Science and Research Committee on Feb. 15th, 2022

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

Thank you, Mr. Adem.

Mr. Hewitt, do you see any benefit in bringing federal research funding agencies together under a single umbrella?

[Dr. Ted Hewitt]

Thank you for your question, Mr. Blanchette-Joncas.

The Fonds de recherche du Québec's structure isn't all that different from the federal structure. The three agencies were combined into a single agency. In Quebec, the conditions are a bit different from those in the rest of Canada in terms of community, regional and language differences. The three disciplinary communities are different, so their needs and expectations have to be met through the three agencies. As Mr. Adem mentioned, the model works well.

In addition, the three agencies' programs work quite well and are administered by SSHRC. I'm referring to the Canada research chairs program, programming related to the indirect costs of research and the Canada first research excellence fund, for instance. Spending on those programs is a lot higher than it is for individual programming, in order to support the three disciplines here, in Canada, across all fields.

When all is said and done, our model isn't much different from Quebec's, but it does have other benefits to better support Canada's various communities.

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

Thank you, Mr. Hewitt.

My next question is for Dr. Strong and has to do with something else.

Dr. Strong, you brought up the equity, diversity and inclusion criteria. I realize that they apply at the individual level, meaning they are used for individuals.

However, do you have similar criteria or a similar mechanism for institutions?

I'm referring to inequities having to do with geography—so universities or research chairs in urban centres versus regions.

Can you talk more about that? Do you have criteria to ensure universities are treated equitably, whether they are located in regions or urban centres?

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Keep it a short answer, please.

[Dr. Michael Strong]

The core of the question is, in fact, a very good one. As we've begun to look more carefully at bringing forward EDI—equity, diversity and inclusiveness—anti-racism principles into all of our granting processes, we are very much aware that there are regional differences, urban versus non-urban, that are at play with all of that.

We are in the process right now of actually reaching out to those communities, through a very deep consultation process, for those with lived experiences to help guide us into what our policies should look like, to guide our grants even further along those lines.

That's actually happening as we speak, through national committees, people raising their voices, through webinars to give us that information.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Dr. Strong, it's so interesting. I'm sorry to move on. Thank you for that answer.

Now we will go to Richard Cannings, for six minutes.

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

Thank you all for being here.

As usual, I have enough questions to spend the entire night here, but we don't have that time.

I'm going to start by trying to pick up on a point that Ms. Diab mentioned a few minutes ago. We've heard a lot about how, at the core of all this, there are people, especially the “new talent”, they call it. These are students, basically, grad students who are entering the research field. We really want to help them grow in their knowledge and we want to keep them here in Canada.

However, what I've been hearing whenever I've talked to researchers and students is that one of the programs that has fallen behind over the last few years is the student scholarships program that the tri-councils administer.

Completely coincidentally, I just came from a meeting with the Canadian Alliance of Student Associations and they had this ask as well. They've looked at what that scholarship program provided at its peak and they said we really should get back to that. They pointed out that it would cost about an additional $120 million each year to get it back to where it was.

Perhaps I can start with Dr. Adem to comment on that. All the councils administer it, but could we start with NSERC and just say where we are with supporting these students? Support for these students is really the basis of all this.

[Dr. Alejandro Adem]

Indeed, the people are at the core of what we do, and it's very important to provide adequate support for the trainees. We're talking about undergraduates, graduates and post-docs. Keeping the stipends and the rates competitive is certainly something that is important for us to do. Canada has to invest in its young people. In keeping track of how things develop over time, the erosion through cost-of-living increases is something which indeed has been brought to our attention by groups of students, and some researchers too.

It's an issue that we face, but I think every country faces that, because there's a worldwide competition for talent. It's not enough to say that Canada is a great country to live in. We have to put resources on the table to attract the best students, from India, Pakistan and Africa. It's very important that we offer competitive stipends to adequately support our students.

Now, usually it's a combination of resources that are used. It could be funding from the agencies. There can be teaching assistantships and other sources. However, I think all of us recognize that this is a stress point for our system.

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

Thank you. As long as the tri-councils see this as a problem and something that has to be renewed, to get back to where it was at least....

I want to switch this up and turn to Dr. Strong again.

You touched on IP and innovation and keeping that within Canada. One big issue we've been hearing about for the last two years is vaccines. We used to have the government lab that produced vaccines in Canada. I think we would have been well served if we'd had that at the start of this pandemic. However, keeping that IP in Canada and keeping it preferably within government....

I have a friend, Dr. Tony Holler. He had a company called ID Biomedical. They developed a flu vaccine, and it was sold to a multinational, GlaxoSmithKline. I don't know the details of what that company is doing. I know they used to have labs in Quebec.

That seems to be the path of Canadian companies and Canadian IP, and I'm wondering if you could provide a bit more detail on what we can do to keep that valuable and essential IP and production within Canada.

[Dr. Michael Strong]

The answer to that really stems from what we've learned in the course of the pandemic about the need to ensure we have the infrastructure in Canada to be able to fully synthesize and be self-sufficient with respect to vaccine production, and, in reality, a number of other agents that would be required for other therapeutic interventions over time.

