Science and Research Committee on March 21st, 2024

[Pari Johnston]

I've been in this position at Colleges and Institutes Canada for the last three months. Certainly, in the context of my role there, that's the first open letter I've had to address. It was because of a major public policy challenge that our sector was facing as a result of the implementation of the federal cap in a very short time frame.

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

Do you think the federal Liberal cap on international students is hurting your members?

[Pari Johnston]

I would say that the chronic public underinvestment in post-secondary institutions is the underlying driver of why we are in this situation today. The cap implementation has been exceptionally challenging in terms of the implementation in a short time period. We are competing for talent from around the world. The challenge we have found is the need to ensure the student integrity of the program. We all want that.

To make reference to the open letter, our concern in the letter was with respect to the moratorium on processing, which cut off the tap for international students. A market signal like that globally can be very challenging.

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

It was irresponsible. I agree.

Did the minister phone you after the letter was published? How did that dialogue go?

[Pari Johnston]

We had an opportunity to have and continue to have important dialogue with the minister and his staff and officials at Immigration. They now hold regular town halls with the community to try to address the implementation issues.

We did meet with the minister with our board vice-chair in collaboration with Universities Canada.

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

You're only a few months into this position, but you have met personally with him.

[Pari Johnston]

Yes, I have.

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

Was it on this issue?

[Pari Johnston]

Yes.

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

Just switching gears a little bit, on what you're facing, you brought up the percentage of funding. What do you think is a fair percentage split between the two? If 2% is too low, what is the number that you think would be justifiable?

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

Answer very briefly, if you can.

[Pari Johnston]

We've been thinking about this ourselves.

I think, for us, the issue is, first of all, how do you look at it in the context of an ecosystem approach? How do we look at both existing programs? As Sarah and I have both noted, the college and polytechnic institutions, which have a lot to bring to bear, are not even eligible for some of the federal granting agency programs as they exist now.

Part of it is looking at eligibility—

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

We're over time. Maybe you can respond in writing if you can't work it into another answer.

Thank you for the questions.

We go to Valerie Bradford now for six minutes, please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to both of our witnesses. Your opening statements were so comprehensive that they answered a lot of the questions I had for you, so thank you so much.

I think there's no question that we need both the applied research that the colleges specialize in and the theoretical research that the universities do, so I don't think it's one versus the other. We need both, and we need to try to get fair and adequate funding for both.

Ms. Watts-Rynard, you were here in May 2022 and, at that point, you raised the issue of the criteria for allocating federal funding with the committee. This is what you said at the time:

while the college sector is technically eligible under the Canadian research chair program, allocations are based on funding received from tri-councils in the previous year. The college and community innovation program, which is the major and often only source of federal research funding, is excluded from this calculation.

Could you elaborate on the way the criteria the granting agencies use to award research funding apply to colleges and polytechnics, and what are the consequences of using those criteria?

[Sarah Watts-Rynard]

I think this is something that was raised in the previous panel as well. There's a sense that if you don't already have the funding, then you are ineligible for some of the allocations in the way that they're made.

My point there stands. If the college and community innovation program is ineligible to be considered as a part of the allocations, it doesn't matter how much they get within that college program; that program is ineligible, and therefore the institutions are never going to be able to get a leg-up.

Maybe I'd just circle back to a comment in the previous panel around this idea that allocations are made, things like the research support fund, that.... Again, CCIP is not considered eligible, so it continues to push aside the research that is happening there for these other allocations. One of our sector's big pushes is that you have to make us more universally eligible if you want to take advantage of the ability of the sector to translate what is happening in primary, investigator-led research into the market.

I think this is something that we hear more and more from government, but the point is that you can't overlook or somehow ring-fence the institutions off to the side and say, “Well, that's not really the same. That's not really eligible”, and then expect them to be maximizing their results.

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

What specific improvements to the process that the federal government uses to allocate would you like to see, and what programs in particular would be most impacted if they were to make these changes?

[Sarah Watts-Rynard]

One of the things I would say is that the college and community innovation program was developed roughly 20 years ago with the idea that we were going to build capacity within the sector so the sector has capacity. Now the problem is that you're not using the capacity that they've built. The institutions continue to be put aside into “This is where you're going to get your money from”, and they're not more broadly eligible.

