Science and Research Committee on May 2nd, 2024

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

I call the meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number 84 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Science and Research.

Before I begin, I'll just remind all members and other meeting participants that the room has been reconfigured with some preventative measures.

To prevent disruptive and potentially harmful audio feedback incidents that can cause injuries, all in-person participants are reminded to keep their earpieces away from all microphones at all times.

As indicated in the communiqué from the Speaker to all members on Monday, April 29, another measure that has been implemented is that all earpieces have been replaced by a model that greatly reduces the probability of audio feedback. The new earpieces are black in colour, whereas the former ones were grey. Use only the black, approved earpiece.

By default, all unused earpieces will be unplugged at the start of a meeting. When you're not using your earpiece, please place it face down on the middle of the sticker that's provided for this purpose, which is on the table in front of you.

Consult the cards on the table for guidelines to prevent audio feedback incidents.

The room layout has been adjusted to increase the distance between microphones and reduce the chance of feedback from an ambient earpiece. These measures are in place so we can conduct our business without interruption and to protect the health and safety of all participants, including our interpreters. Thank you for your co-operation.

Today's meeting is in a hybrid format. We do have one member on Zoom. If you lose interpretation, please let me know right away and we will suspend until we get it restored.

Before you speak, wait until I recognize you by name and then unmute yourself. When you're not speaking, please keep your microphone on mute.

I'll remind you that all comments by members should be addressed through the chair. With regard to the speaking list, the clerk and I will do our best to maintain the consolidated order of speaking for all members, whether they're participating virtually or in person.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(3)(i) and the motions adopted by the committee on Tuesday, January 30, and Thursday, February 15, the committee is resuming its study of the distribution of federal government funding among Canada's post-secondary institutions.

It's now my pleasure to welcome, from Acfas, Martin Maltais, president, and Sophie Montreuil, executive director.

From the Canadian Federation of Students, we have Gishleine Oukouomi, national treasurer.

Each individual has five minutes for their remarks.

We'll start off with Mr. Maltais or Madame Montreuil.

[Martin Maltais, President, Acfas – Association francophone pour le savoir]

Good morning Mr. Chair and members of the committee.

My name is Martin Maltais. I'm the president of Acfas, the Association francophone pour le savoir, and a professor of finance and educational policy at the Université du Québec à Rimouski. I am also a member of the Laboratoire interdisciplinaire de recherche sur l'enseignement supérieur.

With me today is Sophie Montreuil, the executive director of Acfas. We are honoured to be able to contribute to the committee's work on the distribution of federal government funding among Canada's post-secondary institutions.

Over the past one hundred years, Acfas has made an outstanding contribution to the transmission of knowledge in French, and to the advancement of the francophone research community in the French-speaking world.

Acfas has six regional offices across Canada outside of Quebec. We contribute directly to the vitality of research in French and to the promotion of knowledge across Canada. We contribute on an everyday basis to the prosperity and prestige of our country.

I'd like to provide a bit of background at the outset. In view of the new Official Languages Act and the new positive measures in part VII to promote science and research in French in Canada, our association can only reiterate how important it is for Canada to mine the expertise of its two major research language communities to find ways to address the major challenges of society and promote our country and its researchers.

We agree with the recommendations made in the report from the advisory panel on the federal research support system, known as the Bouchard report, and in your committee's report on research and scientific publication in French. We also welcome the additional funding for granting agencies announced by the government in its most recent budget, and the eagerly awaited increase in scholarships awarded to graduate and post-graduate students.

Right off the bat, the goal of your study is interesting for its use of the word “between”, which introduces the concept of a gap, or space, within a group of components. There is indeed a major gap between Canadian post-secondary institutions in terms of their capacity to receive research funding from the government of Canada.

Let's look at a few facts. In 2020–2021, 74% of federal government funding for University research was shared by 15 institutions, which accounted for only 52% of faculty and 59% of the graduate student community; 77% of these public funds went to the 20% of researchers who were already receiving the most funding. Among these universities, only two are francophone, and only one bilingual. The 12 anglophone universities in the U15 group share approximately 60% of Canadian government funding, even though they have just over 40% of faculty and graduate students.

The two francophone universities share just over 10%, and account for 8% of faculty, and 14% of graduate students in Canada. These two universities are definitely more productive in terms of graduates.

Also in 2021, 2.9% of funding from the three granting agencies went to colleges. Without abandoning the excellence criterion…

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

I'm sorry to interrupt.

The bells are ringing. Do we have consent to continue with the presentations?

Okay. Thank you.

Please continue. You have about a minute and 10 seconds.

[Martin Maltais]

Okay, thank you.

Without abandoning the excellence criterion, the committee should look into new mechanisms for distributing funding, particularly from the standpoint of the Official Languages Act, which acknowledges that French is in a minority position in Canada and North America. This requires the introduction of positive measures. The language factor should be among the considerations and options used by the Canadian government to allocate funding for university research. A better linguistic distribution can only be achieved by giving more support to small and medium-sized universities.

The new distribution of federal funding should factor in principles that Acfas considers essential to an effective research ecosystem. These principles include promoting researchers; promoting basic research; acknowledging the identity-building and cultural mandate of local universities and universities not located in major cities, which are essential to the vitality of francophone minority communities; equitable funding for members of the francophone Canadian scientific community; and the need to have francophone international students in numbers that exceed the relative demographic weight of francophones in Canada, particularly at the higher levels of education.

Thank you for your attention.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

That's great.

Now we have Ms. Oukouomi for five minutes.

[Gishleine Oukouomi, National Treasurer, Canadian Federation of Students]

Thank you.

Mr. Chair and members of the committee, thank you for this opportunity to speak about the problems faced by students at post-secondary educational institutions in Canada.

My name is Gishleine, and I am the national treasurer of the Canadian Federation of Students. We represent some 530,000 students from 63 student unions across Canada, including 20 graduate student unions.

I'd like to begin by drawing attention to the tireless work of graduate students in Canada, because it's thanks to their work and the efforts of groups like Support Our Science and the Canadian Association for Graduate Studies that changes were made in the 2024 budget.

I would also like to thank all the members of this committee for the leadership they demonstrated in putting pressure on the government to ensure that graduate students are no longer paid at a level that keeps them at the poverty line.

These new investments in research and graduate students constitute a first step in the right direction to demonstrates clearly that Canada wants to remain competitive internationally, and they also show how important it is to introduce significant measures to modernize research and fill gaps in the existing research infrastructure.

We applaud the measures taken in the budget, but that doesn't mean we have to stop there. We must continue to pursue the momentum generated by these investments to ensure not only that graduate students can pursue their studies, but also that they get the support they need to avoid having to make a choice between continuing their education and just having a life.

We are aware of the fact that grants from the three granting agencies have been increased, but Canada still ranks 26th among OECD members in terms of the percentage of people pursuing a graduate education. And since 2010, Canada has experienced a significant drop in the number of researchers compared to other developed countries.

Our organization would like the government to provide funding that would enable universities to address the realities of students in various areas, including the number of years of study, reducing the burden on student associations, for example when funding for doctoral students ceases after four years. Nobody completes a Ph.D. in four years in Canada. The average length of time is six years.

We would like funding to be understood not as research funding, but rather funding for researchers, by which we mean compassionate funding that would alleviate their financial straits and factor in their diet, health, accommodation and transportation needs. Such needs are often much more serious for graduate students.

Introducing measures like indexing post-graduate and postdoctoral grants to inflation would make Canada more competitive internationally.

It's also important to ensure that public funds allocated to universities, particularly to those in the U15 group, are not only equitable, but also proportionate to funding for small and medium-sized universities, with due regard to research in the natural sciences, health sciences and especially the social sciences, which are often shortchanged.

We would also like Canada to provide enough funding to keep universities from having to depend so much on foreign students to obtain the funding they need to stay afloat.

Lastly, we would like Canada to invest in a manner that is consistent with the Official Languages Act and thereby contribute to the vitality of official language minority communities. We would like events like science fairs, which encourage scientific research at the high school level, to be developed and funded at that level to support research not only in graduate studies, but in particular at the undergraduate level. There's a lot of talk of research at the higher levels, but not nearly often enough about people with bachelor's degrees who are interested in research.

We therefore need a bold strategy to eliminate inequalities in the system, a strategy that would provide equitable support to aspiring graduate students and the same opportunities as their peers, regardless of their geographical location or the size of their institution.

Additional financial support for students at small and medium-sized universities would not only lead to more diverse and innovative research, but also contribute to local economies, which would benefit enormously from the availability of talented new researchers.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

I'm sorry, but I'll have to call it there. We're over time.

