Evidence of meeting #54 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 universities.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Senior Fellow, Center for Security and Emerging Technology, Georgetown University, As an Individual
I would agree with that. It's very challenging.
Conservative
Corey Tochor Conservative Saskatoon—University, SK
Do you think Canada's doing enough to coordinate with our allies, especially with America, regarding the threat that the PRC is?
Senior Fellow, Center for Security and Emerging Technology, Georgetown University, As an Individual
I've been out of government for a while, so I'm not aware of what the current conversations are, but I think that the U.S. and Canada are partners and like-minded and that we really do need to work together to counter this threat, because it comes out our seams in a way that our systems are not set up to counter, so yes.
Conservative
Corey Tochor Conservative Saskatoon—University, SK
I would agree with that. I suspect there's been some tension over the years, especially with Huawei and the Five Eyes deciding not to allow Huawei in. For whatever reason, this current government would not make a decision, and that probably would have strained things, obviously, between our two countries.
In your testimony to the U.S. Senate several years ago, you noted that the PRC is increasingly targeting non-ethnic Chinese as well. Can you expand on what groups the PRC is targeting?
Senior Fellow, Center for Security and Emerging Technology, Georgetown University, As an Individual
That would include experts in the different technology areas.
Previously, most of the talent programs were really focused on ethnic Chinese scientists worldwide, regardless of citizenship. They were using, in the same way, the same tactics—funding, lab space—to attract individuals back. The challenge with that is that oftentimes these contracts are opaque and the host institutions are not aware of them.
Conservative
Corey Tochor Conservative Saskatoon—University, SK
Have you heard of the terminology—we heard it last week—“feed, trap, kill”?
Senior Fellow, Center for Security and Emerging Technology, Georgetown University, As an Individual
I have not heard that.
Conservative
Corey Tochor Conservative Saskatoon—University, SK
Increasingly there are more stories of them feeding, as in the example we heard last week of offering three times their salary, and trapping them and then asking them to do questionable things for the host.
Moving along to our other witness today, you talked about the top three target countries for China that we should be concerned about. What are their top three targets? Which countries would they be?
Senior Fellow, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs and Institute of Science, Society and Policy, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
That's very clear. Their top targets are the U.S., the U.K. and then Canada. Again, ASPI has done a lot of statistical work on the extent to which there are Chinese military researchers in our universities now. That's a big concern.
Canada's among the top, and the reason is that we're advanced in all of the strategic technologies that the PLA wants to get a hold of, and it's not a surprise: artificial intelligence, photonics, quantum....
Conservative
Corey Tochor Conservative Saskatoon—University, SK
Those three are all Five Eyes countries, so there must be some coordinating among them. If there's been a lack in the past in our approach to Beijing, what are the other countries that are increasingly turning towards China?
Senior Fellow, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs and Institute of Science, Society and Policy, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
Are you asking—
Conservative
Corey Tochor Conservative Saskatoon—University, SK
I mean on the research side. Outside of Canada, as much as we should be worried about Canada, what are the other countries that should be more alarmed—not the U.K. and the U.S., but ones that are fully engulfed in their control?
Senior Fellow, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs and Institute of Science, Society and Policy, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
You mean under China's control?
Senior Fellow, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs and Institute of Science, Society and Policy, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
Perhaps Ms. Puglisi would know better than I, but I know that there's been a lot of collaboration with Germany and with Australia. Australia's now getting on top of that and is really a model for Canada.
In terms of the Five Eyes coordinating, I believe there's a lot of consultation, but I don't think there's coordination yet. I'd like to see coordination and have the allies line up so there's consistency across universities as to which universities in China should not be collaborated with.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Lloyd Longfield
Thank you.
I keep wanting to jump in, but as chair I have to keep the time moving along. Dr. Jaczek, it's over to you for five minutes.
September 25th, 2023 / 4:15 p.m.
Liberal
Helena Jaczek Liberal Markham—Stouffville, ON
Thank you so much, Mr. Chair. Thank you for the warm welcome to this committee. I certainly look forward to participating.
Thank you to the witnesses for being here.
Ms. McCuaig-Johnston, you referred to our government's policy in terms of what we've done to date. You said you would perhaps like things to speed along a bit faster.
One thing our government has said has been to our funding agencies. These are agencies that we fund that then go on to fund research themselves. We talked a lot about lists. Has our government ensured that we've gone to all the agencies that fund research themselves? As you listed off some of the areas, I thought particularly of Genome Canada. Have we ensured that all of those agencies are also aware of our concerns?
Senior Fellow, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs and Institute of Science, Society and Policy, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
In fact, when the government indicated it was going to broaden beyond NSERC and go to CIHR and SSHRC, I noticed that Genome Canada was missing. I was very concerned. About a year ago, Radio-Canada did a major investigation of the Chinese company BGI and the genomic research it was working on with Canadian institutions, teaching hospitals and universities. BGI was giving them free equipment on the condition that BGI would receive all the data from that equipment. That's very concerning and alarming. For that reason, I think Genome Canada should be part of it.
Liberal
Helena Jaczek Liberal Markham—Stouffville, ON
Do you have a list you could provide to us, or suggest, regarding these other potential agencies?
Senior Fellow, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs and Institute of Science, Society and Policy, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
Yes, I think those are the four.
When it became public—that it was being expanded to the three—I was interviewed. I suggested that Genome Canada also be added. I don't know whether that will be done.
Liberal
Helena Jaczek Liberal Markham—Stouffville, ON
Thank you for that practical suggestion.
In reading some of the background material we were given, I noticed that some university researchers are rather resistant to some of the suggestions being made. In particular, I'll quote from an article in The Globe and Mail:
The U of T's Mr. Wong defended the university's long collaboration with NUDT,—
—that's one of the Chinese organizations—
saying the papers were published in “widely available reputable peer-reviewed academic journals.”
The implication is that this is publicly available information, so everybody has access, not particularly the Chinese researchers.
Do you have some comments on that?
Senior Fellow, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs and Institute of Science, Society and Policy, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
I do indeed.
That's the way the researchers see it. They say, “My friends of 25 years in China would never do anything unseemly.” However, when military researchers are part of the research process, they can redirect the research to their priorities in the PLA, whether it's through NUDT or a civilian university partnering with the Chinese military.
We often hear the expression “dual use”. “Dual use” gives you the impression of equipment that's sitting on a shelf somewhere, and you can use it for a piece of defence equipment or in some kind of civilian thing—for a plane or something. Anybody who talks to you about dual use in the context of China's military and civilian fusion program doesn't know what they are talking about, in my opinion, because that's way too simplistic an approach. It's far more nuanced. Having Chinese researchers—even those partnering with civilian researchers, who in turn are partnering with Canadians—as part of that research process will redirect Canadian innovation into weaponry for the PLA. We'll never know how it tracked. The reason is that there's no transparency in the Chinese research system.
Liberal
Helena Jaczek Liberal Markham—Stouffville, ON
You also referenced private companies that engage university researchers. I'm sure that in many cases of this type of research, those findings are not in fact published.