Science and Research Committee on Feb. 17th, 2022

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

Do you know when the selection process will be completed?

It has been three years.

[Dr. Nipun Vats]

I'm afraid I don't have any information on that.

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

Perfect. I would like to receive a written response from your department on the matter, Mr. Vats.

I would now like to hear your opinion on the crux of the issue, according to many stakeholders in science and research: funding.

The committee heard from Mr. Patry, the representative of the U15 Group of Canadian Research Universities. He told us that Canada is losing ground on science and research, particularly in research and development.

In your opinion, what percentage of GDP should the government invest to be truly competitive on the international stage?

[Dr. Nipun Vats]

If you look at the federal government's investment in higher education research, we are actually quite strong. I believe we're first in the G7 with respect to the share of GDP that we invest in research.

The area where Canada is relatively weak, which has a really big impact on our overall research intensity, is private sector investment in R and D. Canada is quite a bit lower than our comparative nations. There has been a long-term question about how to encourage greater R and D within the private sector. A number of efforts have been made in that regard. There's no single magic bullet to address that. Some of it is a function of our industrial structure. Some of it is about strengthening the relationships between our research institutions and the private sector. There is more to be done in that space.

Organizations like the NRC, for example, are trying to strengthen those links when it comes to R and D. It is one of the core things that we think about—

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

I must interrupt you, Mr. Vats, because time is short.

Can you tell us what percentage of GDP Canada currently invests in science and also in research and development?

[Dr. Nipun Vats]

I can certainly provide those figures to the committee.

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

I would ask you to send us the response in writing.

I can tell you that the pre‑budget brief by the U15 Group of Canadian Research Universities states that Canada is currently investing 1.57% of its GDP, which is well below the average invested by OECD countries. The United States invests 2.9% of its GDP.

As you know, Canada is the only G7 country to have decreased investments in research and development over the past 20 years. Canada is also the only G7 country to have lost researchers in recent years.

You talk about the private sector...

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Monsieur Joncas, that's six minutes.

We'll get you a quick response from one of the witnesses. Answer very quickly, please.

[Dr. Nipun Vats]

I think what you're referring to is the total investment in R and D as a function of GDP.

The reason I was talking about the private sector is that it's an aggregate of business R and D, government-performed R and D and higher education R and D. You have to look at the three components to understand the cause of Canada's aggregate R and D intensity being low. If you look at that, the biggest difference from other countries is on the private sector side. That was the essence of my answer.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Thank you, Dr. Vats, and Monsieur Blanchette-Joncas.

Thank you to all of our witnesses.

We will now go to Mr. Cannings for six minutes.

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

Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and thank you to the witnesses for being here tonight.

I'll start with Dr. Wayner and Dr. Quinn from the National Research Council, just because it seems like such an interesting agency. I think you said you have 22 labs across the country—disciplinary teams.

The one NRC facility I know very well is the Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory near Penticton, in my riding. That's been around for the last seven years or so. I know Dr. Duncan, our chair, has been there. That is an NRC facility that has a very pure research focus. It's almost like an academic institution looking at deep space and that sort of thing, but I know NRC also does very applied work. Some work I've heard about through my time on the natural resources committee was experiments they did with the flammability of building materials, specifically around mass timber construction, looking at how safe those materials were.

I'm just curious as to how the agency is structured, what these 22 labs or locations do, and how permanent they are. Perhaps you could start there. I have other questions, but I just want to get a broader sense of how the NRC is set up, how it decides to do what, and whether to keep on doing it or not.

[Dr. Danial Wayner]

I'll try to answer this very succinctly.

The NRC has 14 research centres that occupy those 22 sites across the country. We are divided into engineering divisions that have a very applied focus, that have very strong connections with industry and in many cases are working directly with industry sectors. That might cover automotive, aerospace, construction as you've already mentioned, and others.

We have life science institutes that are focused on a range of things, from medical devices to ag biotech to human health. We have research centres focused on emerging technologies, which would cover advanced materials and photonics, and so now this is where astronomy comes in.

It's really important to recognize that although on the surface it looks like our astronomy group is doing very academic work, what we actually do is enable academics to gain access to world-class telescopes where Canada has some ownership. In fact, the majority of what we do is actually engineering, building next-generation instrumentation for emerging observatories, and of course we have observational astronomers who work hand in hand with academics.

Since you mentioned DRAO, you will also know that CHIME, which is a university-owned facility, is hosted on the DRAO site, and there's a very strong collaboration with NRC.

That's a very high level, but of course we're very happy to send to the chair a more detailed overview of NRC's structure and operations.

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

Thank you for that. It was very informative.

I know about CHIME. I did some of the environmental impact work when that was being built. It was great to see that emerge, and I know it's done remarkable, game-changing work on a world scale.

You talked about the engineering divisions that work closely with industry. Can you explain how decisions are made on what to do there? Do industries come to you and say they have an important question? This is a very valuable government organization we're talking about here, and I just want to know how you decide what to put these scientists and engineers to work on.

