Science and Research Committee on March 21st, 2024

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

Thank you, Chair.

Mr. Landon, your comments about Ph.D.s living in Canada really struck me, because I've seen a lot of articles like “Toronto's universities produce top talent—then its housing crisis casts them out”. This was in The Globe and Mail very recently.

Recently, there was an article about Western University's food bank usage being up 600%. Another article here talks about a man named Matthew Berg, who completed his Ph.D. in biochemistry at Western. He wanted to pursue being a professor and knew he had to do a post-doc. He said that he looked at some Canadian universities and “knew that the cost of living was crazy”, so he left the country.

I know the propensity among advocacy groups like all of yours here is to ask for increased funding from the federal government. I also want to note that the entire budget of CIHR is about a billion dollars. The same goes for NSERC. In the last eight years, we've seen consulting fees by the federal government increase by about $10 billion, so when you think about that.... The WE Charity scandal was a billion dollars.

I'm just going to focus my questions on what policies you have advocated for within your institutions to reduce the input costs to operate your universities, and also to reduce the cost of living for research talent that you're asking for money to support.

I'll start with Mr. Gaffield.

Has your organization asked anything specifically of the federal government in terms of reducing inflationary pressures on students, like the carbon tax?

[Dr. Chad Gaffield]

Thank you very much for that question.

There's no doubt that one of the main concerns we have is, as you suggest, the fact that funding for graduate students has not kept pace with inflation. We've heard repeatedly that even our financial programs—

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

That's not the question I asked. I only have two minutes.

Have any of your member institutions or the U15 asked the government to do something, like stop the carbon tax or tie transfers for municipal government infrastructure to housing targets? Has the U15 advocated for any inflation-reducing policies specifically?

[Dr. Chad Gaffield]

Our mandate focuses on research-related issues with the federal government. We make recommendations in that regard.

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

Mr. Landon.

[Philip Landon]

What I would say is that our universities are producing the talent who are doing the important work of looking at inflationary pressures, the political science work and the economics work. The experts you hear on the radio every morning come from our universities.

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

Right, but you've just made the argument here, and it's in every newspaper, that these people are leaving Canada due to the cost of living. Your organizations come before our committee and ask us for a lot more money. You're asking us to put money into a system that trains talent to leave to go to other jurisdictions because of the cost of living. You see where I have a problem with that.

Do you believe that you, in that situation, or your organization has a role to play in advocating to the federal government for policies that would reduce the cost of living and, therefore, attract and keep talent in Canada?

[Philip Landon]

I think that's a bit broader than our mandate. Our mandate is around—

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

The answer would be no.

[Philip Landon]

My answer is that it's not really within our mandate, the Canadian economy.

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

Just to be clear, because I know we're all very curious about this going forward on this side of the table, the U15 and Universities Canada do not feel their role is to advocate for policies to reduce inflationary pressures or the cost of living, while simultaneously they come to ask the federal government for more money to keep pace with those pressures.

[Philip Landon]

I think we try to make sure that our role in advocacy, our lane in advocacy, is to help our universities.

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

Do you think it would help your universities, though, if they could lower the input costs of things like fuel or heating, or help their students find housing? Do you think that would be helpful, or is that a no, too?

[Philip Landon]

Every one of our universities is looking at those measures for housing and being more efficient at all times.

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

Okay, but are you advocating to the federal government for anything on those measures, or are you just asking for more money?

[Philip Landon]

At the moment, we are not advocating to the federal government on those measures.

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

Do you think perhaps you should?

[Philip Landon]

Perhaps, but I think it's important for us to—

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

Thank you.

Mr. Gaffield, do you think perhaps you should?

[Dr. Chad Gaffield]

I would like to say that our universities are exemplars of moving to green, for example, in reducing energy costs and so on—

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

That's what I thought.

I'm done. Thank you.

[Dr. Chad Gaffield]

—as well as finding ways to deal with housing and provide housing for students. I think it's a very encouraging situation.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

Thank you both for your input on that.

Now we'll go over to Ms. Metlege Diab for five minutes, please.

[Lena Metlege Diab, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you very much to our witnesses for being with us here today as we begin day one of six days, 12 hours, of a study of the federal government funding among Canada's post-secondary institutions.

I think this is an important study. The perspective of our post-secondary institutions and our students is paramount. On Tuesday, I joined a press conference to add my voice to calling for more support for the graduate students and post-doctoral scholars. Today, of course, we're here to study how we can better support the small, medium and large institutions. All institutions are equally valued and equally important in our Canadian ecosystem.

Mr. Gaffield, let me start with you, simply because you represent one of the 15 universities in the Atlantic provinces, east of Montreal: Dalhousie. That is one of the institutions I'm an alumna of. Dalhousie, of course, has world-leading battery researchers. Just last week, it received a $5-million federal grant to support the creation of a first-in-Canada university-based battery prototyping and production facility, which should open next year.

The federal government made an investment a number of years ago, and I was part of this a couple of years ago when I was in provincial.... Last year, there was a historic investment from the Canada first research excellence fund to embark on the most intensive investigation ever into the ocean's role in climate change. Of course, Nova Scotia is very much situated to be able to do that.

This is just a snapshot. There are many things happening in my backyard and in my province. I just want you to speak for a moment on how the funding Dalhousie receives shapes the institution's research output and input. How does it collaborate with other partners in the ecosystem, whether it's in Nova Scotia or anywhere else in the country, for that matter, or internationally?

[Dr. Chad Gaffield]

It's such a great question. Thank you.

Dalhousie is a great example of a university that is really embedded in its region, while at the same time contributing globally. Dalhousie's focus on oceans, for example, and the ocean's role in climate change—particularly in the transforming climate action project that you mentioned, working with other universities, such as Université du Québec à Rimouski, Laval, Memorial, and so on—shows a wonderful example of how federal funding, in that case the $154 million for that project and all the partners, is then leveraged into almost $400 million.

Earlier we were talking about the possibility of endowments and other sorts of funding and so on. What we find is that these projects can only work successfully in a very entrepreneurial way, by finding these other sources of funding. As you know, for the large, research-intensive universities, the research support fund, which helps out in terms of what we used to call the overhead cost of research, is structured so that it leaves the major universities with having significant gaps to fill—and they do that. Dalhousie, I think, has been a great example of how they really do work as a catalyst, as a leader, bringing in other partners, really affecting the region, but also doing it in a way that globally is going to have a huge positive impact on climate change—new technologies in terms of ocean carbon capture and new ways of helping coastal communities threatened by climate change.

I think Dalhousie is just a wonderful example, and frankly I think it should be celebrated.