Science and Research Committee on Nov. 6th, 2023

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

I call the meeting to order.

We will get started. After our votes, we're a little late getting going, but we do have resources until six o'clock, so we should be able to get in our full two hours.

Welcome to meeting number 63 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 remotely by using the Zoom application.

I would like to make a few comments for the benefit of the witnesses and members.

Please wait until I recognize you by name before speaking. For those participating by video conference, click on the microphone icon to activate your mike. When speaking, please speak slowly and clearly, and please mute yourself when you're not speaking.

For interpretation for those on Zoom, you have the choice at the bottom of your screen for either floor, English, or French. Those in the room can also choose the language of your choice on the headset. Although this room is equipped with a powerful audio system, feedback events can occur, and they can be very harmful for our interpreters, so please keep your earpieces away from the microphone so that you don't get feedback from it.

In accordance with the committee's routine motion concerning connection tests, all witnesses have been tested for their audio and all systems are go. I will remind everyone that all comments should be made through the chair.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(3)(i) and the motion adopted by the committee on Monday, September 18, 2023, the committee is commencing its study on integration of indigenous traditional knowledge and science in government policy development.

It's now my pleasure to welcome, as an individual, Susan Kutz, professor and tier 1 Canada research chair in Arctic “one health”, by video conference.

From the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, we have Natan Obed, president, and Carrie Grable, director, Inuit Qaujisarvingat.

From the Institut Tshakapesh, we have Marjolaine Tshernish, executive director, by video conference.

Each individual and organization will be given a maximum of five minutes for their remarks, after which we will proceed to rounds of questions. I'll signal you when you have a minute left, and then as we get closer to time out, I'll get more animated, no doubt.

We'll start off with Susan Kutz, as an individual.

[Susan Kutz, Professor and Tier I Canada Research Chair in Arctic One Health, As an Individual]

Thank you so much.

I want to start with a quote from Myles Pedersen, an Inuk harvester from Kugluktuk, Nunavut. We were in a caribou health workshop last week, and I asked him and other participants if there was anything they'd like me to bring to this meeting today. Myles' response was that it's difficult to find common ground between traditional knowledge and policy, because traditional knowledge is passed down over generations and it's how we live, whereas policy is something that is imposed on us.

I was born and raised in Calgary on Treaty No. 7 territory. I'm a descendant of white settlers to Canada of German and Hungarian heritage.

I'm a veterinarian. I have a graduate degree in wildlife health, and I am a professor at the University of Calgary. I have worked with Dene and Inuit communities in the Arctic and subarctic on domestic and wild animal health for over 30 years. I do not, however, suppose to represent these communities today. Rather, I'm presenting my views and perspectives from my own personal and research experience in the Canadian north, and I am thrilled to see my co-panellists today, who I know will represent those indigenous perspectives.

My research program has centred on working with indigenous communities to understand the impacts of climate change on the health and sustainability of important wildlife species, such as caribou and muskoxen.

Healthy wildlife are really critical for not only the health of Arctic ecosystems but also for the food security of communities across the north. For example, in Nunavut, up to 70% of the population is food insecure. Wildlife helped to combat this food insecurity. In fact, the historic value of the subsistence harvest of wildlife is estimated to be about $198 million a year. That's its food replacement value. This figure doesn't include the additional economic value through tourism, the sale of handicrafts, the use for clothing and tools or the spiritual and cultural importance to the communities.

In our research, what we try to do is bring together indigenous, local and western scientific knowledge and ways of knowing and doing to better understand the health of these subsistence wildlife species and the threats to them. We try to answer questions such as, “Will they be there for generations to come?” or “Is it safe to eat?” To do this, we are equally partnered with local indigenous wildlife co-management organizations in Nunavut and the Northwest Territories, as well as government employees in wildlife, and we have a community-based wildlife health program.

A key goal of this program is to ensure that the indigenous voice is meaningfully represented in wildlife management policy.

We have a three-pronged approach. It includes documentation of traditional knowledge, hunter-based surveillance and western science. I'll focus on the traditional knowledge and how that has been used as examples of how it can be put into policy.

We have documented traditional knowledge through narratives, which is storytelling, and participatory epidemiology methods. This work has generated new knowledge through traditional knowledge, including the identification of major muskox epidemics and population declines and new disease syndromes in caribou and muskoxen, including diseases that are a threat to people.