I'd like to go to four five-minute rounds, if you guys are okay with that. I see agreement.

Okay, let's start with Mr. Soroka, please, for five minutes.

[Gerald Soroka, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and to the witnesses.

I'll start off with Ms. Oukouomi. You brought up housing and the crisis that many students are struggling to find affordable accommodation.

What insights can you provide on the extent of this issue among the student population, and what immediate steps do you believe could be taken to alleviate the housing challenges for students?

[Gishleine Oukouomi]

Thank you for your question.

We've noticed that most U15 group universities are in urban centres. The first problem students face is therefore housing, because most of the students who want to study at these large universities have to cohabit. They have to leave their parents' home and find somewhere new to live. This sometimes happens because the only programs to which they have access, and for which university assistance is available, are institutions of the U15 group, which once again are all in urban centres.

Furthermore, most students don't have the means to live comfortably with the funding available to them. In a city like Ottawa, it costs approximately $1,200 per month for a room in shared accommodation. Students therefore use most of their research funding to cope with the cost of living. They don't have the means to live suitably and pay for their rent and food.

If you speak with the student associations, you'll hear that at the end of each year, our student aid funds have run dry. This affects every campus. We can't handle the number of requests we get from students. Even if they have financial support from the universities, they don't always manage to make ends meet because of current circumstances. It's even worse for graduate students, because most of them are also parents. It's therefore impossible for them to live in shared accommodation. They need a house, which is even more expensive. As a result, their financial needs are enormous. That's more or less where things stand right now.

So to begin with, in terms of what has to be done to remedy the problems, provinces like Ontario could follow Quebec's lead. A room on the campus of the Université du Québec à Rimouski, l'UQAR, costs $380 per month. At the University of Ottawa, it's $1,000 or more. That really affects the student experience.

As for the cost of living, in provinces like Quebec, once students have completed their courses, their tuition fees are reduced, which leaves them with more money in their pockets. That's not the case in the other provinces. At the graduate level, after the first year, for example, Ph.D. students don't have any more courses, but they continue to pay full tuition fees.

If arrangements were made for students to pay only what's required for their circumstances, it could reduce the burden of high tuition fees, and student grants could be used for their actual purpose, which is to support students and enable them to focus on their research.

[Gerald Soroka, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Okay. Am I...?

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

You have about 40 seconds left.

[Gerald Soroka, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

I'll ask the question, and she can reply back in writing, then.

In light of the rising inflation, particularly in sectors critical to students such as food and housing, how do you see these affecting student budgets and financial planning? Have there been notable changes in students' spending patterns or financial stress levels due to inflation?

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

Actually, I'm sorry, Mr. Soroka. You have another minute and 10 seconds.

[Gerald Soroka, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Oh, then you have a minute to answer, so be brief, please.

[Gishleine Oukouomi]

If you want a true indicator of how inflation has changed consumption habits, just look at the food banks on campuses. Many students who had never gone to a food bank before were forced to do so because of inflation. It's also worth looking at the data on the number of student evictions resulting from inflation.

We have student rights centres on campuses and most of the student unions we represent provide legal services. in the past, they were mainly helped students with their income tax returns. Recently, however, they've been helping students who can't pay their rent and are threatened with eviction. This means coming up with urgent solutions to find accommodation for them. This shows just how seriously students have been affected by inflation.

As for budget planning, you are no doubt aware that a student grant…

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

I'm sorry. We'll have to call it at that. Thank you for getting that in. You can always give us more in writing, if you'd like to.

We'll go to Ms. Bradford for five minutes, please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you so much to our witnesses who have travelled here to appear in person and give us their expert testimony.

My question will be directed to Dr. Maltais.

On April 18, Céline Poncelin de Raucourt of the Université du Québec told the committee:

Since 2004, the share of total research funding granted by the federal government to francophone institutions has been declining. Francophone researchers now receive a percentage of the funding that is smaller than their demographic weight. For Canada to maintain the vitality of all of its communities, it is imperative that more funding be provided to those institutions.

The question is this. What are the effects of the concentration of research funding on francophone institutions, particularly in minority settings?

The question is for whomever of you wants to take that on.

[Martin Maltais]

I couldn't hear the interpretation properly.

[Sophie Montreuil, Executive Director, Acfas – Association francophone pour le savoir]

I'll make a start and you can then join in with further details.

