Science and Research Committee on April 18th, 2024

[Dr. Dena McMartin]

We have, very much so. In fact, we have expanded our food bank on campus, as well as having fresh food days and nutrition days.

There's a significant amount of effort happening on our campus.

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

I'm sorry, I just missed that. This is one of the first that I've heard.

Do you have an actual food bank on campus?

[Dr. Dena McMartin]

We do, yes.

I think most universities do these days.

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

That's unfortunate, in a country as wealthy as a G7 country, that we have students not just accessing food banks, but the system is seemingly set up so there's free food on campus.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

Thank you.

I know the University of Guelph—the food university—also has a food bank on campus and participates in the local food banks.

Now we're going to Mr. Turnbull for five minutes, please.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

I remember going to Carleton University here in Ottawa about 25 years ago. We had a food bank on campus that I had to regularly use as well. It is not uncommon for students who are struggling to go to university.

It's great to have the witnesses here. Thank you for that. I really appreciate your testimony and the expertise you're providing for this study.

Given the fact that Dalhousie is one of the members of the U15, I want to ask a couple of targeted questions around how the U15 schools may operate as anchor institutions that may actually help increase the capacity to do research among other universities.

I just want to see if Dalhousie plays that role in helping, partnering and collaborating with other institutions to perhaps supplement their capacity to do research in key areas.

Ms. Aiken.

[Dr. Alice Aiken]

Thank you.

We absolutely do that. I gave you a couple of examples where our partnerships are wide-reaching across all spectrums of universities, including in our own province, with numerous smaller universities and a wonderful, robust community college system.

We believe that partnerships strengthen us. We encourage partnership and working together to grow research capacity, commercialization capacity and the overall ecosystem. I think most universities do the same thing.

I did just want to note one thing about the funding for universities.

With medical schools, though, the hospital amounts are also included in our CIHR grants. When you think of the University of Toronto, with 10 hospitals, they of course seem to take a lot of the money, but a lot of that goes directly to the hospitals.

However, we partner well with the hospitals as well. If physicians want to do research, they need to be appointed at a medical school.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

Thank you for that. I appreciate that.

I understand the importance of having those research institutions support a lot of our health professionals with getting placements in hospital settings. UHN in downtown Toronto is particularly known for that with the four hospitals. Anyway, I won't get into that.

I want to pivot to a question about applied research. We have had some of the colleges and polytechnics here. In fact, one of the local institutions in my riding, Ontario Tech, has been here. It is a university, but it operates particularly in STEM areas where a lot of the research is applied.

There were some witnesses who suggested that the tri-council should be allocating a larger portion of research dollars to applied research, rather than to academic research, and that colleges should be made eligible for those funds as well.

I wonder how both witnesses today, Ms. Aiken and Ms. McMartin, feel about that.

[Dr. Dena McMartin]

As Dr. Aiken has said, the partnerships and collaborations are key here. As I mentioned, we have Lethbridge College in Lethbridge. It is a close partner with us both on academic and research programs. We work very hard to not compete but, rather, complement each other, so we have complementary facilities and complementary expertise.

They do different work from us, so there is a different funding stream and a different approach to the way that research is funded. Our applied research doesn't have special funding available to support it, and their fundamental research doesn't have special funding to support it, so I think there's been a bit of a division of labour there through the funding councils that, so far, has been relatively successful.

[Dr. Alice Aiken]

I would agree with Dr. McMartin, and I would note that all types of research are important, from basic to applied to community-driven. As research institutions, we all need to be thinking of all of those types of research.

One of our biggest successes is in applied research in our partnership—it's the only university partnership in the world—with Tesla and the lithium-ion battery work we do. That is all applied research. It's very important to us.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

I really think the applied research seems to have a lot of direct impacts on the economy, which is fantastic. That's not to say that academic research isn't also very important.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

We'll go to Mr. Blanchette-Joncas for five minutes, please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'll continue with Ms. McMartin.

Ms. McMartin, what concrete recommendations do you have to ensure equity, but also access to research funding for small and medium-sized universities?

[Dr. Dena McMartin]

I have a couple of recommendations.

We've talked about enhancing the merit review, so it's really ensuring that when institutions declare their capacity and expertise to do something, the merit review committees accept that.

Also, there should be opportunities for faculty members and for researchers who are coming into the research game a bit later so that there isn't a detriment to joining that stream mid-career or as an established faculty member on our campuses.

I think we also want to ensure that this new funding for graduate students is distributed appropriately and fairly so that research trainees have access to funding at all of the institutions. That way, they can choose where they want to study, rather than have to go to one of the larger universities because that's the only place they can get funding.

I think it would be important for us to look at—again, as part of the affordability crisis—how we can ensure that students can choose to live in smaller, more affordable centres and still get the same quality of expertise and research experience that they're seeking.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

I will just interrupt. I said you had five minutes when I should have said two and a half. You have about a minute left in your round.

Thank you.

[Dr. Dena McMartin]

As I said earlier, it's development funding that's targeted to help level the playing field for the smaller institutions.

We've been very pleased with the support, which Dr. Aiken mentioned, around the hub model for research in cybersecurity and research data management. That has been very successful, because we do not receive enough funding to do that on our own.

Either we need more funding to do it on our own, or there will have to be strings attached to the funding that goes to the larger institutions to ensure that they provide those supports to us.

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

Thank you, Ms. McMartin.

I have a few seconds left.

I want to point out that a high concentration of funding comes from research excellence funds, but that money is allocated, once again, to large universities, especially to U15 member universities, which claim to be good players because they share a small portion of the crumbs of the pie with small and medium-sized universities.

I would like your opinion on that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

Be very brief, please.

[Dr. Dena McMartin]

I think there's an opportunity to continue to improve that program so that smaller institutions have equal access.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Cannings, you have the last two and a half minutes, please.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Thank you.

I'm going to turn to Dr. Aiken again with this discussion around affordability. One of the big aspects of affordability for students has come about because of governments of all stripes, provincial and federal. Support for universities in general has been declining over the last 30 years, so tuition fees have gone up. Students these days pay ten times what I paid as a student back in the Late Pleistocene. Housing costs have also gone up. I think this is clearly what's driving some students to food banks.

With the smaller universities and colleges that we have been talking about in this study, is this somehow a silver lining in that in smaller centres, students don't have as much of those costs, so you can attract some pretty good talent through the students who are coming to you because of those reduced costs?

[Dr. Alice Aiken]

I'm sorry; was it for me or Dr. McMartin?

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

It was for you, but, if we have time, Dr. McMartin can answer as well.

[Dr. Alice Aiken]

I think so. In Halifax we have seen an incredible increase in housing costs. We also have a food bank at Dalhousie, but, as Ms. Diab mentioned earlier, not all small universities are in.... Halifax isn't a big city, but there are other smaller universities here that are hit with the same impacts.

I know one of your colleagues who has UOIT in his riding. That is in the Toronto corridor, which is also an expensive place to live.

I think that it's generally very expensive to live. I would very much like to applaud the announcement for increasing graduate student funding. I think that's going to make a massive difference for attracting high-quality talent to our universities.

Graduate students generally don't stay in residences that are still affordable, so, as we have residence space for undergrads and increased funding for graduate students, I think it will help universities of all sizes.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

That's the end of my time, apparently.