Thank you, Madam Chair.
First of all, I'd like to also thank the committee for this opportunity to give my presentation today. I'd also like to thank the government and previous governments for their support of research in Canada. Without that support, we would not be where we are today. Is there room for more? I guess that's why we're here. Thank you for your support. I think that's something that's often missed in these opportunities.
I'm going to focus on three things. Many of them you've probably heard several times. They're fairly broad. They're not specific.
The number one issue is the importance of hypothesis-driven research. Hypothesis-driven research is the foundation of all innovation across Canada and the world, across every field. It doesn't matter which field you're looking at, because it all goes back to hypothesis-driven research.
In our field, the sciences and medical sciences field, it's basically coming from the tri-council. The tri-council, whether it's NSERC, SSHRC or CIHR, is not just the foundation for hypothesis-driven research for the most part. It's also the engine of research across Canada. That really is what drives the research in individual labs. Without that research in individual labs, there is no greater research in Canada. If you have initiatives, and for people to be able to participate in them, they have to have an active lab. To have an active lab, they have to have, in our field, tri-council funding.
It's critical, it's important and it's at a moment of stability. We've adjusted the stability, but it needs to grow, so that the health of the research community in Canada can grow with it.
The second thing that I think is critically important—and it was already touched on even this evening—is geographical diversity. Geographical diversity is critical in research. Canada prides itself on being a diverse country, from St. John's to Vancouver, from Windsor to Iqaluit and beyond. This is what makes Canada Canada, and this is what makes Canada great. It's not only what makes Canada great, it drives the economy. It's what's healthy for Canada. It's also what's healthy for research. You need research from across Canada to challenge and then build on the ideas of all research around the world. Without that, it creates a level of non-equity, and the health of research in Canada suffers dramatically from that.
A point on that is equity of research in federal funding is not as equitable as it could be, in my opinion. Every time there's a federal grant that adds a match to the federal grant, you knock out a large number of small universities. You add that match and we can match.... There are ways that we can match some of the smaller initiatives, like the smaller, individual CFIs, but once they come to a larger CFI or any of the larger grants where there's a match, it's gone.
Therefore, it's not a federal program. It's not available to everyone. It's critically dire for the really small provinces. In Atlantic Canada, it would be P.E.I., where CFIs for individuals is almost zero because they can't access funding. To say the CFI is true federal funding, in my opinion, is not accurate. It advantages the wealthier provinces over others.
The third issue is a bit more vague, but it's an issue that we've been working on as neuroscientists across Canada. It's to try to come across a neuroscience or a brain policy. I'll leave it with the point that the aging brain is increasing the need for this at a rate that we've never seen before in mankind.
It's particularly dire in Canada, where our aging population actually outpaces the rest of the world's.
Thank you.