The TK, or traditional knowledge, has contributed directly to policy through guiding practices for icebreaking in the Arctic sea ice, where icebreaking patterns have to abide by the needs of the Dolphin and Union caribou that use that sea ice to cross on their annual migrations. The traditional knowledge has redrawn the range maps for caribou. The traditional knowledge has designed new population census protocols for counting caribou. It's a really important resource. It's also informing public health policy around the zoonotic or disease risks from handling and consuming wildlife species.

All of this has taken people sitting down around the table together, talking to, listening to and trusting one another. That's something you can do on a small scale, but it's difficult to scale up.

I have one minute. Okay.

Quickly, on traditional knowledge and western knowledge, we've been asked about conflicts and what to do about them. I think this is something that we shouldn't be afraid of. It happens within the scientific community. It happens in the traditional knowledge community. When we see conflicts, we shouldn't be afraid of them; we should embrace them, because they allow us to dig deeper into what might be going on there.

What do we need to do to ethically and effectively use traditional knowledge in policy development? We need to think about this. It is fundamentally a western colonial construct and it's a power relationship. We really need to think of a paradigm shift—a system shift.

There are excellent examples of how it can be done, and these are from indigenous scholars. Mi'kmaq elder Albert Marshall talked about the two-eyed seeing principle: learning to see from one eye with the strengths of indigenous knowledges and ways of knowing and from the other eye with the strengths of western knowledge and ways of knowing. It's learning to use both eyes together for the benefit of all.

I'll stop there.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

Thank you. Hopefully, we can get to more examples in the question period.

Now we'll move on to Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami.

Mr. Obed, it's wonderful to have you here. Welcome.

[Natan Obed, President, Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. It's great to be here with all of you.

I'll start with Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, which means “Inuit United in Canada”. Kanatami means “in Canada”. Hopefully, that helps you with remembering.

I've thought of many ways to spend my five minutes here with you all this afternoon. I'll start with the term “conflict”.

As the previous speaker mentioned, the term “conflict” is used because of the systematic inability of western science, and all the mechanisms and structures the Government of Canada has that rely on western science, to accept, on principle, indigenous knowledge as being equal to western science. It isn't necessarily a conflict as much as it is an outcome of your policies, legislation and ways of funding. It is no surprise to us as Inuit that we are in this dilemma. There are huge challenges in our communities that need science and knowledge to be solved, but we get stuck sometimes in the relationship more than we do in the actual work.

ITK represents the rights of 70,000 Inuit in this country. We have settled modern treaties and we have co-management structures that cover 40% of Canada's land mass. These govern things such as wildlife. Immediately, when I think of the incorporation of Inuit knowledge into decision-making, I think of those bodies, especially for things like wildlife—polar bears, beluga and narwhal—and the needless fights we've had over the past 30 or 40 years trying to get recognition of the knowledge we have about the species we interact with every day.

We've tried to move this conversation into systemic change conversations. I am going to quote myself from the 2019 Canadian Science Policy Magazine about this very subject:

It is time to end the research community's unhelpful focus on integrating Indigenous knowledge into science and policy and replace it with a focus on advancing Inuit self-determination in all aspects of research through partnerships between researchers, research institutions, and governments, and Inuit rights holding organizations. The research community has positively responded to calls by Inuit, First Nations, and Métis to respect and support the integration of Indigenous knowledge into research projects, policies, and initiatives. However, an unintended negative consequence of this trend vis-a-vis Inuit is that the discourse around Indigenous knowledge is often wielded to limit Inuit participation in research projects, policies, and initiatives to their Indigenous knowledge components. Despite being characterized as part of a progressive research agenda, the focus on Indigenous knowledge all too often maintains the status quo of limiting Inuit involvement in research to the role passive research subjects. Inuit seek to permanently transform this colonial paradigm through the advancement of Inuit self-determination.

To this end, we have released the national Inuit strategy on research. We have provided a copy to this committee. We have also worked with the Government of Canada to ensure that the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples is signed into law in Canada, and that article 30 under the UNDA action plan focuses very specifically on supporting indigenous data sovereignty and indigenous-led data strategies through legislative and regulatory policy options, supports indigenous jurisdiction over their data, and enables indigenous peoples to lead surveys and other sorts of data collection strategies.

We have to recalibrate a system that was never intended to support indigenous knowledge in any way.

I look forward to the conversation about how we do that, but Inuit have provided a road map. We would love to work with government on implementing it.

Qujannamiik.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

Thank you very much. I look forward to our discussion.

