Science and Research Committee on June 13th, 2023

[Colin Colterjohn]

It just cut out about halfway.

[Stéphane Lauzon, Liberal, Argenteuil—La Petite-Nation, QC]

Okay. I'll start again.

Mr. Colterjohn, you said that water polo scholarships were smaller than those for certain recognized sports. It's important to mention it, because it's difficult to combine university studies and sports.

Do you agree with me about the fact that it's important to review the entire scholarship system, whether it's sports or academic scholarships?

[Colin Colterjohn]

Yes, I do believe that it's fair to have some degree of allocation of funding that's given to each sport based on the popularity of the sport, because that, at the end, also impacts the amount of money that comes through the entire system. That's the way that funding has been from a government standpoint in the past when I used programs such as Quest for Gold carding from the Ontario government.

At the same time, I do believe that funding, overall, from the ground up, does require some degree of rehabilitation because it seems that there's a stopping point right now somewhere between what the government has allocated and what schools are allocated. Again, I can only speak from my experience here as an undergrad and a graduate student. We went from some small amount of subsidies at the start in the form of scholarships to paying to play at a fairly competitive level the last six or seven years. As much as we are very committed and passionate about our sport, it's something that, unfortunately, most students can't physically afford to do. Much of the burden has been picked up by our alumni association to help with that, but it does feel that, overall, the students are not receiving any support in terms of sports scholarships.

[Stéphane Lauzon, Liberal, Argenteuil—La Petite-Nation, QC]

Thank you.

Mr. Colterjohn, as a PhD candidate, you're directly affected by study scholarship amounts. In fact, you told us about it.

What's your opinion of the adequacy between current scholarship amounts and the needs of graduate students? Do you think the amounts are enough to cover costs and promote academic achievement?

[Colin Colterjohn]

I'm not getting enough in order to take the steps in my life, outside of research, that I have been able to take. I do not believe that my funding would have been sufficient for me to take steps such as purchasing a home—or an engagement ring for that matter.

I do believe that my second job has been purely a necessity in order for me to take those steps in my life. I think that the graduate funding that I'm receiving is significantly shorter than what I require in order to live solely based on that.

[Stéphane Lauzon, Liberal, Argenteuil—La Petite-Nation, QC]

Thank you.

Mr. Johnson, as chair of the board of directors for Support Our Science, you have a valuable vision of the current reality of graduate students and postdoctoral researchers in Canada.

In your opinion, what was the impact of freezing scholarships for researchers, and what might be the effects of a possible increase?

If you don't have time to answer my question now, I'd like you to send us an answer in writing.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

Yes.

We're out of time, but if you could provide a written answer or could work it into another answer, that would be great.

Thank you for that.

Mr. Blanchette‑Joncas, you now have the floor for six minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I welcome the witnesses who are here to participate in our important study.

Mr. Johnson, on May 1, the Support Our Science movement coordinated simultaneous rallies throughout Quebec and Canada. In nearly 50 institutions, students, research staff, teachers and other players united to send a message to the government that it's time to act. Asking our best brains to live with the same income they had 20 years ago is unworthy of a G7 country. Is there anything, anything at all, whose price hasn't gone up since 2003? I don't know of any.

I was at the rally on Parliament Hill, which included representatives of the Quebec Student Union, the Canadian Alliance of Student Associations and Support Our Science. In fact, I called more attention to it by holding a transpartisan press briefing in the House of Commons foyer with representatives of those three organizations. I invited all members of the committee to join me in asking for an increase in scholarships. I thank my colleague Mr. Cannings, who was the only one to join me in supporting our students. It's important to mention it.

Mr. Johnson, after that huge rally on May 1, organized by the Support Our Science movement, have you had any discussions or communication with the current government?

[Marc Johnson]

Yes, we have had communications with the current government, leading up to and since the May 1 walkout at 46 institutions coast to coast.

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

Thank you, Mr. Johnson.

Can you tell us about the type of discussions you had?

[Marc Johnson]

We've spoken to a number of individual MPs. We've also spoken to Minister Champagne's office extensively. We've also been speaking with Minister Freeland's office. We were supposed to have a meeting with Minister Freeland on Thursday, but she cancelled the meeting.

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

Thank you, Mr. Johnson.

I assume you had already spoken with these individuals before. Do you really feel that the government understands the reality, what graduate students are going through right now?

[Marc Johnson]

I'm sorry. Can you restate the question? I thought it was for the other witness.

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

Do you feel that the government understands the urgency of the situation, and that it must increase scholarships for graduate studies?

[Marc Johnson]

It's an absolutely urgent issue. Minister Champagne, on Thanksgiving, said that he heard us and that they are going to address it as soon as possible. We saw that as a good-faith commitment. We did not see any investment in the fall economic update. We are disappointed by that, but we saw it as coming in budget 2023. There was nothing that came in budget 2023. That was, quite frankly, shocking and surprising. I don't understand.

This seems like an easy win politically, but more importantly it seems like an easy win for Canada since this has such huge impacts on our economy. The lack of investment is costing the Canadian government probably over a billion dollars in people leaving Canada annually right now, which is much less than we're asking them to increase it.

Why is there a roadblock? I have no understanding of this. It's surprising because it seems like an easy win.

