Science and Research Committee on Nov. 20th, 2023

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

Thank you.

We have two more sets.

Mr. Cooper for five minutes, and then we'll go to Ms. Bradford for five minutes.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Eight years ago, the U.S. administration blacklisted Beijing's National University of Defense Technology, which reports directly to the Beijing-based Communist Party's central military commission on the basis that it posed a national security threat. Eight years later and three administrations later, the NUDT remains blacklisted by the United States.

Incredibly, the minister in the last hour was oblivious to that blacklisting on the part of the United States, despite the fact that Canadian universities are collaborating with the NUDT. Granting councils, which fall under his purview, have provided funding out of taxpayers' dollars to projects involved in the NUDT to the benefit of Beijing.

Can the officials confirm that the minister has the power to issue a ministerial directive to block federal funding to projects involving Beijing's NUDT? Does the ministry have that power?

[Francis Bilodeau]

Are you asking does the minister have the capacity to block or to direct the councils not to provide specific funding to an institution? That is what will be done partly through the directives, so he has the power.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

He has that power. Thank you very much.

He has not exercised that power, has he?

[Francis Bilodeau]

At present, the minister has issued guidelines to universities and to the research councils around considerations that are not institutional specific. The new guidelines will include a listing of institutions.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

Thank you for that.

Those guidelines do not mention the NUDT. They do not mention the CCP. They do not mention the PLA. Is that correct?

[Francis Bilodeau]

The guidelines presently are not specific to countries and are not specific to institutions.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

Nine months later, we're still waiting for the list of entities that he promised he would deliver expeditiously back in February. He said it would come soon. I don't know what soon is by the minister's definition.

Can you clarify that, consequently, there is no prohibition, nothing expressly in place, to block granting councils, which fall under the minister's purview, from funding or otherwise supporting projects that are working in collaboration with the NUDT which reports directly to Beijing's People's Liberation Army?

[Francis Bilodeau]

Current guidelines would preclude funding to a research project in a sensitive area and in areas where there's reason to believe that national security could be in play.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

What's a sensitive area?

[Francis Bilodeau]

Some of them have been defined in annex A of the existing guidelines. Those would potentially include, for example, areas around nuclear, areas around weapons building, or areas of dual use that could be transferred that could result.... It would also include areas, for example, where personal information could be at play.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

Yet, we know that despite those guidelines, as I reminded the minister, we have patents that have been issued to Huawei that involved Canadian researchers specifically in relation to 5G. This is one of the five areas identified by CSIS as an area involving sensitive research. It underscores that those guidelines have no teeth and are simply not working.

[Dr. Nipun Vats]

I'd like to comment.

When you talk about patents specifically, it's important to appreciate that the time between the research activity and the filing of the patent can be quite long. I don't know the specifics of these cases, but in some cases you could be talking about research that was done 10 years ago that's resulting in patents today. You just have to look at the specific case.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

Sir, I take your point.

I think you clarified that the minister has tools at his disposal to block the funding of taxpayers' dollars to entities such as the NUDT, which is connected directly to Beijing's People's Liberation Army. He has failed to use those tools that are at his disposal, undermining Canada's national security in the face of very serious interference by the regime, which he refused to acknowledge is existential to Canada.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

We're over time.

[Dr. Nipun Vats]

Mr. Chair, could I just make a quick comment?

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

I think we've gone through this before.

We're going to go over to Ms. Bradford for five minutes.

[Valerie Bradford, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

Thank you very much.

Can you talk to the committee about the NSERC alliance program and the results from the pilot so far?

[Dr. Nipun Vats]

The NSERC alliance program is the main vehicle for partnerships between Canadian researchers and companies. There are other partners on those grants as well, but it's largely partnerships with companies. The funding goes to the researcher in each case, not to the company.

It was the first program that enacted the current guidelines on research partnerships. These are the guidelines that have been in place since July 2021. In that case, the way the process works, as we discussed a little earlier, is that a questionnaire is filled out by the researcher endorsed by the institution. NSERC staff, who have been trained to identify where there could be security risks, will then assess whether that needs to be brought forward for further assessment by the security agencies.

An important aspect is that the merit review of the research and the security review are separated so that they are not kind of conflating the quality of the research and the security risk. Otherwise, there would be a concern on the part of the researchers that the two are tied, rather than research being assessed on its merits.

During the pilot phase of that program, which went from July 2021 to July 2022, about 96% of the applications that were submitted were validated as not needing to have research security assessment. In that period, about 48 out of 1,158 were brought forward for further security assessment. A very small number then went to the security agencies. Of those, I believe about 36 were actually denied funding.

It's done in a way that tries to protect the privacy of the information that's shared. It also involves agreements between NSERC and the security agencies on how that information can be used, which protects the integrity of the research and the process.

It has actually been a pretty positive effort. It's now been expanded beyond the alliance program to biomedical research programs. It's expected that it will be rolled out across a broader range of programs over time.

[Valerie Bradford, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

Can you elaborate on the process that the researcher goes through when a national security threat has been flagged with a proposed research topic? How does that happen?

[Dr. Nipun Vats]

The way it works is if NSERC identifies a potential risk, that information is provided to the Department of Public Safety. The Department of Public Safety then either conducts its internal assessment or, if it feels it needs more specific security analysis and depending on the nature of the issue, it would go either to CSIS or to the Communications Security Establishment if it's sort of signals-related information. That assessment goes back to Public Safety, which then conveys the relevant information back to NSERC within the scope of their policies.

[Valerie Bradford, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

Can you tell us how we work with allied countries to share information on mutual national security threats? What process is in place for that?

[Dr. Nipun Vats]

There's a broader dialogue on security threats that goes through the security agencies themselves.

In our case, we're involved in a number of dialogues with both the Five Eyes and the G7, for example, on research security specific issues. There is a Five Eyes table. There's a G7 table, which we co-chair with the U.K., on research integrity and research security, to make sure that there's a consistency of approaches to the extent it's possible, and a sharing of information and best practices.

When it comes to security-related information, that would go through the security agencies specifically.

[Valerie Bradford, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

Okay, great.

Education does fall under provincial jurisdiction, so obviously, it's difficult for the federal government to tell them what they can and can't do. I'm wondering how the provinces collaborate with the federal government on research security.

[Dr. Nipun Vats]

We have a dialogue with the provinces at the officials level to talk about our policies and how they do or don't align currently with the provinces, with the intention of trying to make them align as much as possible.

There is also the institutional layer. At the institutional level, we have a working group with universities. We have the research security centre, which works directly with the universities and also would liaise with the provincial governments.

There are different channels for that kind of engagement.