Now, from the Institut Tshakapesh, we have Marjolaine Tshernish for five minutes, please.

[Marjolaine Tshernish, Executive director, Institut Tshakapesh]

Kuei. Good afternoon.

[ Witness spoke in Innu. ]

[ Translation ]

I greeted you in my language, Innu.

I am Innu, and I'm from the Uashat mak Mani‑Utenam community on the North Shore in the province of Quebec.

Thank you for inviting me to take part in this study, which confirms how important it is to have a dialogue before implementing major projects for the benefit of the greatest number of people, including the first nations of Quebec.

Despite the limited time we've been given to contribute, participating in the Standing Committee on Science and Research study on the best ways to integrate Indigenous traditional knowledge and science in government policy development is a meaningful and respectful way of granting first nations the right to express themselves and recognizing them as a nation.

It has taken more than 40 years of effort to have Indigenous cultural rights recognized within Canada's legal and political framework. Since colonization began, the country has been built at our expense. Before the European settlers arrived, Indigenous peoples had social structures based on territorial occupation and management. Children learned through observation, repetition and practice. Children were prepared for adulthood by practising various rituals, social activities and rites of passage to master the language, learn their people's history through legends and preserve their people's values and beliefs. Adults knew their territory and mastered the art of hunting. Adults maintained a circular relationship with nature, for which everyone was responsible.

Then came the 374 years the first peoples had to live under the yoke of a colonial state, which kept them in bondage. Subsequently, our peoples were subjected to torture and abuse, which caused intergenerational trauma. Although the term “colonial mission” is now history, the behaviours that resulted from it can still be felt here and there. Who can claim that this mission does not still influence every move the colonists and colonized make?

I'd like to quote Glen Sean Coulthard, author of Red Skin, White Masks. He himself quotes the Assembly of First Nations, which made a statement to the following effect before the Standing Committee on Aboriginal and Northern Affairs: As Indian people we cannot afford to have individual rights override collective rights. Our societies have never been structured that way, unlike yours, and that is where the clash comes. If you isolate the individual rights for the collective rights, then you are heading down another path that is ever more discriminatory. The Charter of Rights is based on equality. In other words, everybody is the same across the country ... so the Charter of Rights automatically is in conflict with our philosophy and culture and organizationn of collective rights.

It's true that our political system is no longer tied to our nomadic mode of organization and is adapted to our sedentary mode of organization. However, our ancestors used to make a point of helping each other when food and resources were scarce. They acted as if nothing belonged to them. They rushed to the aid of those in need. They had no interest in accumulating useless things. Rather, they wished to be seen as useful, courageous, generous and wise.

Canada is home to some 80 Indigenous nations. Each of these nations has its own history, language, beliefs and traditional knowledge.

For the Innu, the oral tradition is made up of tipatshimun and atanukans, which are our stories and legends. Our oral tradition has being intermixed over the generations: We find new characters in our legends. In addition, historians brought back Champlain's writings interpreted our stories.

Moreover, the first nations have experienced major changes to more than our social structures; the oral tradition is also been transformed over the generations. It has inevitably adopted contemporary mores and principles.

Habits and customs have also been transformed to adapt to the political and social situation of the day. What remains of the past are our elders. They remind us of the importance of remembering and passing on their wisdom and knowledge to their generation. We must pass this on in our mother tongue.

Furthermore, our legal principles are linked to the dimensions of the living and non-living. It's part of the Innu nation's traditional practices. For us, the great spirit is the caribou, Papakassik. For other nations, it's the turtle, the bear, the moose, the eagle and so on.

Also, ancestral languages are channels for preserving the collective memory.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

I'm afraid I have to ask you to wrap up, if you could, please. I'm sorry.

[Marjolaine Tshernish]

I recommend integrating traditional knowledge into government policy. Elders from several nations need to be involved in this study.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

Thank you.

I'm sorry. The constraints we have are unnatural constraints to stories and sharing information, but we have to try to stay within our time limits. Thank you for sharing that.

I also was thinking of Sheila Watt-Cloutier's book, The Right to Be Cold. There is some tremendous reading out there on the Inuit culture as well.

Now we're going to start our six-minute rounds, starting with the Conservatives and Michelle Rempel Garner.

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

Thank you, Chair, and thank you to the witnesses today for some very insightful testimony.

Mr. Obed, in particular I appreciated your perspective quite a bit. It's always good to hear from a Calgarian. I appreciated that commentary as well too.

