Evidence of meeting #50 for Science and Research in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was funding.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:55 p.m.
Liberal
Charles Sousa Liberal Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON
Is there a net influx of brains coming to Canada that offsets it?
12:55 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer, Mitacs
There is a net influx, but as I said, our overall production of Ph.D.s, which is the very top level of talent, is below that of other OECD countries.
12:55 p.m.
Liberal
Charles Sousa Liberal Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON
You mentioned that was because the private sector is not hiring enough Ph.D.s or taking advantage of that partnership.
12:55 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer, Mitacs
Absolutely. The reason IIT students go to Stanford is that they know they're guaranteed a good job at high pay in the Bay Area after they graduate.
Stanford is a great university. They go there because of that. They go there because of the opportunities post-graduation.
1 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Lloyd Longfield
Thank you.
Mr. Blanchette-Joncas, you have six minutes, or rather, two and a half minutes.
1 p.m.
Bloc
Maxime Blanchette-Joncas Bloc Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC
I would happily take six minutes, Mr. Chair.
I'll be using my precious speaking time to introduce a notice of motion. It's important, Mr. Chair. Just to give my colleagues some context, I'll remind them that I managed to get a motion passed by this very committee inviting the Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry to testify before us. We all did that on March 30. The clerk sent—
1 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Lloyd Longfield
Actually, I have to interrupt you. We haven't had our 48-hour notice for the notice of motion, and we're not in committee business.
That's something you can provide in writing, and then we can have our notice and pick it up—
1 p.m.
Conservative
Corey Tochor Conservative Saskatoon—University, SK
On a point of order, can we do it unanimously, though? Maybe the clerk can....
1 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Lloyd Longfield
If it's the will of the committee around the table to accept a notice of motion....
Okay. It looks like the committee is good with that.
1 p.m.
Francis Drouin Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, Lib.
It's a notice of motion, not a motion.
1 p.m.
Liberal
1 p.m.
Bloc
Maxime Blanchette-Joncas Bloc Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I thank my colleague. Indeed, as I mentioned at the top, I'm giving a notice of motion, not introducing a motion. I haven't asked for unanimous consent to do so.
I'll pick up my story where I left off, because it's a fairly long one. It all started on March 30, when I requested in this very committee, with the support of my committee colleagues, that we invite the Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry to appear to talk to us about the recent budget, which was also tabled last March, as you all know. On the same day, the clerk sent off possible dates on which the minister could appear, and the minister's staff replied that he couldn't make it on those dates. The clerk then suggested other dates, working around the minister's schedule. I understand that the minister's a busy man, but it's been two and half months now since the initial request to appear was sent off, and we're still waiting. The clerk hasn't received a response to our initial invitation for the minister to appear to talk about budget 2023, tabled on March 28.
At this rate, we'll have to send the minister an invitation today to come talk to us about budget 2025. This situation speaks volumes about the minister's interest in the committee's work and, more broadly, the importance he attaches to the issues related to Canada's and Quebec's student population and scientific community.
The Bouchard report, commissioned by the government, sounded the alarm about the urgent need to invest now in science and research funding. The student population and academic community have repeatedly asked, in this committee and elsewhere, for an increase in scholarships, which haven't seen an increase in 20 years.
It isn't complicated: Every single indicator is in the red. The experts and researchers are saying that Canada is at a breaking point in the sciences, at a time when all our competitors are working twice as hard to face current challenges, such as pandemics, climate change and the energy transition. And yet the government chose to invest zero dollars in the sciences in its recent budget.
To add insult to injury, the minister isn't willing to take an hour out of his schedule to come in front of this committee to answer to his parliamentary colleagues and inform them as well as the entire scientific community of his vision for science in Canada.
And so I'm giving notice of motion today to once again invite the minister to testify before the committee, in the hopes that, this time, his office will at least bother to give us an answer. The motion is as follows:
That, pursuant to Standing Order 108(3)(i), the committee reiterate its invitation to the Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry to testify about the 2023-2024 budget, after its initial invitation extended on March 30, 2023, and that it ask the minister to come testify before the committee as soon as possible and for one hour.