If they were more broadly eligible, we would still have some difficulty with the fact that publication is not something that college researchers are trying to accomplish. They're trying to accomplish these short, focused, industry-driven projects.

I would like to see broader eligibility, but I'd like to see that eligibility come with an understanding that the success metrics for research need to change as well.

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

Okay, great.

In 2022-23, the three granting agencies awarded approximately $2.6 billion in grants and scholarships. The same year, the main federal funding program for colleges, the college and community innovation program, had a budget of $96.3 million.

Budget 2023 proposed to provide $108.6 million over three years, starting in 2023-24, to expand the college and community innovation program. How does the federal government plan to expand the CCI program? Have any consultations been held on the issues with the college community?

[Sarah Watts-Rynard]

Consultations do occur. That's the reason for our organizations to exist. If the consultations aren't occurring, then we want to push to have them occur.

The one thing I will say about the investment in the last budget to the college and community innovation program is that it's three years of funding diminishing over those three years. In the fourth year, there's a complete cliff back down to the prior funding level. You can imagine that five-year funding grants could not be effected by a three-year funding. The first year it's $39 million, then it's $36 million, and then it's $33 million. With the diminishing returns here, you're not growing a program that you're actually taking money out of in each subsequent year.

There was no ability to address longer-term funding grants that gave some stability to the sector. There was no ability for NSERC to address that in the program.

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

Just to clarify, it is the increase that's decreasing, not the actual base funding. Plus, I would think front-loading the increase would be to your advantage, as opposed to the other way.

[Sarah Watts-Rynard]

Front-loading the increase is necessary, but we're talking about a program that is under a lot of stress all the time, so the sector has more capacity than it has funding. Obviously, diminishing is not growing.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

Thank you for giving the additional details to us.

Mr. Blanchette-Joncas, you have the floor for six minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Ms. Johnston, thank you for being with us today. Your testimony is very important to this study.

Initially, the study focused mainly on universities, but my colleagues were open to extending it to CEGEPs, colleges and polytechnics as well.

I want to assure you that we are listening, but I understand that there are many problems and challenges. Many of the things we talked about resonated with me, including how research in polytechnics and universities, as well as in CEGEPs and colleges, is undervalued. We also talked about underfunding, eligibility and, of course, the disparity in funding.

Today, I'd like to focus on the disparity in funding for your institutions. I want to hear your thoughts on the place of colleges and CEGEPs in this debate. We often talk about university research, so pure research, but we tend to forget that the educational institutions you represent also do important research.

Can you tell us more about that? Is there a latent and chronic funding disparity or underfunding within the membership of your organization?

[Pari Johnston]

Thank you for the question.

As I said in my opening remarks, our main observation is that, if 120 institutions share an investment program, but that program gets only 2.9% of the funding from the granting councils, that's not enough. As Ms. Watts-Rynard just said, the program that's earmarked for colleges is highly sought after, but there aren't enough resources to meet the needs. We believe it's time to reassess and rethink how colleges and polytechnics can contribute to the goals of other programs in the granting council system.

We also talked about challenges related to housing, the green economy and the cost of living for vulnerable people. For us to play a role in those areas, colleges and policies need to be seen as key, core partners.

That said, there is a funding disparity. Those investments need to be recalibrated. As Ms. Watts-Rynard said, if the government creates new programs, it can no longer ignore colleges. They need to be key partners. It's time for a rethink.

We encourage an ecosystem-based position. Current granting council programs are defined from an academic perspective.

Our system has matured over the past 20 years, so our programs need to be reassessed because we want to see the impact of our investments.

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

I understand.

Thank you for clarifying, Ms. Johnston. We have a little bit of data, including the data you sent us earlier. You said that your organization represents the 13 largest polytechnic institutions, which account up 50% of the population of all your organizations combined.

Do you have more specific data on the concentration of funding in some of the larger institutions, as opposed to smaller or medium-sized institutions? Earlier, the first group of witnesses talked a lot about concentration in large universities.

Is this happening in CEGEPs, colleges and polytechnics, too?