Evidence of meeting #17 for Science and Research in the 45th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was report.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Taleeb Noormohamed Liberal Vancouver Granville, BC
I'm confused about a couple of things.
One is that I understand Monsieur Blanchette-Joncas wanted to discuss more than just mandates. Can we get clarity on that?
The other thing is this: Is the intention to propose one report for each of the ministers or one report for both of the ministers? I'm wondering what the intention of that report is, because ordinarily—and I stand to be corrected—whenever there's been the opportunity to question ministers on mandate, there hasn't been a report that goes back to the House on the Q and A for that. I'm trying to figure that piece of it out.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Salma Zahid
This motion asks for, as it says, a discussion about their mandate and other related matters.
MP Jaczek, go ahead.
Liberal
Helena Jaczek Liberal Markham—Stouffville, ON
It sounds like this is a proposal for a whole new study on ministers' mandates and other related matters, whatever that is. Is it a completely separate study? Surely it's only reports of the committee on studies that get reported to the House.
Bloc
Maxime Blanchette-Joncas Bloc Rimouski—La Matapédia, QC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I want to reassure my colleagues. As the motion states, the word “study” does not appear. I don't know why we're currently trying to say that a new study would be done, because the word “study” isn't in the motion. I understand that we may be trying other kinds of strategies, but I think my colleagues will have to reread the motion carefully. If they have any questions, I'm happy to answer them. Again, our goal is simply to be able to invite the Minister of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Innovation and Minister Joly as part of this study. The information gathered from their testimony can be included in this study's report and in another report.
Every time we conduct studies here or witnesses appear, reports are prepared and presented to the House. Take, for instance, Canada's chief science advisor, who will be testifying here this week. The motion states that a report will also be presented to the House. I find it hard to understand today why we don't want to do what we usually do. It's important for us to be able to present the work of our committee to the House and to our colleagues, and for the government to be able to act on it as well.
In my opinion, it's also a matter of accountability on the part of all our colleagues. The government must also be able to follow up on our work in committee and respond to the reports we present to the House. That's how it usually works.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Salma Zahid
Thank you, MP Blanchette-Joncas.
Just to clarify, you asked for the government to respond, and as this motion stands, it is not asking the government to respond. I just wanted to let you know that.
Also, just to clarify again, I think there is a bit of unclarity based on this motion. I would like you to clarify whether this will be a separate report, because this motion asks for a separate report. It is not saying that these ministers' testimonies be included in the study of artificial intelligence. It is not asking that.
This motion is asking for a separate report, and this motion is asking for two hours each. That means two meetings: one with the Minister of Industry and one with the Minister of AI. I just want to clarify, for the information of all the members, what this motion means.
I have MP Noormohamed and then MP McKelvie.
Liberal
Taleeb Noormohamed Liberal Vancouver Granville, BC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I feel that it raises a couple of questions.
First, I heard my colleague say that he wanted Mr. Solomon to appear before the committee to discuss his mandate in the context of the study. If that's true, of course we can include it in the report to the House.
I don't really see any issue with that. If the ministers are appearing in the context of this study, of course that would appear in the context of the report we prepare. What I'm having difficulty understanding is, if we are inviting Minister Joly to come and want to do a separate piece on her piece, but we also want Minister Solomon to appear on things outside of this study on his mandate, are we now saying we want the appearance we have plus a separate appearance for him to come, and then to talk about different things alongside Madame Joly? There are a lot of different things going on here, so I think we need to understand a few things.
One is that I think everybody here, from all parties, wants Minister Solomon to appear. He's been keen to appear, and I'm sure he will enjoy being here with us to talk about work he is incredibly passionate about. He is getting ready for the G7. He's already given us a date for when he intends to appear and wishes to be here with us, so I think we have that squared away. I would imagine his testimony, if it is in the context of this study, which is what Monsieur Blanchette-Joncas initially suggested, will fall within the bounds of what we are trying to do in this study.
If we are now talking about a motion that is entirely separate from that, which also includes Minister Joly, I guess we would need a clear understanding, as a committee, of what we are trying to accomplish in that regard and how we see a report from ministers appearing on mandates—which I don't believe is generally done—being part of this conversation.
Monsieur Blanchette-Joncas brought up the chief science adviser, who is coming on Wednesday. The mandate and work of the chief science adviser is clearly in the context that was laid out in the motion, which required a response. The ways in which the question was asked and the appearance was posited to this committee contemplated exactly that: It contemplated a response from this committee that would then go to the House. That's what we all understood. If we are going to start getting into the business of having ministers appear on mandate and then start saying we need a response to the mandate, are we having a response in respect of the content of the mandate? