Science and Research Committee on April 11th, 2024

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

Could you describe the effects of climate change on your life in the north and on the facilities?

[Pippa Seccombe-Hett]

Climate change is impacting everything in the north. The region where our research centre is located, the Western Arctic Research Centre, and where the Tuktoyaktuk coastline is shows that climate change is three to four times what you're seeing in southern Canada, and all of our infrastructure is on permafrost. The melting permafrost and the accelerated changes in temperature are having very significant impacts. Climate change impacts every infrastructure project and every building and causes coastal erosion. It is a consideration for everything we do.

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

Thank you.

Just switching to the south, I have the same question. How have the effects of climate change affected the state of operations on your campus, if they have?

[Dr. Marc Nantel]

Whenever we have a building or re-renovate a building, we choose technologies that are—

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

I'm not talking about the mitigation of the effects of climate change, but actual climate change.

[Dr. Marc Nantel]

I'm in a wine-producing region, and it affects the types of grapes we can grow. In some cases, it affects the types of pests that come our way, which then affects the types of grapes we can grow.

Some pests used to die in the winter and then you're okay the next spring. That doesn't happen quite as much anymore, so we get to see some of those effects, for sure.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

Thank you.

Now for six minutes we go to Valerie Bradford.

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

Thank you so much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to both of the witnesses today.

I was glad to hear you refer to SONAMI. Conestoga College is just a block away from my constituency office, so I'm very familiar with it. I grew up in Niagara, so I'm very familiar with Niagara. I know all the things you do. I've been to the culinary school and seen the grapes, and you have all the various kinds of liquor covered, just so everyone knows. It's a great place.

I'm also very aware of the research you've done with manufacturing. I was the chair of the manufacturing innovation network, and I'm quite aware of all the excellent collaborative, applied research that goes on with manufacturers.

Just to clarify, the purpose of this study is not to redistribute the current funding and take away from one group of post-secondaries to apply to another. In your opinion, do you think it would be better to create specific programs to support college-level research or adapt the existing fund programs, and if so, how could the existing programs be improved or adapted?

[Dr. Marc Nantel]

I think it depends on the outcomes you want at the end. If the outcome you want is for Canada to generate new knowledge and keep us at the top of the pointy bit of science, then definitely universities are where you go. I sometimes say that colleges will not discover the Higgs boson or detect gravitational waves. That's been done already, although I may have to change my analogies. If what you want is economic development, jobs and small companies getting bigger in regions, then this is a type of impact we can have.

From the point of view of whether it is better to have college programs or have college and universities applying for the same programs, I think you should evaluate if a proposal is good based on the outcomes you want out of the research. If what you want is something that universities are excellent at bringing, then I think it's a university program. If it's something that colleges are excellent at bringing, then make it a college program.

There could be some that have both that apply, but then at that point, the evaluation criteria and the outcomes you want and expect should be adapted such that colleges won't be evaluated on the number of papers they write in nature or science, because this is not what we do. This is not our output. Our outputs are prototypes. They are new products that get commercialized so that our companies do better.

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

Could you expand on that? I believe that in your opening comments, you explained how beneficial the applied research done by colleges is to companies. They own the IP at the end of the day, even though they may not really have the expertise to commercialize it without assistance.

Could you address the role that the research plays in your training of students and what skills they acquire when they take part in applied research projects? I'm looking at the student side of it.

[Dr. Marc Nantel]

Absolutely. Thank you. The shortness of the statement made me choose what I meant to discuss, but I'm glad you asked it as a question.

Students are in every project we do. We're a college. We're there to educate students and prepare them for the life of success that they hope to have. Every project we do has students.

In some cases, it's done in their classroom as part of a capstone project, and they get a grade for it. For some projects, we hire the students, and it's their part-time job or their co-op term to work full-time on projects during that period. They work very closely with industry partners. They are part of the meetings with them and part of the designing of the solution. They learn a whole bunch of essential skills, like dealing with adults, keeping time, managing, understanding budgets and understanding what outcomes are and why they have to keep to those outcomes. They learn how to present and how to write in a way that is business-related and not so much school-related.

The students who work with us on projects learn a whole lot on the innovation side, as well as on the essential-skills side. I'd like to think they are readier to hit the job market once they graduate and are more innovative employees who can help companies innovate from the inside.

At Niagara College, we typically see between 1,500 and 2,000 students do applied research through our innovation centres and our capstone projects. We're a 12,000-student college, so a good proportion of our students participate. Many more could if we could undertake more projects, obviously.