Colleagues, just before I get into my questions, I have one housekeeping item I'd like to draw colleagues' attention to. It relates to Canada's ability to address the very emergent situation of climate change. With that, I move:

That pursuant to Standing Order 108(3)(i), the Standing Committee on Science and Research conduct a study regarding the recent investigation and reports on Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC) and serious allegations surrounding wrongdoing at the fund; that this study examine the ways in which these alarming allegations surrounding the fund, which distributes one billion dollars to the clean technology sector, may have impeded Canada’s abilities to research and deploy new technologies and advancements in science in the important fight against climate change; that the committee invite relevant SDTC officials, the Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, related government officials and expert witnesses; that the study consist of at least 5 meetings; that the committee report its findings to the House; and that the witness meetings happen by December 31, 2023.

Colleagues, partisanship aside, we may have differing opinions of how to get to this end goal, but we do need to have ways to fight climate change in Canada. STDC is Canada's largest financial supporter of early stage environmental technology. It is, I believe, entirely government-funded and taxpayer-funded, and there have been some significantly alarming allegations that have been playing out over the last several months, to which I believe there has been very little remedy applied.

I'm sure that there will be investigations into some of the allegations of misappropriation or mismanagement, but the reality is that we're now close to a year into these allegations about this fund. The fund has been suspended, and this is one of the primary ways of Canada applying funds to come up with ways to fight climate change. When we look at Canada's greenhouse gas emissions inventory and we see that we're not even 50% of the way to meeting our emissions reduction targets, the only way that we are going to move people off high-carbon consumer products and practices is if widely deployed substitutes for those high-carbon products and practices are readily available. That could be things like green infrastructure, be it EV charging stations or electrified grids, or frankly, since we have a Calgarian on the line, even an LRT up to north central Calgary.

However, the reality is that a lot of these technologies have to be developed, and Canada's key fund for researching these technologies is under a cloud of significant controversy right now. Given the scope of this committee's work with regard to its mandate to look at research and development in Canada, it is very incumbent on us and urgent, probably one of the most urgent things that we could do, that we examine how this misappropriation, which has not been remedied, is impacting Canada's ability to research and deploy new technologies that could help to actually reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Colleagues, very briefly, for those of you who might not be aware of what has happened, it has now been a year, and there was another incident last week that spiked this to the forefront.

A year ago, in November of last year, 20 current and former employees of the foundation raised concerns about the agency's financial mismanagement and harmful workplace culture. In a 300-page document submitted to the Auditor General's Office and later to the Privy Council Office, they claimed that certain projects put forward for STDC funding were introduced by individuals with close ties to the agency's leadership, raising concerns about breaches to STDC's conflict of interest policy. The claimants also alleged that there were poor workplace conditions. Then in April there was a small investigation that cost the government tens of thousands of dollars. There was a report issued, but no remedy has been put in place to date.

The fund has been frozen, and just a couple of days ago, on November 1, there was a CBC article about a recording of the assistant deputy minister at innovation, science and technology making comments about the fund and some of the alleged mismanagement. “It was free money” was one of the comments that were made, and it's “almost a sponsorship-scandal level of giveaway.”

Colleagues, it's very important that we.... This is Canada's top fund to look at technologies that could help address climate change. It's currently frozen. We now have a top bureaucrat within the Government of Canada likening the management of this fund to the sponsorship scandal. It is incumbent upon this committee to figure out what recommendations need to be given to the government to ensure that the funding is, one, appropriately managed, and, two, directed to research and development activities that can actually help get technologies put forward that can help reduce greenhouse gas emissions in this country.

I can't think of a more important thing for our committee to be doing. I would argue that we can do this study as well, but we need to have people in front of this committee talking about the impact that the freezing of the fund and mismanagement and lack of action is having on Canada's competitiveness and ability to research technologies and come up with alternatives that would allow us to fight climate change.

You know, it's a mantra in the House that we need to look at the science and support scientific principles and look at research. You all know what my background is, and I completely agree with that, but we have to start with management and understanding the impact of this type of mismanagement on the science and research capacity of our country to address climate change.

Colleagues, I think this is a no-brainer. I would encourage you to support the motion so that we can get on with investigating this and coming up with ways, if the fund is going to be unfrozen...or maybe it shouldn't be unfrozen. Maybe it needs to be something else. That is what this committee's scope is for. We should be looking at that ASAP. There should be consequences for this mismanagement as well as for holding back Canada's capacity to do research in the important fight against climate change.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

I apologize to the witnesses who are here to discuss this very important study we have on indigenous traditional knowledge and science in policy development. It's something that the committee was seized to get hold of and to understand, from you, your perspectives.