The investments that are in the process of being made at this time—and, again, I refer back to the biomanufacturing initiative but also specifically to the CIHR and the tri-agency's role in this—have been very much to begin to design the programs that will start at the very early part of this to ensure that, for the actual ideas that are synthesized here in Canada, the research is done within Canada, the IT is protected and the partnerships with industry are in place. However, when it comes to the point of scaling up and being able to do the actual synthesis, this is an area where our colleagues at ISED have been doing massive investments in order to ensure we have the capacity for fill and finish.

The lesson learned from the pandemic has been that Canada needs to have a steady state of capacity that will allow us to ensure we can produce vaccines or other therapeutics without having to rely on other countries to do so. It is the pipeline that needs to be constructed, and the resources have been provided to us to start the foundations of that.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Thank you so much, Mr. Cannings and Dr. Strong.

This is excellent testimony. The questions are really good from our members, and we have experts here.

Might I suggest that we do an extra five minutes to make up for the five minutes we lost and, to be fair, do two and a half minutes for each party.

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

With that, I will go to Mr. Soroka for two and a half minutes.

[Gerald Soroka, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Mr. Strong, I guess Mr. Cannings and I are sitting too close to each other, because we have the same kind of question.

I wanted to talk about the research being done on COVID to create a vaccine, and yet it seemed like this government decided not to fund universities any further and went for the big pharmaceutical companies.

My question is this: Is it purely because we didn't have the manufacturing capabilities, or do you feel that they didn't value our research, or is it because we wouldn't be recognized across the world by making our own vaccine at home?

[Dr. Michael Strong]

It actually is a broader combination of issues than what you've delineated.

In the early days of the pandemic it was important to really quickly be able to scale up and get vaccines into the arms of Canadians, and that capacity did not reside within Canada to do that, hence the partnering with pharmaceuticals to be able to bring that to the table for Canadians rapidly.

We made a massive investment—at CIHR alone, over $300 million. If you look across all of our agencies, you see there was close to almost $800 million of funding into research for very basic...right from therapies, best interventions, to new nucleotide therapies, and so on. We made the investments really rapidly into the basic research to try to pay the dividends, but we needed to bridge that, and that's where the pharmaceuticals came in.

It was a strong vote of confidence in our academic centres and the ability for them to turn on a dime to produce that.

[Gerald Soroka, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

As a follow-up question, it seems like everyone wants to say they've had a Pfizer or a Moderna, or whatever company you want to put in there. Do you think there's still going to be the same recognition worldwide if it's made in Canada, or not?

[Dr. Michael Strong]

This is a worldwide effort to deal with COVID, SARS-CoV-2, and the next coronavirus that will come along, and so all countries are working very hard to develop vaccines to understand new ways of therapies to block the receptors.

I would say that irrespective of what country, and that includes Canada, it will be celebrated worldwide as we develop these. I think we're in a very strong position with very good research in Canada to be amongst that group, and I see it every day through the results coming across our desks.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Thank you.

Now we will go to Mr. McKinnon for two and a half minutes.

[Ron McKinnon, Liberal, Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

I want to switch away from talking about downstream innovation and commercialization, and turn to the headwaters of research, which I believe are fundamental research and pure research.

I think one of the characteristics of pure research is that we don't necessarily know what's going to pan out, whether an idea is a good one or not until way down the road.

How do we make sure that we adequately support fundamental research, and how do we decide what off-the-cuff, off-the-wall research is worth supporting?

I would direct that to start with Dr. Adem, please.

[Dr. Alejandro Adem]

Indeed, blue skies research is essential to the health of science and innovation. Everything comes from an idea, and the ideas are the ones that are then mobilized to produce well-being for society.

I myself am a mathematician. Everything we do is about ideas, and very abstract ideas, so the whole point I think about fundamental research is that we do not choose the winners. It is the scientific method that is developed and the participation of peer review, the scientific community evaluating proposals in an open, intellectual discussion, that then results in appropriate funding for these projects.

I'm very proud of the discovery grants program that we have at NSERC, where we fund thousands of researchers working on blue skies research. We're really investing in people and their ideas. Afterwards these ideas might be mobilized into an application, into interdisciplinary activities, but it really is, I think, at the core.

I moved to Canada because of the strength of its funding system and the discovery grants program, because in an area such as mine it really is unique in the world.

That point is well taken, and in our consultations with the community invariably we hear that that is the bedrock of science and research in Canada.

[Ron McKinnon, Liberal, Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC]

I guess I'm still kind of concerned about what sort of—

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Mr. McKinnon, that's two and a half minutes.

Thank you, and thank you to Dr. Adem.

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

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

My question is for Mr. Hewitt.

I'd like to get a better sense of why the funding for the three granting agencies is broken down on a 40‑40‑20 basis. SSHRC has been receiving 15% less for the past 30 years.

Can you explain what the basis for the 40‑40‑20 breakdown is? Why does SSHRC receive 15% less when it comes to total available research funding?

[Dr. Ted Hewitt]

That's a very good question. I spoke to the previous minister about that very issue.

Currently, I think the split is 22‑38, so we're doing a bit better.

We are also active in tri-agency programming to increase the share of funding available to researchers in the social sciences and humanities field. That, too, is very important.

I completely agree that what we contribute is worth more than what we receive under the current breakdown for the three areas. I will continue engaging the government on the issue in an effort to increase our share, as well as the amount of funding available for all three research areas.

Thank you for asking.