Some key numbers clearly show that access to research funding is inequitable certain institutions—the small and medium-sized universities—and for faculty. It's absolutely clear. Language, although not the only factor, contributes significantly to the unequal allocation of funding for research at small and medium-sized universities, and for francophone researchers. A researcher who wants to do research in French at an anglophone or bilingual institution, doesn't have access to the same services in support of their research applications and ends up abandoning the idea of submitting an application. That means that the university in question is depriving itself of some of the funding available for research in French. Many francophone researchers work at small institutions where there are fewer professors and hence smaller budgets, and where less funding is available from the granting agencies. To obtain funding—and I'm not joking here—the more money a university already has to fund research, the more it will receive. The less it has, the less likely it is to receive more.

This scenario is particularly true in the francophone research community, especially at small and medium-sized institutions. That's what Ms. Céline Poncelin de Raucourt said in the brief to the Université du Québec network, and she probably explained it better than I did on the basis of the numbers you referred to.

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

Thank you.

What recommendations would you make to the government and granting agencies to improve the situation of francophone institutions?

[Martin Maltais]

If you were to ask us where improvements might be made, I would say it's obvious that something has to be done that would give us an advantage. Money is needed. We are in a research reinvestment phase. It's an opportunity to come up with ground rules that would be more beneficial to small and medium-sized universities and French-language universities across Canada.

What's at issue is the country's collective wealth. If all the best paid and most stimulating jobs require a university degree, often at the graduate or postgraduate level, the country's wealth is also tied to that. But the francophone population of approximately 9 million out of Canada's total population of 41 million is under-represented in terms of research, research funding and the number of graduate students.

That being the case, it's obvious that part of Canada's population is condemned to a lower level of economic wealth than the other part of the population unless something is done to change this state of affairs, which is currently structural.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

Okay, thank you.

Monsieur Blanchette-Joncas, you have five minutes, please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Maltais, in your address, you gave a very clear picture of the research funding imbalance in Canada and said that it put francophones at a disadvantage, and even amounted to a form of discrimination against them.

I'll give you the following example. In Quebec, where most francophones in Canada live, some anglophone universities, although they are not part of a linguistic minority, receive more funding than the francophone universities. That doesn't necessarily make sense.

Quebec's majority francophone population needs funding for its research.

If we compare that situation to the way things stand in New Brunswick and Alberta, the Université de Moncton and Campus Saint-Jean find themselves in the same minority context, but receive far less funding.

How do you, as someone here to represent French-speaking researchers, explain that?

[Martin Maltais]

I believe the main reason for the imbalance is the funding model.

The university environment certainly focuses on excellence, and no one can challenge that excellence is essential in higher education.

However, excellence alone is not always enough. A critical mass of high-level researchers who can conduct their research in their respective languages is also essential.

It is therefore a dual issue. When 74% of Canadian government research grants go to 15 universities attended by barely half the country's students, the other half are condemned to lesser infrastructures and capacities.

And it's the regions, and the small and medium-sized universities in Canada that are often affected, which constitutes a major problem. You can't just say that people will always head for the major centres to continue their education. A quality and comparable university experience is needed across the country.

Not only that, but the situation is even more skewed in French-language universities. When you realize that of these 15 universities, two are French-language institutions and happen to be more successful in educating master's and doctoral students than the 13 English-language universities—which receive approximately 60% of Canadian government research grants—the language problem stands out.

Once it is acknowledged that the French language is linguistically disadvantaged, then it's impossible to simply address one aspect at a time.

Action that will have a positive impact on Quebec and on all francophone communities in Canada is needed.

Allow me to repeat that the issue is to create more collective economic wealth. Concentrating resources will not achieve the best outcomes. Excellence can only take you so far.

At a certain point, if all the money goes into the same pot, growth becomes impossible. What's needed is excellence surrounded by a critical mass of talent and skill. That's the key.

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

Thank you.

You spoke about attracting excellence. Excellence is something that comes from individuals, not institutions.

Would you agree that the Canadian research funding system is currently targeting excellence in institutions, most of which are anglophone?

Research funding is therefore concentrated in the anglophone network, particularly among the universities that are members of the U15 Group of Canadian Research Universities.

As you just pointed out, 13 of these 15 universities are anglophone.

What needs to be done to achieve a more effective distribution of research funding to the small and medium-sized francophone universities to prevent francophones from having to exile themselves to the mainly anglophone higher education network that receives most of Canada's research funding?