We hope to get back to that, but we are now in a debate on a motion that's on the floor. Pursuant to the way in which the committee works, each committee member who wants to speak now has a chance to speak on that motion. We have a speaking list at the front. Hopefully, we can get to a vote and get back to our study.

We'll go to our speaking list now.

Go ahead, Mr. Turnbull.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I apologize to all of the witnesses for wasting your valuable time with this.

That's not to say that Ms. Rempel Garner can't put forward a motion; it's her prerogative to do so.

I'm very happy to finally hear Conservatives talking about the need to fight climate change and reduce GHG emissions. Since I got here four years ago, I've battled them every day in committee and the House with the hopes that one day they would admit that climate change is real and that we need to fight it with every effort at our disposal. Traditional indigenous knowledge actually has a lot to offer to us in terms of that paradigm shift and the systemic change we all know is needed.

Anyway, in terms of the motion, Sustainable Development Technology Canada has been around for quite some time. We know there were allegations of mismanagement. We also know that the minister acted immediately to issue a third party assessment, which has produced a report. Members at the ethics committee are studying this. There are actually two committees currently actively studying this issue. Both ethics and public accounts are working on this.

The ethics committee has been provided with a redacted version of the report, which just redacts the personal information of the people involved so that they don't have any threats against their person. It protects their privacy and confidentiality while still laying bare the details for committee members so that they can get into and really look at the report from a governance perspective to see where there may be challenges with SDTC and its governance practices. Therefore, there is more than enough there in terms of the public accounts and ethics committees both studying this.

I will also note that on November 2, the public accounts committee had the deputy auditor general appear and give testimony. I have read that testimony, and there is some really good testimony there. We also have Minister Champagne, the Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, appearing before the ethics committee. I think that's actually happening right now.

If anybody really wants to hear about this, we could either put it up on a screen or maybe go down the hall and listen to the testimony. Maybe we should consider adjourning the meeting for today and just visit that committee, because obviously the Conservatives would rather study that than Mr. Cannings' motion, which I think is a better use of our time at this committee.

We also have Standing Order 106(4), which means we have an emergency meeting tomorrow of the industry committee on this topic as well.

This would be the fourth committee that would be studying SDTC, if the Conservatives had their way. I believe our time is valuable. The proper place for this study is with the ethics and public accounts committees. Perhaps two committees looking into it is enough.

However, if the Auditor General officials have announced that they're doing a full audit of this, shouldn't we all put our faith in the Auditor General's work and wait until that investigation and audit is complete before making our judgments on it? For me, if the Auditor General officials are actually looking into it, which is a good thing, we need to let them do their work. I don't see why we would do another investigation here at this committee, which would be redundant, given the fact that at least two other committees are looking into this, and perhaps a third as of tomorrow.

I really think that the committee's resources and time are valuable. We have witnesses before us who bring a lot of wisdom and knowledge to our conversations, and we need to get on with that study.

Lastly, there is also a third party investigation going on regarding the HR practices at SDTC. That's in addition to the Auditor General's audit. That's been proactively commissioned by the minister, as well. The minister found out about the allegations of mismanagement and asked for a third party review. That review has been done, and the accounts of STDC have been frozen until the various allegations are remedied. There is an action plan that SDTC is putting in place to address some of the allegations of mismanagement by the end of December. All of those things were already under way before the Auditor General said they were going to do an audit.

To me, there has been a lot of investigation into this matter already. I don't see why we would forgo the important work at this committee as well. I'll leave it there, but that's where I stand on this.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

Thank you.

Just to let you know what we have on the speaking list, we have Mr. Tochor, Mr. Soroka, Mr. Cannings and Ms. Rempel Garner on deck. This portion of the meeting will be going until five o'clock. I'm hoping we can get some questions to our witnesses, but I'll turn it over to Mr. Tochor.

[Corey Tochor, Conservative, Saskatoon—University, SK]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, witnesses, for being here today. We're going to get back to the important work of this study here shortly.

I'm not sure, Mr. Turnbull, what you actually meant by any of the comments you shared.

Yes, there are lots of investigations going on. There's the RCMP. There's the Auditor General. There's smoke here. There is a massive fire that is taking place with billions of dollars of taxpayers' money being wasted. We hear about study after study on how we as a country are letting down our research and science community because of the lack of funding. We've heard in numerous studies that the remedy would be to address some of the inflationary pressures that our researchers are facing.

After eight long years, there's no plan from this government to reduce emissions. Their signature tax plan to reduce emissions is in tatters. There are carve-outs being placed in Atlantic Canada. Premiers from across this country are talking together in Halifax about how the mismanagement of the environmental plan has hurt this generation and the next generation in Canada.

The fund that SDTC had was to do the important work of investing in green funds to lower emissions. We found out that it was nothing but a slush fund to go to Liberal insiders. When the truth comes out about how much in mismanaged funds is out there, it's going to make Canadians' blood boil, because we do have issues out there that need addressing. This fund was supposed to be used to hopefully reduce emissions. We found out that it's literally the sponsorship scandal 2.0 and that this government has been funnelling money to insiders.

Right now this committee is tasked with finding solutions to problems that are facing the science and research community. We just concluded another study about underfunding and how, because of inflation, which is at a 30-year high right now, people can't afford to live and work and do their research because of this government's actions. Then we find out that the billions of dollars that have been put into this fund are being misused. The science community—this is the SDTC—is set up to address exactly what this committee is supposed to be trying to address, which is to find answers for our Canadian researchers and answers about science being done in Canada, and we are being shut down by the Liberals and we can't study that.

This motion has a completion date of December 31. This is a very timely and important study. We can do both studies that are on the docket, and this one, before we rise for the Christmas break. I hope that the members of this committee will take a pause and ask themselves why they are here in Ottawa, and not just at this committee but in their role in the work that they're doing. Members of this committee should be looking for answers in science. This is going to investigate the agency that was supposed to fund that, but instead the Auditor General, the RCMP, other committees and hopefully this committee are going to be finding the answers that Canadians demand.

Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

Mr. Soroka, you're next, and then it will be Mr. Cannings.

[Gerald Soroka, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I apologize to the witnesses, but because of the timing of this situation, this motion is being brought forward.

I know that many times people have talked to me about the carbon tax. They say, “If we get 90% of this money back, where does the last 10% go?” I did tell them it's supposed to be to lower environmental emissions or to come up with better ways to protect the environment, and yet now you start hearing that it's more of just a slush fund for the Liberal Party to pay to insiders. That's what makes me think that it's quite a disturbing situation. We need to start making sure we're accountable.

There seem to have been so many issues coming out over the last number of years, issues of money that's been spent inappropriately. Mr. Tochor has mentioned several times how our universities and our research facilities have all been looking to have more money available to them. There's money sitting there to make the environment a lot better, but what ends up happening is that the money is paid out only to people who are supporting the Liberal government. That's why I really think we need to look at this motion and get down to the base of it, because it's dealing with people who could be getting this money for science and research. We definitely need to support this motion and move it forward.

I'll keep my statement brief, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

We have Mr. Cannings, and Mr. Tochor's adding himself to the list again, so we may.... We'll take a look at how the time is going on this meeting and then we can have a brief discussion on that after these next interventions.

Go ahead, Mr. Cannings.

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

As has been said, there's smoke and there's fire here. There's obviously something very wrong going on.

That said, this is being looked at by the ethics committee. It's being looked at by the public accounts committee. It's being looked at by the Auditor General and the RCMP. I mean, I think this is a pattern of what ends up.... I think it's very important to look into this to get the answers, but it ends up that there are four committees doing the same work, calling the same witnesses and getting the same answers.

It's important to get to the bottom of it, but there comes a point when you're wasting time and resources here in committees and Parliament, and I'd think that when you have a situation like this, one that is clearly an operations problem and clearly an ethical problem, it's more in the ambit of ethics and public accounts or government operations than it is for the science and research committee. I'm not in support of moving ahead with studying this.

I'll wait with interest to see what is found in the other committees. I'm getting texts from my colleagues who are studying this at this very minute in other committees. I would just say to let those committees do their work. I think that's important. Piling on things is just like what we were dealing with in my other committee, the international trade committee, where the Conservatives wanted that committee to look into the ArriveCAN scandal when, again, it was being looked at by two or three other committees and it's not really an international trade thing but an ethics thing. It's a scandal that is being dealt with by our public accounts. It's not what this committee should be looking into, or the international trade committee, for that matter.

I think it's important and I think we as a Parliament should look into this, but I think it would not be fruitful for us to spend that time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

Thank you for your clarity on that.

I'm counting votes as we go, and I think I see where these are going.

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

I want to thank my colleague Mr. Cannings for his comments, but I want to implore him to think about something.

There is no committee studying the impact that the mismanagement and freezing of this fund has had on Canada's ability to both research and deploy clean technology, particularly as it pertains to ensuring there are readily available, affordable alternatives to high-carbon consumer products and practices. SDTC is the key fund in Canada to do that. There is a lack of movement forward on this. I know Mr. Turnbull claimed the government has taken action on it, but they haven't. This has not been rectified. We're sitting here hearing the government talk about climate change every day, but this is the key fund for academics, small businesses and other people in Canada who are looking at ways to develop made-in-Canada solutions that address greenhouse gas emissions within the Canadian context, which is different from contexts in many other parts of the world.

I reject my colleague Mr. Turnbull's assertion about my party and colleagues. I spent years of my pre-political career, as well as time in cabinet, looking at ways to address climate change in Canada. Just because I question whether or not the carbon tax is working doesn't mean it's a rejection of the need for policy; in fact, it's a responsible question. If our greenhouse gas emissions inventories show that Canada won't even be 50% of the way to making its target, it's incumbent upon the committee responsible for looking at research and development to look at what.... When our key fund for climate change research has been frozen and is under mismanagement, this is our job.

With respect to both Mr. Turnbull and Mr. Cannings, no other committee is looking at that key aspect. I'm sure they're going to be looking at governance. As a committee, shouldn't we be asking whether we're funding climate change research appropriately, or deploying those technologies appropriately, when there is all this mismanagement in the fund? The answer to that is yes. There is a big problem here, so how are we going to fix it? The ethics and public accounts committees are going to be tasked with looking at the governance issues. Our committee should be looking at the funding mechanisms that have been royally messed up by this scandal. There has been no action taken in a year.

For my colleague in Quebec—because I am always trying to ensure there is a Quebec rationale for this as well—SDTC lists Transition énergétique Québec as one of its key partners for funding innovative clean-tech start-ups. It also has multiple other linkages into Quebec. The ability of this fund to fund research not just in other parts of the country but also in Quebec is impacted.

I'm going to say this: Colleagues, a carbon tax only works if there are alternatives available to move consumer behaviours toward a substitute good. In most parts of Canada, carbon fuels and practices are highly inelastic, because we haven't developed and deployed substitute goods. A lot of people in Canada will think, for example, that maybe they won't buy an electric vehicle because we don't have a national system of electric vehicle charging stations or we haven't thought about the electrical grid. We haven't inserted any other technology that could help us displace that behaviour. That is sound public policy. It is for us to ask, “How do we do this more effectively?” That is our job in the science and research committee.

We have a $1.5-billion fund that has been likened, by a senior bureaucrat, to “free money” and at “almost a sponsorship-scandal level”. How can any member of the government stand up and talk about taking climate change seriously, or research and development seriously, if they are unwilling, in this committee, to examine whether our funding mechanisms are appropriately working in this area?

I want colleagues in the Liberal Party to think about this vote carefully. We should be looking at whether or not the key fund in our country that we spent.... This is not an insignificant amount of money, guys; this is $1.5 billion. Think about what that could do for any community in this country. It could be anything. It could build infrastructure in anybody's riding.

We put $1.5 billion into this fund, specifically to combat climate change, and it has not been working for over a year. There are significant allegations of mismanagement and the funding is frozen, and we're saying that we shouldn't be looking at it in the science and technology committee? I'd challenge anyone in this room to get up in the House of Commons and say after this, with good faith, that they are taking a science-based approach to climate change after refusing to look at it in this committee. Think about that. I will certainly be bringing that up this week.

I'm amenable if somebody wants to amend the motion to have fewer meetings, but we need to actually look at the impact of this situation and give recommendations to the government on how to fix it. Having it sit for a year and then having the CBC article come out.... Guys, this is our committee's mandate. We've got to do this. We've got to get this done.

Mr. Cannings, I implore you as well as my colleague from Quebec to really think about this. There's no reason we can't chew gum and walk at the same time. We should be looking at this in this committee specifically from the angle of our country's ability to bridge that delta between our emissions reductions target and reality right now, which we're missing by 50%.

Giddy-up.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

Thank you.