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

Do you have co-op programs at Niagara College?

[Dr. Marc Nantel]

Yes, absolutely.

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

Then they can go out and get the work experience.

[Dr. Marc Nantel]

Yes. They go with outside companies or community partners to do their co-op terms, or they can work in the research department, for example. A lot of them do that.

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

Ms. Seccombe-Hett, you mentioned in your opening statement that you would like to see us “targeting funds that build bridges between universities and colleges”. Can you give us examples of how we could do that? Could you describe what that would look like?

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

You only have 10 seconds, so if you could, answer briefly. Maybe we could get that in writing.

[Pippa Seccombe-Hett]

Yes, I can certainly follow up.

There's a good example in ArcticNet research partnerships, which were led through Université Laval. They're partnerships with universities, colleges and northern residents. It's a great example.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Blanchette-Joncas, you have six minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to welcome the witnesses who are with us for the second hour.

Mr. Nantel, we can see that Niagara College ranks first in research, according to the college rankings posted on the Research Infosource Inc. website. Your institution actually has a greater research capacity than some universities. However, despite your effectiveness, the fact that you aren't a university puts you at a disadvantage when it comes to research funding. I would like to hear your thoughts on how the current funding structure could be amended or improved so that you can further develop.

[Dr. Marc Nantel]

Thank you for the question.

One of the things that would help us would be to have access to more programs that would allow us to lead major networks or large projects. In particular, there's a big project on agricultural innovations that's funded, I believe, by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council or the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada. When this project was launched a few years ago, only universities could register as principal applicants. Colleges could join in, but only as little brothers, if you will.

We created and lead, in an exemplary way, I think, the SONAMI network, which is the Southern Ontario Network for Advanced Manufacturing Innovation. This network has grown from 3 to 11 members and has succeeded in creating many jobs and commercialized projects.

So the colleges are able to eat at the big boys' table, but, the issue is, when people evaluate the kind of projects the colleges are normally involved in or want to do, they have to see what spin-offs we can bring about. These are not of the same type as those generated by universities. So funding programs have to be tailored to what colleges can do and what the government wants to achieve. That's one way we can grow.

The other way was mentioned by my colleague from Aurora College. Right now, we're not really well supported for the other activities that are connected to the projects we do, like data management, security or diversity and inclusion. We want to do all that, and we're doing it in a hurry on the corner of our desk, but the universities have a program that automatically subsidizes them to do that kind of thing. So we need to support project research, but we also need to support the stewardship of those research projects so that they're done right.

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

Thank you, Mr. Nantel. I salute your college's initiatives, particularly the creation of the SONAMI network. We can indeed see that colleges have the capacity to do a lot of research.

I'd like to hear your opinion on how the research funding structure is set up in Canada. Do you think that applied research, which is done more in colleges, is underestimated? Is it given too little value, with the result that current funding programs allow colleges and CEGEPs less access to research funding?

[Dr. Marc Nantel]

Thank you for the question.

Sometimes, I am amused to think that universities have been around for a thousand years and colleges have only been around for 50 years, or so, in their present roles. College research has existed for only a few decades, from 20 to 50 years depending on the college. Quebec, with its CEGEPs and Centres collégiaux de transfert de technologie, is a little ahead of the rest of Canada. However, college research is a fairly recent phenomenon, which has not yet penetrated the general consciousness of the population and the people who make decisions.

I think there's a way to show the good things about college research a little more convincingly. It's good to have all kinds of places to do research, such as national labs, universities, colleges and industry. However, we should first determine the results we want to achieve, and then determine the optimal distribution of grants based on the desired results.

I think colleges could produce more, because they have more capacity, but they are limited by their financial resources. Colleges are there primarily to teach. Research is something they do for society. On the other hand, research is woven into the very definition of universities, and for them, research is a recognized function. Colleges could do a lot, but they need a little more help.

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

To conclude, how do you think the federal government could put more effort into making the importance of applied research, which is done in colleges and CEGEPs in particular, better understood and promoted?

[Dr. Marc Nantel]

This study by your committee is a good starting point. It gives the colleges an opportunity to talk to you and give you data and facts, which you can put in your study report. You've heard from Aurora College, a small northern college, and from my college, which is different. I think that's a good first step.

Next, I suggest you come and see us on site. Most members who visit a college come away saying they had no idea colleges did all this. I'm sure some of your colleagues around the table agree. So come and see us. You're familiar with universities, but come and see us. You'll see what excellent work we do.