[Dr. Danial Wayner]

We have, of course, infrastructure that has been developed over decades and decades of R and D at the National Research Council, so much of our current infrastructure and the expertise of our engineers, if we want to focus on engineers, actually come from this historical background in areas related to oceans, automotive, aerospace, construction, and also environmental and energy.

Our role is to create a base of expertise. We collaborate with academics to ensure that we're staying at the forefront of our fields, and we are present to work directly with industry or groups within an industry sector in order to understand their current and emerging needs. We have facilities where they can come to do testing in order to advance their own innovations, and we have opportunities to work more collaboratively with them to forge new frontiers of innovation that will increase their competitiveness in the future. It is very much the case that we have a strategic perspective on Canada's manufacturing economy in particular, and our research centres are positioned to support them.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Thank you, Dr. Wayner. Thank you, Mr. Cannings.

Before we go to the second round, I would just like to acknowledge our interpreters, our clerk, our analyst and everyone who supports this committee and works so hard.

We will now go to our second round. We're going to do a five-minute round, then two and a half minutes.

To begin, it will be five minutes to Mr. Williams.

[Ryan Williams, Conservative, Bay of Quinte, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you to everyone attending tonight.

I'll start with Mr. Vats, and I'm going to follow up on some earlier questions. We all want Canada to be a leader in science, research and innovation. I've been looking at the targets in the 2021-22 departmental plan and I've seen some phrases like “higher than OECD average” and “improve or maintain rank” litter the targets. I know you've talked tonight about how we're the leader in Canada on quantum AI and genomics and I'm wondering, to be at the top of the list, what are the next three you think we can be the best at or Canada can improve on?

[Dr. Nipun Vats]

Just so I understand, do you mean areas of focus in terms of technology or something?

[Ryan Williams, Conservative, Bay of Quinte, ON]

Yes, to be the top of the world. We know where we're the top three, so what are the next three we could really focus on to improve?

[Dr. Nipun Vats]

That's a question we struggle to answer, because if we knew where the puck was going, we'd be able to chase it down. I can give you only some general observations. First of all, there are organizations that do studies with respect to where we're strong in research. For example, the Council of Canadian Academies has done a study in this area. There's also a distinction between basic research and applied technologies, which is an area where government tends to focus its investments more. I think you have to have that base of basic investigator-led research to make it happen.

An example of an area that has come up a lot is in terms of materials, the development of new materials and using new approaches, including AI, to see if you can design materials, chemicals and a range of things that would be used in a whole bunch of different sectors. I know the NRC is involved in research in this area as well. It's an area where we have the combination of research talent and an industrial base to potentially be even stronger in that space. There are areas around stem cell technologies where Canada's been a leader. It's very hard for me to pick just three. It's a combination of looking at what our research base is like, what the international context is, and whether there's a receptor capacity in Canada to grow it here from an industrial perspective.

[Ryan Williams, Conservative, Bay of Quinte, ON]

Thank you very much, sir.

Dr. Wayner, in an appearance before the industry committee in 2015, you talked about the NRC's role in supporting disruptive innovations and technologies, and I find this concept extremely interesting. What kinds of disruptive innovations has the NRC helped create in the past seven years?

[Dr. Danial Wayner]

That's an interesting challenge for me to respond to, after so many years. Part of the challenge, of course, is recognizing that disruptions are really [Technical difficulty—Editor] at the level of innovation and not really at the level of technology.

We have seen advances in, for example, silicon photonics, that are poised to be revolutionary. We have developed quantum dot-based lasers that actually can support carrying many signals over a single fibre and increase the capacity.

We are working with a company at the NRC to advance and deliver those technologies. Those very much have the potential to be really disruptive, both for long-haul communications and inside of data centres, where the energy load in running optical fibres for communications will be much less than running through copper. That's one thing that jumps to my mind.

The nature of disruption is that it doesn't happen very often. I am comfortable pointing out just one area where we've really forged a completely new technological approach to deal with a telecom challenge.

[Ryan Williams, Conservative, Bay of Quinte, ON]

Thank you.

Maybe I can get this in writing, as I have 15 seconds left. How would we improve the process of supporting disruptive innovations in technologies, either at the NRC or potentially, as we're looking toward it, CARPA?

[Dr. Danial Wayner]

I can give a 15-second or less answer. The opportunity is in collaboration. We actually defined ways to get government labs that have key facilities and leadership, universities that have emerging ideas that are really disruptive, and industry that has the potential to actually advance them into products.

NRC's challenge programs, which we're happy to talk about later, are intending to bring together those three components.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Thank you, Dr. Wayner, and thank you, Mr. Williams.

We will now go to Monsieur Lauzon.

You have five minutes.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I would also like to take this opportunity to thank the witnesses, whose testimony is very enriching.

Mr. Wayne and Ms. Quinn, I had the opportunity to do some subcontracting for some of your laboratories in my previous life, and I have very positive memories of the experience. I was pleasantly surprised by the expertise and professionalism within your laboratories.

I would like to direct a question to Ms. Quinn.

In your strategic plan, you mention that you and the 28 research centres must update their operational plans and priorities annually under their strategic commitment.

Can you explain how the pandemic has disrupted your operational plans and priorities with respect to the achievement of your strategic commitments?