Science and Research Committee on April 30th, 2024

[Dr. Neil Fassina]

Thank you, Dr. Jaczek.

In terms of some of the allocation considerations, I would suggest understanding what the institution spends on its underlying infrastructure to support its applied research versus its pure research environment, recognizing and going back to my comment that many colleges, polytechnics and CEGEPs have had to effectively bootstrap those resources together with minimal funds coming from a tri-council environment. I think you'd be surprised at how little some of the colleges and polytechnics are spending within that underlying infrastructure space.

I'll probably stop there.

[Helena Jaczek, Liberal, Markham—Stouffville, ON]

You gave the example of the lab where small businesses can come and test. Where did that funding come from, again? I think you mentioned NSERC, but maybe you could elaborate on how that came to be.

[Dr. Neil Fassina]

You bet.

Just over five years ago, Okanagan College was granted an NSERC and CFI-funded technology access centre, as referred to by one of my colleagues.

In our case, it's our beverage technology access centre, so it specializes in unfermented, fermented and distilled beverages of all sorts.

[Helena Jaczek, Liberal, Markham—Stouffville, ON]

I'll turn now to Dr. Chrétien.

At Conestoga College, obviously you've made applications to the tri-council. Could you give us some examples of successful applications? Have you been able to use those examples as you go forward? Have you been able to show how your precedent-setting applied research has shown benefit to the community and to Canadians?

[Dr. Michelle Chrétien]

Yes, absolutely. I think we do try, when making an application to the tri-agencies, to speak to the track record of impact that our students and researchers have had in their communities. I think that's important.

I would also say, though, that when applying to programs, it is sometimes difficult to communicate that value to a review committee or an individual reviewer who doesn't have the experience of the value that the college sector brings to the research enterprise and specifically to communities.

I think that we have been very successful in terms of receiving funds and investments from the tri-agencies to support directly the work of communities and companies in our region. We're also very grateful for support from the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario, which supports some of the work I talked about today, including the electric vehicle charging work. However, I do think that some of the challenge comes both in the size of the slice of our pie and also in helping reviewers and those who are evaluating and allocating funds to really understand the value of what we do, and how it's different but complementary to what happens at our university peer institutions.

[Helena Jaczek, Liberal, Markham—Stouffville, ON]

Thank you.

Ms. Kamenova, you referenced moving to a 6% allocation, which was kind of modest, I would say, but perhaps appropriate.

Could you elaborate a bit again on how you see those criteria that review committees should use in order to somehow demonstrate the value of your applications as a college?

[Dr. Kalina Kamenova]

Through you, Mr. Chair, thank you for the question.

On the request to increase the funding to 6%, I really appreciate the fact that you consider this modest. Most of my colleagues in applied research across different community colleges in Canada are suggesting a 5% increase. We decided to be bolder and suggest an additional 1% increase to account for additional funding for a challenge fund to address urgent needs in society, including affordable housing, mental health issues and other community health problems.

In terms of how this can support the distribution of funding, one way we would suggest is to increase funding for individual competitions under the college and community innovation program that is funded by NSERC.

I mentioned in my speaking notes the grants to technology access centre grants, the TACs. Currently, these grants are becoming increasingly competitive. Additional funding will provide colleges with the opportunity to secure more TACs. Colleges can hold up to three TAC grants. This will allow them to venture into new areas of applied research and innovation and then build centres of excellence and support local communities in a better way. In a way, it will allow colleges to enhance their research portfolios.

The increase from 3% to 6% allocated by the tri-councils would allow them to provide more grants in different funding competitions—

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

I'm sorry. We're at time. I was listening and not paying attention to time.

Go ahead, Mr. Blanchette-Joncas, for six minutes, please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to welcome the witnesses who are with us today.

Dr. Kramp, I heard you mention in your remarks that the strength of your small college is in fact—

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

I'm sorry. I'm interrupting because we don't have translation.

Could we have translation, please, on French to English?

I'll reset the timer and you can start again. We'll see whether we have translation.

We have a nod of the head. Good.

Go ahead, please, for six minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Dr. Kramp, I heard you mention in your remarks that the strength of your college is that, despite its small size, you can accomplish a lot of things with few resources.

Currently, Canadian colleges, CEGEPs and polytechnics share only 2.9% of the federal budget for investments in scientific research.

In the academic world, there is unfair competition between institutions. The large universities share 80% of the funding, while the small and medium‑sized universities share the rest of the crumbs, and I'm being polite. As a representative of a small college, do you experience the same reality and have to compete with the larger colleges?

I could give you examples of colleges that conduct research activities that are more intense than some Canadian universities.

[Dr. Kari Kramp]

Thank you.

Just to be sure, you're wondering whether or not we feel competition between our college and other larger colleges.

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

In concrete terms, I want to know whether being a small college puts you at a disadvantage compared to medium or large colleges. We know that the latter have access to better research funding, despite the small amounts allocated to colleges and polytechnics in Canada.

[Dr. Kari Kramp]

Thank you for the question.

Through you, Chair, I believe that being a small college is an advantage to a certain extent. We have the ability to be agile and to adapt and evolve quickly. I think this is really important, especially when we're talking about applied research.

