Science and Research Committee on Nov. 20th, 2023

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Have you banned them?

[François-Philippe Champagne, Liberal, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

We have done more than that.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

That's not my question. Have you banned them?

[François-Philippe Champagne, Liberal, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

That's my answer. We have done more than that, because it's country and company agnostic and organization agnostic. Why? Because that's the smart thing to do, Mr. Perkins.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

But you have not banned them.

Have you banned Huawei from doing research in Canada, since they still have patents pending and research going on in Canada?

[François-Philippe Champagne, Liberal, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

Better than that, sir, I have banned them from being in infrastructure network in Canada. That's even better.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

You haven't banned them from research, though.

[François-Philippe Champagne, Liberal, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

What we've done, sir, is even better. We have provided a framework that would capture Huawei, sir.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

You've not banned the Chinese government from doing research in Canadian universities.

[François-Philippe Champagne, Liberal, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

We've done more than that, sir.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

No, you haven't, because you haven't banned China from doing research.

[François-Philippe Champagne, Liberal, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

If you look at it, even the universities have decided—

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Guidelines are not banning individual companies. Why won't you ban those companies?

[François-Philippe Champagne, Liberal, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

What I'm saying is that it's even better, because we have a framework.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

That's the end of five minutes. I feel like I need a bell here.

Ms. Jaczek, you have five minutes, please.

[Helena Jaczek, Liberal, Markham—Stouffville, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Minister Champagne and the officials, for being here today.

I think you made it very clear in your opening remarks that protecting our researchers and institutions from foreign state actors that threaten our national security is your top priority. I see you nodding, so you clearly agree.

You have established a working group to develop national security guidelines. We did hear at this committee some criticism about this working group, that in fact it was not consulting broadly enough and in fact failed to include domain experts who understand IP and national security, etc.

Could you reassure us on who exactly is working on the security guidelines? You alluded to the fact that it's been a very broad consultation. Could you, for the record, tell us exactly who is involved?

[François-Philippe Champagne, Liberal, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

Thank you very much, Ms. Jaczek, for the question.

In fact, we've been working a lot. We've been working with the U15 and we've been working also with Universities Canada. More than that, to answer the colleagues before and some of the criticism, we have created what they call the Government of Canada-universities working group. Why? We want to make sure that what we put in is something that's fit for purpose and that we work collaboratively with universities, with experts and with intelligence agencies to make sure.

I would say that we've consulted broadly. When you talk to university presidents or associations, they will say that they welcome what we've done, because since 2021 you have, for the first time in Canada's history, despite what the Conservatives may say, national security guidelines. That's something the previous government failed to do. Now there is something, and it's a first for Canada. They should be applauding and saying thank God someone has been doing something to make sure we have national security guidelines in Canada.

We not only did that; to your point, we put in $160 million for a research security centre. Why? Because the universities asked for help. They told us it's very complex out there. They need resources. They need people. So we did that.

This year we're going to have an enhanced security posture. It will apply to all the granting agencies. We'll come with lists to make sure it's easy for the researchers to be able to identify whether or not that's a partnership they should pursue. I would say that if you look at Five Eyes, which we and our colleagues around the world are working with, they will tell you that Canada, with the framework we have and the lists we'll be publishing, is going to be best in class.

[Helena Jaczek, Liberal, Markham—Stouffville, ON]

Could you just describe a bit more this research security centre that is housed within Public Safety Canada? What exactly is their role?

How do they assist universities in looking at grant applications? Have they been doing that? You referenced that a number have been rejected. Was this a result of consultation with this research security centre?

[François-Philippe Champagne, Liberal, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

Well, there are three missions. The money we've provided to about 50 institutions around the country is around hiring personnel, getting the software needed and making sure they can have the proper cybersecurity infrastructure in place. It is really about hands-on support.

When we launched these guidelines, it was a pilot in Canada. This had not been done before. What came out of it was that we need more tools and resources to make sure we can properly assess that.

I would say that what we will be publishing soon, the lists that are going to be following annex A and annex B in the guidelines, are going to be more specific than that. These are going to be really hands-on, I would say, to the question of colleagues before.... To draw up these lists is fairly complex, because now you are going to identify by name institutions that people should be worried about if they were to engage in certain types of research.

That, in my view, is kind of best in class. Like I said, research security is top of mind, because one of the key assets we have in Canada is our knowledge, our dataset and our IP. I think the framework that we have put, starting with the security guidelines, is kind of the umbrella. Then we're defining that with very specific tools to help institutions in the country.

[Helena Jaczek, Liberal, Markham—Stouffville, ON]

Will the lists be informed by the fact that certain grant applications were refused? Will there be an assessment of what the proposal was and if it was affiliated with a foreign institution? Will that lead to, in fact, composing the list? That information could be very useful.

[François-Philippe Champagne, Liberal, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

Totally, and that is why the criticism that was before, I think....

I'll defend the security agencies and the civil service. They have been doing extremely diligent work. I would say to colleagues, having been aware of some of the work, be careful of criticizing people who are doing extremely complex work. Even our Five Eyes partners would say that it is very complex when you do that, because you want to capture the right entity and make it as current as possible. This is very detailed work, but I think it's going to be welcomed by institutions and researchers in our country.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

Thank you, both of you.

Mr. Blanchette-Joncas, you have two and a half minutes, please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Usually we ask you tough questions, Minister, but I feel like asking you an easy one.

Can you name one thing that hasn't gone up in value in the past 20 years?

[François-Philippe Champagne, Liberal, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

I'm sure you're going to give me a clever answer it's taken you weeks to come up with.

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

You're right, but it was seconds, not weeks, Minister.

I'm talking about the value of graduate scholarships awarded by the federal government. Their value has not gone up for 20 years, and it's had serious consequences, Minister.

As a result, Canada is the only G7 country that has lost researchers since 2016. Students are now living below the poverty line. Under the Canada graduate scholarship program, a master's level student receives $17,500 and a Ph.D. student receives $22,500.

I'm trying to figure out where the roadblock is. There is a consensus across the science ecosystem and among university officials.

What can you tell us? Are you going to do anything about it?