Science and Research Committee on Oct. 25th, 2023

[Dr. Alejandro Adem]

Yes, we'd be happy to.

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

I understand that this is exhaustive work for your organizations, but you will understand that, if we want to be able to produce a good report, we will definitely need data. I can tell you that, at this point in our study, while I appreciate your testimony today, we are still missing data.

[Dr. Alejandro Adem]

Yes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

Thank you. I'll be interested to see how that comes through.

Now we go to Mr. Cannings for two and a half minutes, please.

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

Thank you.

I'm just going to try to quickly finish here by trying to get an overall sense.

We've heard testimony here before of researchers and students receiving funding from foreign entities, particularly from China, which has left them vulnerable to various forms of—I don't know if you would call it blackmail—being forced into agreements to give up data or to work in concert with these foreign entities.

I'm guessing, listening to this, that it would be easier for that nefarious entity to work with researchers who didn't get funding from the tri-council, or they would be offering much more as inducement for this.

I'm just wondering if you would agree with that. If I were acting in this manner, would I look for researchers outside the tri-council universe?

[Dr. Alejandro Adem]

We're focused pretty much on university-based researchers and their students. I think you have to develop best practices that apply to a whole ecosystem regardless of where the money comes from.

There are conflict of interest forms. I am a professor at UBC and we fill out these conflict of interest forms. There could be more information obtained, and guidance and mentoring. Those situations arise, absolutely, but it's something that I think the whole system has to work together on. We're just a piece of it.

I do want to say that there is research and then there is research. We fund the most exciting research—the cutting edge. That's the target.

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

Just to finish, I'm assuming that you all work, obviously, very closely with universities in all this and they are doing similar things.

[Manal Bahubeshi]

If I may, I'll address a little bit of that.

We've been working not just with universities, but also with our colleagues across government on things like the safeguarding your research portal.

We're very aware of the questions you've raised and that we fund only a portion of all the research that happens in Canada. The work we're doing is principally focused on raising awareness across the science ecosystem. Universities have been increasingly engaged in that effort and are increasingly resourcing within, including using things like the research support fund that Dr. Hewitt referred to earlier.

There is an awareness and a desire, I think, to work collectively to shore up the ecosystem beyond granting agency funding.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

Dr. Hewitt, do you have a brief comment?

[Dr. Ted Hewitt]

It's just to say that the funding we provide, the way we provide it and the regulations that we implement provide the baseline for all research in many important ways. We have some great examples in the case of the secretariat and panels for research ethics and research integrity, which were developed by the tri-council and are applied evenly by the three councils across the university sector for research that's funded federally or by anybody else.

There are ways to get to that point with the collaboration and co-operation of universities, which are actually quite happy to have that as background for their own work.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

Thank you for setting the standard, not only in research, but for the governance of research. Your testimony today was terrific; the questions were terrific as well.

Thank you for contributing to this report. We know we can always rely on you and you always come through. If there is anything else that comes up, please do submit it in writing to our clerk.

[David Lametti, Liberal, LaSalle—Émard—Verdun, QC]

[Technical difficulty—Editor]. It set up the founding structures for the CIHR. It's important we note that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

We will suspend for a minute while we go in camera.

[David Lametti, Liberal, LaSalle—Émard—Verdun, QC]

[Proceedings continue in camera]