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

Mr. Johnson, can you clarify Support Our Science's demands?

[Marc Johnson]

There are four specific requests. One is that the value of graduate scholarships increase by 50% in their value and be indexed to inflation moving forward.

The second is that the number of graduate scholarships increase by 50%, because there has been a doubling in the number of graduate students in the system in the last 20 years.

The third request is that the number of post-doctoral fellowships increase by 100%. The reason is that, in 2010, the number of awards decreased by 40% and at the same time the number of Ph.D.s in the system has doubled through time.

The fourth request is to increase the budgets of grants at the tri-agencies by 10% per year for the next five years.

I am surprised that this committee has only recommended a 25% increase. That only brings us to 2015 levels, which are still below the poverty line. Why the committee keeps recommending an increase of 25% is also surprising. I don't know where that number is coming from. It's not based on any data that I'm aware of.

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

Thank you, Mr. Johnson.

I'd like to talk about another aspect of the issue. There's a lot of talk about increasing scholarship amounts, but not every student has access to them. They can also get funding from granting agencies, through research chairs.

I'd like to hear your recommendations or your opinion on the fact that, even if scholarship amounts go up, they won't be enough for all students to access the funding that might be available in graduate school.

[Marc Johnson]

We need to invest in both scholarships and fellowships, and grants. There are many students that are supported by scholarships and fellowships, but most students are supported by grants. That's why it's very important we do both at the exact same time by the amounts that I was just suggesting right there, which is a 50% increase in the value of scholarships and a 10% increase in the value of the grants per year for the next five years.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

Thank you very much.

Now we go to Richard Cannings for six minutes.

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

Thank you.

Thank you to both witnesses here today. I'm going to continue with Dr. Johnson.

First of all, thank you for all the work you've put in over the last years on this issue. It's an important one, obviously. As you say, it's the most important issue facing science and research in Canada and the federal government and, again as you say, there's been general surprise from all sorts of people and groups, including me, that this hasn't been dealt with quickly, because it would be an easy win. It's very low-hanging fruit.

I'm wondering if we can go back to the figure you mentioned. I think it was $740 million a year as a rough figure—and you've said that it may be more than a billion dollars per year—in lost investment. This is the amount of money we've put into educating our young researchers every year, and that is being lost as they leave the country, because other countries seem to recognize their value more than we do. I'm just wondering if you could comment on that and maybe expand on how that works.

[Marc Johnson]

Yes. Every Ph.D. student in the country ends up doing years of research and training. On average, it's 5.75 years that a Ph.D. student works to become an expert in their field. We invest a lot in that. On average, that's $35,000 a year that we're investing in them to become some of the best scientists, social scientists, engineers and nuclear physicists, as we were hearing from the other witness.

The intention of that investment, as I understand it, is that it's going to benefit our economy for years to come. I see it as problematic that four years ago, before everything went crazy with inflation and the pandemic, 38% of all Ph.D.s were immediately leaving the country—and most of them not coming back—because they could not get adequate support here in Canada. In 2019, that was costing our economy $740 million per year. Today, with inflation, that number is going to be much higher. There's been no other study since then. It's almost certainly over one billion dollars a year today.

For example, from my own lab, of the last four Ph.D. students, three have gone to the U.S., and there's no hope of bringing them back at this point because they're making much more money. In the U.S., for example, the equivalent of our scholarship for a Ph.D. student is $65,000 Canadian in the U.S. We're offering $45,000 here. For post-docs, it's $95,000 a year Canadian in the U.S. for the equivalent of what we're offering here, which is $45,000.

There's just a huge discrepancy right now. When my daughter, who's going into university right now, thinks of doing graduate school because she wants to be a physicist, I will tell her to study elsewhere unless things change here in Canada.

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

You mentioned the need to increase the grants as well, because most students are paid by the principal investigators, the researchers, out of their own grants. We've heard from other testimony that universities have been counselled to take on fewer grad students because they end up topping up the incomes of their grad students and they just simply can't afford to do that any more than they're doing now.

Can you comment on that? It looks like not only are students choosing to go elsewhere, but now universities may be forced to accept fewer.

[Marc Johnson]

Yes, because of 20 years of stagnation in funding, we're having to find other sources of funding to support the students, who just cannot afford to live in cities like Toronto, where I am. That's coming from increased teaching. It's coming from increased awards—coming from our endowments from the universities. As you're hearing, most students are actually now getting part-time jobs, when we would I think ideally like them to be focusing on the research. As a result, we are having to take on fewer students.

We're at a breaking point. I am now actively taking on fewer students as a professor because I can no longer pay them at that minimum level in Canada and expect to get the top talent. I would like to take on more students. I certainly have a lot of students contacting me, but if they're going to have any type of living wage, I have to take on fewer right now, which is going to have a negative impact on innovation and discovery in Canada and on the short-term and long-term economy.

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

I wonder if you could comment on this.

Although these scholarships and fellowships represent less than half of the students who are in graduate studies in Canada, what is the effect that the rates they are getting, these poverty rates, have on setting the bar for other ways that the students can be paid, whether from the universities through a teaching assistantship or whatever? What is the effect of saying that this is what the federal government feels is an okay rate to pay students?