Science and Research Committee on Sept. 27th, 2023

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

Welcome to meeting number 55 of the Standing Committee on Science and Research.

Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format, pursuant to the Standing Orders. Members are attending in person in the room, and we have a member remotely on Zoom.

I'd like to make a few comments for the benefit of witnesses and members, because we also have a witness on Zoom today.

Please wait until I recognize you by name before speaking. For those participating by video conference, click the microphone icon to activate your mike and speak slowly and clearly. When you're not speaking, keep your mike on mute, please. For interpretation, those on Zoom have a choice at the bottom of their screen of floor, English or French. For those in the room, you can use your earpiece as needed and select the desired channel.

Although this room has a powerful audio system, please make sure that your earpiece is kept away from the microphone. If you can, don't play around with your earpiece, because it can cause feedback, which can cause injuries for our translators. The most common cause of sound feedback is when it's too close to the microphone, so I invite participants to make sure that they keep the plugged-in earpiece away from their microphone.

In accordance with the committee's routine motion concerning connection tests for witnesses, I am informing the committee that all witnesses have completed the required connection tests in advance of the meeting.

This is a reminder that all comments should be directed through the chair.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(3)(i) and the motion adopted by the committee on Tuesday, June 6, 2023, the committee is commencing its 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.

It's now my pleasure to welcome our witnesses to our committee meeting today.

Virtually, we have Jeffrey Stoff, who's the president of the Center for Research Security and Integrity. From Universities Canada, we have Philip Landon, interim president and chief operating officer.

No stranger to this committee, from the U15 Group of Canadian Research Universities, we have Chad Gaffield back with us. He's the chief executive officer. It was tremendous meeting this summer with U15 Germany and U15 Canada. It was great to be part of those discussions. Thank you for that as well.

For our witnesses, we will have five minutes for your remarks, after which we will go to the rounds of questions.

We're starting off today with Jeffrey Stoff from the Center for Research Security and Integrity.

The floor is yours, Mr. Stoff.

[Jeffrey Stoff, President, Center for Research Security and Integrity]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman and honourable members of the committee. Thank you for the invitation to participate in today's hearing.

Some of my comments are based on my experience in the U.S. government working on China and research security issues, so much of this is U.S.-centric. However, after leaving federal service, I started an NGO that focuses on assisting allied democracies with safeguarding research. I have learned that many of the challenges and obstacles facing the U.S. are shared among key allies, particularly G7 nations.

European and Five Eyes nations have been putting forth recommendations and policies that call for more robust efforts by research institutions and universities to conduct due diligence or screening for national security risks, usually with respect to government-funded research. While this seems like a sensible approach, I question its effectiveness for several reasons.

First, academic institutions typically lack the resources, subject matter knowledge or incentives to conduct robust due diligence on PRC research partners and sources of funding.

Second, China's increasingly restrictive information environment, including denial of access to some published academic literature, along with its efforts to obfuscate the missions, activities and associations of some institutions, are making conducting robust due diligence and risk assessments too difficult and complex for individual research institutions to do themselves.

Third, and key to some of the larger issues this committee seeks to study, yawning knowledge gaps on the PRC persist. Neither governments nor academia are making sufficient efforts to address them. Several examples include a lack of understanding of the magnitude and complexity of China's state-driven knowledge transfer apparatus and a myopic focus on criminal activity such as intellectual property theft or espionage, which misrepresents the larger threats to the security and integrity of research. In other words, much of the risks and threats posed by China on our research institutions do not involve outright theft.

There is an unknown scale and scope of PRC talent programs that recruit overseas experts and incentivize or task selectees to engage in activities that violate norms of transparency and integrity in addition to the national and economic security threats these programs often pose.

Here are a few examples. In a faculty you have part-time appointments with PRC institutions and they are tasked with placing specific PRC nationals into advanced degree or post-doctoral programs in their overseas institutions, which undermines merit-based selection processes, or exploiting overseas facilities and resources to support undisclosed shadow labs or research projects in China and other related activities.

Academia lacks awareness or incentives to curb research strictly intended for China's benefit. Testimony from a previous hearing noted that Huawei has partnered with many Canadian research institutions, resulting in hundreds of patents generated for Huawei's sole benefit.

What about patent filing outside of formal agreements?

Anecdotally, some U.S. academics have filed patents in China first or in place of filing in the U.S., despite receiving federal funding for that research. In other cases, PRC donors blur the lines between gifts, contracts or grants, i.e., a gift that is supposed to be unconditional actually requires the receiving institution to undertake specific research conducted by specific individuals. I do not know if Canadian institutions are also affected in this way, but I recommend inquiring into these issues given the consistency in China's methods to exploit R and D across the developed world.

There are hundreds, possibly thousands, of subdivisions and laboratories at PRC civilian universities and Chinese Academy of Sciences institutes that conduct defence research, yet they receive little scrutiny if those entities lack a primary mission of supporting China's defence research and industrial base. This has a direct bearing on the key technology areas that this committee is looking into, such as AI, quantum physics, biotech, etc. I am not aware of any efforts to systematically examine which PRC institutions are research leaders in these disciplines and, of them, which ones also appear to seek defence applications to that research.

The U.S. government and national security community, to my knowledge, have made few if any efforts to address this. I presume that other allied governments face even more resource constraints that limit knowledge building in this area.

Similar knowledge gaps exist on PRC state-owned defence conglomerates. These firms control hundreds of subsidiaries at research institutes that act like academic institutions and collaborate on research globally. Overseas-based researchers may be focusing on the commercial or civilian uses, but the PRC entities directly support defence industries.

These are just some of the blind spots that allied democracies have that constrain our collective ability to safeguard the security and integrity of our research. My organization's mission is to raise awareness in these areas and close some of these knowledge deficiencies through public and private partnerships.

Thank you, and I look forward to your questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

Thank you. Thank you for your succinct presentation.

Now we'll call on Philip Landon from Universities Canada, please.

[Philip Landon, Interim President and Chief Operating Officer, Universities Canada]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for the invitation to appear before the committee today to discuss the important issue of research safety.

I am pleased to have the opportunity to provide an account of the steps taken by Canadian universities to strengthen research security, and to discuss how the government can support the security of research conducted at institutions.

My name is Philip Landon, and I'm the interim president of Universities Canada, a membership organization representing 97 universities across the country.

While this is my first appearance before the committee, Universities Canada has appeared frequently over the years, and I'll take a moment to thank our former president, Paul Davidson, for his exceptional leadership during that time.

International research collaboration is essential for Canada to remain competitive on the world stage. It fosters the exchange of ideas, talent and resources for the benefit of all concerned.

Research and technology transfers work both ways, and Canadian research benefits greatly from building on progress being made elsewhere in the world; however, universities also recognize that research collaborations can sometimes carry risks or raise national security considerations. As my colleague at U15 will note, Canada's universities have been vigorously expanding their research security capacity.

Universities are taking their own initiatives to limit partnerships with entities at the centre of this study, including building research security offices, increasing their risk assessment due diligence, conducting security workshops and putting in robust travel security measures. They're also faced with the challenge of doing so in a way that protects both the research and the Canadian researchers involved.

I want to focus on how the government can better support universities on these challenges.

Research security measures must be deliberate and must be very targeted. Broad, ambiguous targets create uncertainty rather than clarity and will slow down the system. When asking researchers to cut ties, they're often presented with two options: wind down their research and potentially abandon a project completely, or continue to pursue that research outside of Canada. In either case, you risk driving IP and talent out of Canada.

Currently there are no federal grants designed to make up for the sudden loss of partnership. Research is extremely specialized, making it hard to find an alternative partner. Ph.D. students who discover that they can no longer be supported on a project they just spent years working on are left looking for other options, often outside of Canada. Meanwhile, as highlighted in the government's advisory panel's report, the Bouchard report, graduate scholarships and federal research grants have stagnated over the last two decades. Researchers are increasingly being asked to do more with less.

Peer countries have been very careful in their approach. Earlier this year, Australia published a list of critical technologies. Rather than restrict research in these areas, this list highlights opportunities they want to promote with other aligned nations while developing more robust risk mitigation practices. The American CHIPS and Science Act introduces very targeted restrictions coupled with very significant research investments.

As this committee contemplates recommendations on this important issue, I strongly encourage you to consider how to ensure that Canada is opening new doors, not just closing doors. It's also important to ensure that smaller universities are not left out of initiatives like the research support fund, so that all institutions receive adequate research security support.

I will close by stressing the importance of taking a country-agnostic approach when working on addressing the challenges of research security. This study is very much focused on China, which, by extension, singles out Chinese students who went to public institutions in China. This affects how the issue is portrayed in the media and may unintentionally exacerbate discrimination against students of Chinese origin.

I strongly encourage the committee to evaluate security threats irrespective of country of origin. Tackling research security challenges in this way will help Canada create a more robust research security framework.

Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak today. I'm happy to take questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

Thank you very much for your comments.

Our next witness is Mr. Gaffield from U15.

[Dr. Chad Gaffield, Chief Executive Officer, U15 Group of Canadian Research Universities]

Mr. Chair, thank you for the invitation.

Hello to all the members of the committee.

I'm delighted to be with you to discuss such an important issue.

I also want to thank you again for all your leadership in focusing public discussion on building a better future based on science and research.

In terms of our topic today, as you have heard from previous witnesses, Canadian universities take research security extremely seriously. This work has increased rapidly in recent years.

Previously, successive federal governments had strongly encouraged Canada's universities to increase international collaboration, especially with China. This consistent encouragement in recent decades emphasized two key reasons for international engagement. On the one hand, Canada sought to benefit from China's scientific and research expertise. On the other hand, Canada saw international collaboration as a way to tackle the world's complex challenges, such as those related to climate change and health.

The result was that the Canadian research community became one of the most internationalized, thereby gaining access to the global pool of knowledge. This approach enabled Canada's successful economic, social and cultural transition into the turbulent 21st century, as recently illustrated by our ability to confront the COVID-19 pandemic.

However, globalization and internationalization can also threaten research security and, therefore, national security, by opening the door to foreign interference. Over recent years, universities have responded to a range of emerging threats. In Canada, defending against these threats is a shared federal and university responsibility. The federal role is based on its national intelligence services. The university role is based on its assurance of the responsible conduct of research.

To take immediate action to exercise this shared responsibility, in 2018 university and federal leaders established the Government of Canada-universities working group to develop policies and practices to maintain the principle of “as secure as necessary; as open as possible”.

Over the years, the working group has met on a regular basis to reach this objective. In September 2020, the working group's discussions informed the federal government's launch of an online portal, entitled “Safeguarding Your Research”, to provide researchers and universities with tools and information about how to protect research security.

In March 2021, the federal government asked the working group to help develop guidelines and processes to integrate security into research partnership applications for federal funding. The result was the “National Security Guidelines for Research Partnerships”, which was published on July 12, 2021. National security assessments are now being systematically rolled out across all federal research agency funding opportunities.

Thanks to support in the federal budget in 2022, universities have continued to hire research security officers and to develop sophisticated risk management frameworks and associated policies and practices. To support this work, in June 2023, U15 Canada published a document entitled “Safeguarding Research in Canada: A Guide for University Policies and Practices”. This document is an evergreen document that will be annually reviewed for updates as practices evolve.

While universities are using public sources to do their own due diligence, they await a clear indication of which entities have been evaluated by our national intelligence services, using their own sources, as inappropriate for any research collaborations. Our understanding is that such lists are forthcoming.

Universities are also working hard to avoid unintended consequences of enhanced research security measures, especially racism or discrimination on campuses, and a decline in research on important, sensitive areas that are crucial for Canada’s future.

In this changing geopolitical context, leading countries such as the United States, Japan and Germany are doubling down on investments to increase their own domestic research capacity. It is now increasingly clear, in the so-called globalized 21st century, that such domestic capacity underpins national security and national sovereignty. The massive research funding investments elsewhere have put enormous pressure on Canadian universities, as they struggle to compete for and retain top research talent and the best graduate students.

We must act now to bolster domestic research capacity in order to strengthen national security and sovereignty in an increasingly competitive global environment. Our future depends on it.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

Thank you, all three, for your testimony.

As we get into questions from MPs, I'd like to welcome John McKay, who is visiting us today as a substitute for Mr. Lametti.

It's good to have you as part of the discussion.

For our first round of questions, I turn it over to Michelle Rempel Garner.

The floor is yours for six minutes.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Thank you, Chair.

Mr. Stoff, or Dr. Stoff—and I apologize if I got your honorific wrong—previous testimony in the committee has suggested that the risks of putting too-strict guardrails or guidelines on publicly funded research, particularly with entities that may cause national security concerns, don't necessarily outweigh the benefits of having a more open research policy in Canada right now.

Do you think that's a parochial viewpoint, given the change in global geopolitics over the last decade?

[Jeffrey Stoff]

Thank you for your question—and it's Mr. Stoff. I do not have a Ph.D.

I would say that the challenges and the risks associated with what China has become, and the threats associated, are in some ways very unique and kind of deserve their own special treatment and attention for a couple of reasons. The caveat is that the ways that we need to treat, and how we collaborate with, any authoritarian-type nation should be consistent in terms of how we approach engagement. There are some similarities in that sense, but the issue with China, I think, needs to.... Because of the apparatus that China has established, with state-mandated directives to acquire know-how, transfer it, commercialize it and weaponize it, I disagree with the notion that we should be country-agnostic.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

I only have a few minutes left, so I need to move on.

I'd like to go to both of the university institutions.

Some of the testimony that we've heard suggests that perhaps the universities should be taking more of an independent role in deciding what constitutes a national security risk or a threat to intellectual property theft. To me, that underlies an assumption that would probably lead to a more balkanized approach in Canada, number one, and also greatly add to institutions' administrative cost of research.

Have your organizations put forward exact positions on what you believe the federal government should be delivering in this regard, in terms of guidelines for federal funding? If so, would you table that with the committee?

[Dr. Chad Gaffield]

I'm happy to answer that.

As you may know, I co-chair the Government of Canada-universities working group. In that role, we embrace the notion that this is a shared responsibility. Our institutions depend on our national intelligence services for their work, and then we do our work. That's why we have this—

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Has that shared responsibility with the federal government been defined enough, to date?

[Dr. Chad Gaffield]

I think it's been something that we've been building over a number of years. We've been taking systematic steps forward—

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Is it good enough?

It will make it into the report.

[Dr. Chad Gaffield]

Our expectation is that one of the key elements will be the list of entities that have been a priori deemed as not eligible—

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Do you believe that list should be static?

[Dr. Chad Gaffield]

I think all our lists are evergreen. That's a word we use for our documents.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Have there been regulations or set requirements around how the list could change and not be static? Have you seen those types of requirements yet?

[Dr. Chad Gaffield]

I would assume that our working group would contribute to those discussions, as we have been in the past—

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

They haven't been developed yet. Is that something that should be developed?

[Dr. Chad Gaffield]

As I said, I think we work closely with our partners on the shared responsibilities—

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Precise recommendations are.... I'm not looking at this from a partisan perspective. The word salad.... It's helpful to have more precise recommendations.

What I'm getting to here is this: Would it be helpful for universities in Canada, research institutions, to have clearly defined guidelines on when that list of entities, whenever it's published, should change so that there is less of an administrative burden and a greater degree of certainty for universities to plan their research activities?

[Dr. Chad Gaffield]

Our hope would be that our national intelligence services, any time they found or had reason to believe that an entity really should not be partnered with, would add it to the list immediately.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

How critical is it to have those lists updated on a timely basis, given that granting cycles can generate research contracts that are five years out?

[Dr. Chad Gaffield]

As you know, the granting cycles are all year round, and they go for years. Perhaps more—