Before we go to the next speaker, I'll say to the witnesses that an important part of our study is the dialogue that we were hoping to have. We have your testimony, which is very valuable, but it isn't the dialogue that we were hoping for, because indigenous traditional knowledge for us settlers is something that we need to be educated on—even how to pronounce the name of your organization. We are trying our best to learn along the path of reconciliation.

I've been talking to the clerk about the possibility of opening up an opportunity to have this dialogue at a future meeting, but with 15 minutes left in this meeting, we won't have sufficient representation of the dialogue to respect your being here.

We'll let you go so that we can continue with what we're dealing with in the committee. We're the only committee that's studying indigenous traditional knowledge and it's unfortunate that we're missing the opportunity today, but hopefully we'll get back to it soon at a time that we can find agreeable to everybody.

I'll let you go, but the clerk just has to quickly say a few things to you on your way out.

We'll go to the next speaker on the list, who is Mr. Tochor.

Thank you to the witnesses for being here and for preparing to be able to talk to us. Unfortunately, we weren't able to satisfy that.

[Corey Tochor, Conservative, Saskatoon—University, SK]

Mr. Chair, just to the witnesses, thank you again for being here. There are specific challenges in the Arctic with climate change that we're not studying or researching, and they are living the effects of our planet's changing climate first-hand.

I cannot say what the study that they were here to provide information on will say, but I suspect that in the end it will be that the federal government should fund research into indigenous and northern traditional sciences and how we could incorporate them into fighting climate change.

This is where the funding aspect will come in. How do we fund that? We have $1.5 billion of taxpayers' money that is just frozen now. It was collected; the purpose of that taxation was to help lower emissions in Canada, and now we find out that it was really to get insiders rich. It's disgusting to think about the hypocrites out there who cry out about the crisis that we face and then steal money from a fund that was supposed to address that crisis.

I would hope that we all think about this and the importance of getting to the bottom of these issues and how they relate to the science and all the opportunity costs. If there's this massive amount of fraud in the sponsorship 2.0 fund, think of all the science that's not going to be invested in, think of the research that's not going to be done, and think of the discoveries that will not happen because of the theft of taxpayers' dollars out of this fund. I think we do ourselves a disservice by not entertaining this motion for five meetings to get to the bottom of what happened and who got rich.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

Now we have Mr. Turnbull with some comments.

At some point, I'd like to try to get to a vote on this motion.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

I find it pretty rich that the party that has not supported any one of the policies or programs that our government has put forward to fight climate change is now using them as a way of blocking witnesses in a study that, I think, is really valuable for this committee, not to mention that we have already made it very clear—and you know very well—that other committees are studying this. Your intention is now to have four committees studying the same topic that the Auditor General is doing an audit of. What could possibly be the motivation for that? What could we possibly get out of doing it four times over?

The other thing is that the Conservatives have said that this is somehow the only fund that our government has, which is absolutely not true. It's not even close to the truth. It's absolutely so far from the truth that it almost surprises me and shocks me how little they know about what our government is doing to help fight climate change.

For example, in the last budget, budget 2023, there was a list of the key investments in programs that our government has made since 2015. There was $15 billion for the Canada growth fund, $8 billion for the net zero accelerator initiative and $4.2 billion for the low carbon economy fund. We have the critical minerals strategy, the zero emission vehicle infrastructure program, the clean fuels fund and the national trade corridors fund. The list goes on and on.

Also, there's the Canada Infrastructure Bank, etc. There are a significant number of other investments that we've made.

The case they're trying to make that says that somehow this fund, which is an arm's-length organization that has been running for quite some time.... I'm not saying that there isn't merit to looking into this organization; I'm just saying that it's happening already with the most appropriate committees looking into that situation. I don't think that this committee needs to do duplicate work.

If you're really about efficiency and the use of resources, then why would you have four committees studying exactly the same topic at the same time? We certainly have limited time in this committee, and we have important work to get on to. Let's move on with it.

I'm really sorry that the witnesses had to suffer. It was a waste of their time here today. Now they've all gone, so we've missed the opportunity.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

Thank you.

I don't want this to get into a back-and-forth. I think we've been making some strong statements on both sides. I'm hoping that we won't lose another hour of the witnesses that we have lined up. Perhaps we can try to not get back into the back-and-forth, which is really counterproductive.

If there are any clear or new messages, let's put them on the table. Otherwise, I'd like to try to get us to a vote.

We have Mr. Tochor.