchers. You also didn't tell us that Canada is at a breaking point in the scientific ecosystem, in terms of R and D investments. Canada is the only G7 country to have cut R and D investments over the past 20 years.

With all due respect, Ms. Nemer, I'll say that your speech was more than weak—it lacked courage. If you, Canada's chief science advisor, don't tell us the reality and the truth to influence public policy, who will?

[Dr. Mona Nemer]

Mr. Chair, I think the committee member has misinterpreted my speech.

Indeed, I said that neither scholarships nor the average value of grants had risen over the past several decades. I want to clear up any confusion there may have been.

Furthermore, Canada is not the only country in this situation, but it is unique in terms of the gap between its low investment in research and the average among OECD countries. Obviously, this trend needs to be reversed. I've already expressed that very clearly in public. I'm not hiding any facts from the committee.

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

Okay.

Ms. Nemer, I'll continue my questions. On a scale of one to 10, how important to you is the indexing of graduate scholarships?

[Dr. Mona Nemer]

It's difficult to talk about indexing scholarships without talking about indexing other things, such as grants. Once indexing applies to one half of the system, it has to apply to the other.

Indexing would be insufficient, in my humble opinion. What we need is an in-depth review of the formula used to calculate the value of research and the value of the work once completed. Then, the entire system needs to be adjusted on that basis. It also needs to be adjusted to reflect how the situation has evolved around the world.

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

Okay.

Ms. Nemer, perhaps you didn't understand my question. I'll repeat it.

On a scale of one to 10, how important is it to the federal government that its graduate scholarships be increased?

[Dr. Mona Nemer]

Increasing the value of scholarships would be at the very top. However, are we talking about indexing or more than just indexing? That is what I'm trying to explain.

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

Okay. On a scale of one to 10, what number would you give it?

[Dr. Mona Nemer]

I would say 10.

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

Excellent.

Could you tell me why, since 2018, graduate scholarships have not been mentioned once in the chief science advisor's annual reports, meaning yours? Your role is to advise the government on public policy, yet you never once highlighted in those reports the importance of increasing graduate scholarships.

Why are you telling me now that this is a top priority when, for five years, you never mentioned it in your annual reports?

[Dr. Mona Nemer]

There is more than one way for me to share my opinions and recommendations with the government. The annual report paints a picture of the situation. In recent years, we were very busy dealing with the pandemic emergency. Many opinions have been shared on that. If memory serves me, in my most recent report, I did indeed recommend increasing support for research to better prepare for all kinds of emergencies, be it another pandemic or something else. I certainly did not highlight one thing over another.

As I mentioned, I believe that it's essential to remember that 75% of students receive the equivalent of a scholarship through research funding and not directly through scholarships. Fixing this problem for less than 25% of graduate students does not adequately resolve the issue.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

Thank you.

I'd like to remind Mr. Blanchette-Joncas to address questions through the chair, please, rather than directly to the witness. I think that would help to smooth the conversations as well.

We have Mr. Cannings for six minutes, please.

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

Thank you.

Thank you to Dr. Nemer for being here today. It's always good to have you before this committee.

You emphasized in your opening remarks that there are two or more ways that graduate students receive funding for their work. One is the direct scholarships and fellowships that the tri-councils provide, and the other, the majority, is from the principal investigators themselves or perhaps the department.

To what extent do you think that those scholarships from the tri-councils, which have been stagnant for more than 20 years...? You gave the example of the math student who's living below the poverty line. To what extent do you feel that those values set the standard for the other ways that students are paid?

[Dr. Mona Nemer]

Thank you very much. This is actually a key issue, because of the value of these scholarships.

We have a broad range of these scholarships. We have the Canada graduate scholarships, we have the Banting scholarships, etc. As we look at modernizing our system, we need to review all of this and stop confusing different things.

There is no question that they do set the standard. In many ways, they set the standards for other organizations as well, including not-for-profits, like the Cancer Society, the Heart and Stroke Foundation or the Brain Canada Foundation; for the provincial governments and for the institutions themselves.

It's quite important to bear this in mind.

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

As you know, often investigators in departments top up those amounts to students so they can have a better living.

We had testimony here from Dr. Andrade, from the University of Toronto. She was advising some departments that have been topping up and finding that it's taking more money from their budgets to keep graduate students properly paid to perhaps take on fewer graduate students.

It seems to me that goes directly against what you and I, and everyone here would want to see. We need more graduate students. We need more good research done. This is where this is leaving us.

[Dr. Mona Nemer]

It's absolutely the case.

It would be totally counterproductive, for example, to suggest that we would use existing funds and increase the stipends, because it would have an adverse effect on what we need as a country, which is to have more graduate training, not less.

I heard about the issue yesterday from one of the PIs, the researchers from the Atlantic provinces, where some of the undergraduate institutions that only offer master's degrees have also limited funding and are unable to top up and support students.

The system is not necessarily equitable for all of the different institutions in all of the different parts of the country. Again, those who will suffer the most are the ones who need the most funding, because of where they come from.

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

I have one last question.

Minister Champagne commissioned a report from Dr. Bouchard and the Advisory Panel on the Federal Research Support System. That report recommended that the grants be increased 10% for five years, and 5% thereafter, and that the graduate scholarships also be increased to reflect the changes over the last 20 years.

I'm just wondering whether you support those findings and whether you have advocated for them with the government.

[Dr. Mona Nemer]

Mr. Chair, I absolutely support increasing investments in research and have advocated this from the first day that I walked into this job, and even before. My position on this is very clear.

The Bouchard report has done a great job at providing us with an update on the issues and the challenges we face and the potential solutions. I would like to say that whether we should be adding 10%, or 5%, or 20% is a matter of priorities and calculations.

What I'd like to see us doing is committing to an ambitious target—not even an ambitious target, but a target. For example, we could say that Canada in five years should meet the average of the OECD, or be in the median of the G7 countries in terms of investments in research, and work from there. Reverse-engineer what we need to be doing.

This needs to be dynamic. If we increase by 10%, and others increase by 50% or 20%, then in a few years we're going to be here having exactly the same conversations.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

Thank you for the questions.

I'm Iooking at the time, and we'll hopefully be able to get through five minutes, five minutes, two and a half minutes and two and a half minutes.

We'll start with Mr. Mazier.