1 p.m.
Liberal
1 p.m.
NDP
Richard Cannings NDP South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC
Thank you.
I'm going to turn to Dr. Novog.
I'm intrigued by this concept of international exchange. I really love to promote that idea in general. I know how it works at the undergraduate level. My son was going to UBC. There, you can choose from among 80 different institutions around the world for your third year.
I'm interested to hear how it works at the postgraduate level, where you have situations that are a little more complicated, with labs and fieldwork and all that kind of stuff.
1 p.m.
Professor, Department of Engineering Physics, McMaster University, As an Individual
Yes, it's more complicated at the grad level. My experience is that it works best when there are good partnerships in place already. With the research collaborators that I have in place in France, Italy, Germany and the Czech Republic, those are the places where we usually form agreements first and then work with the university administration to set up formal exchange programs. There are now several that students can choose from when they start, but it's certainly not as wide-ranging as an undergrad kind of exchange program.
1:05 p.m.
NDP
1:05 p.m.
Professor, Department of Engineering Physics, McMaster University, As an Individual
Yes.
1:05 p.m.
NDP
Richard Cannings NDP South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC
You have collaborators around the world that you know your students would benefit from working—
June 15th, 2023 / 1:05 p.m.
Professor, Department of Engineering Physics, McMaster University, As an Individual
Yes, from their training programs and from their education. Likewise, we have facilities at McMaster—like the reactor— and people can come; they might not have a reactor on campus. We leverage that to give them an experience, and our students get an experience.
What's different is that I endeavour to collect extra research funding to give a stipend for my students to go. There's no formal program that would really promote that and allow students to participate who might not have access to the same research funding I do.
1:05 p.m.
NDP
Richard Cannings NDP South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC
That was my other question. Who pays for the actual...?
1:05 p.m.
Professor, Department of Engineering Physics, McMaster University, As an Individual
Right now, it's really, I would say, ad hoc. In some cases, there are some travel grants from the university that are available on a limited basis. There are some from the Society of Professional Engineers. The student would have to work within the envelope to try to find funding if their supervisor is not able to fully fund them.
We have an unspoken agreement with grad students if they make the decision to pursue a Ph.D. but they could have got a job. I'm not willing—nor should we try—to pay them, as others have said, an industry wage at that level, but what I try to do in their Ph.D. is ensure that they don't have to take on additional loans and debt burden to be able to complete their Ph.D., because they had an opportunity to leave, didn't they? The unspoken commitment is that if they stay, I will endeavour to put a funding package in place, and travel—covering all those things—so that they leave their Ph.D. program no further in debt than when they started.
1:05 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Lloyd Longfield
That's super. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Dr. Novog, Dr. Saman Sadeghi, Dr. John Hepburn and Dr. Steve Hranilovic, for being here today and for your testimony. That's going to help with our study.
I also want to comment that last summer I was at the Bruce nuclear facility. I saw the partnership with the Saugeen Ojibway Nation on the isotopes program and the work you're doing with the reactors. Those are tremendous partnerships that are going on, so thank you for your contributions there.
If you have anything else you'd like to submit in writing, please send it in.
Our next meeting is going to be on Tuesday, June 20, 2023, to commence our study on the use of federal government research and development grants, funds and contributions by Canadian universities and research institutions in partnerships with entities connected to the People's Republic of China and the long-term impacts. We need a shorter title on that.
We will also have the study to examine the long-term impacts of pay gaps experienced by different genders and equity-seeking groups among faculty at Canadian universities.
We have some witnesses lined up for next Tuesday, and hopefully we'll be able to continue next Thursday as well on those two studies.
Is it the will of the committee for us to adjourn?
1:05 p.m.
Some hon. members
Agreed.