My experience has been that when you're working with industry, they want it yesterday. As the sector changes and something new has evolved and we need to shift gears, that is where the advantage of a small college comes into play.

I want to make sure I answer the second part of the question.

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

I'm trying to get a clear understanding of your organization's financial capacity, which is nevertheless limited. What more could you do with more research funding? We know the importance of applied research in Canada. Basic research is important, but it takes applied research as well. Colleges receive only 2.9% of federal funding. I'm sure you have the potential to do more research and respond to a number of problems that our society is currently facing.

[Dr. Kari Kramp]

Yes. With 2.9%, there is a limit to what we can do. What could we do with more money?

I would start with students. That's why we're here. We could provide more experiential learning opportunities for students. We look at as little as $15,000. That would hire a student for the summer. These are real examples of experience that make a difference and create a student's skill set.

They're graduating with a credential, but when they are involved in applied research, they get that hands-on learning, they network with industry and they get the critical skills. When you're called for a reference and they're asking about a student, they're not necessarily asking what grade they got in organic chemistry, but if they were able to work as part of a team and how their communications skills are. It's these skills and intangibles that are reinforced through applied research, so I would say, first of all, that it's students.

Second, I would say that it's our ability to serve. What we could do with more money.... We live in a rural environment. That's our space, and there are a lot of under-represented groups and small businesses that have challenges as they move toward or are interested in innovating and developing new products.

Currently, 50% of our collaborators are from under-represented groups. Of our collaborators, 27% are women-led, 25% are visible minorities and 2.5% are indigenous partners. We work on a lot of small projects that are valued between $5,000 and $15,000 per project.

This makes a difference for these small industries and these small companies. Those are just examples from within our centre for natural products, but now we're working toward having more of an impact with our community partners in social innovation.

It's exciting to see the potential. We could do a lot with more funding.

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

Thank you very much. I think your testimony is quite compelling. You need more funding to develop further.

Dr. Chrétien, we know that only 2.9% of all federal funding for scientific research goes to Canadian colleges, institutes and CEGEPs. You suggested increasing that share to 6%. Do you have any data on that? Have you done any analysis? Why 6%? Why not 7%, 8% or 9%?

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

Answer very briefly. You have about 20 seconds.

[Dr. Michelle Chrétien]

Thank you for the question.

Through you, Mr. Chair, the selection of 6% or 5%, as has been advocated by some of our associations, like Colleges and Institutes Canada, was a reflection of a balanced approach. I agree it is modest, because I think with more we could definitely do more, but I think we need to scale reasonably and thoughtfully as we grow.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

Thank you.

Mr. Cannings has the final six minutes of this round.

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

Thank you all for being here.

I'm going to start with Dr. Fassina, since you represent Okanagan College, which is close to home for me. The last time we met was actually at the Sustainable Building Technology Capstone Showcase for your sustainable building technologies program.

I want to ask a question about how colleges might be ideally placed for federal funding for projects and programs that really help to roll out federal policies.

We are facing a real climate crisis, as we know. Okanagan College's sustainable building program is a model for how we need to construct our infrastructure in the coming years and decades. Some of the projects we saw at that showcase were demonstrations of how to do deep retrofits on homes in a economical way that could drive local businesses and demonstrations of building climate-ready modular homes on first nations reserves.

It just seems that this kind of program should get funding matched across the country so that we can do the things we need to do.

I'm wondering if that's perhaps one way that colleges could gain more access to funding for these very applied projects to help roll out government policy to do the things we need to do.

[Dr. Neil Fassina]

Thank you, Mr. Cannings.

I couldn't agree with you more around colleges being poised to be able to make federal policy or societal direction happen very quickly and actively.

As you highlighted, within our sustainable building management program, the line between learning and applied research becomes very blurred within a college environment, recognizing that at each turn, our students are looking to have a marked impact on the communities that they live in, whether that be on a dedicated research environment or in the community learning-type environments that they find within their classroom.

The instructors are equally ready to have that impact because they're looking for real-life experiences for our students, so that when they are done, they are effectively career and job ready.

I think that further investment of federal research dollars into that applied research, to enable a bit of a bleed between work-integrated learning and applied research for community impact, is a way that the federal government could find a very quick turn on some of its federal policies.

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

Following up on that, have you been approached by the federal government with the idea of doing some of that work? Is the federal government trying to develop broader-scale applied research to do these things something that you've heard of in the college environment? Is that something that the federal government is involved in?

[Dr. Neil Fassina]

As one would might imagine, colleges are working with multiple ministries within the federal government, looking to try to connect the variable dots that we have available to us for funding purposes, whether it be directed at a classroom-type environment or an applied research-type of environment, and are simultaneously looking to make progress with federal ministries on some of these important societal issues.

I'd hesitate to say that we're approached directly, as compared to how we are approaching the federal government and trying to tie those dots together.

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

Thank you, Dr. Fassina.

I'm going to turn to Dr. Kramp with a similar kind of question.

I think you mentioned the word “cannabis” in your presentation and I think you have some expertise in that area.

Since we've legalized cannabis in Canada, we've had word from the government that they were going to spend some of that supposedly very large amount of money they are going to get from taxation on research into cannabis. There seems to have been little heard about that research and whether that money has been spent.

I'm wondering if you could comment on that and the role your college or other colleges might have had in that research.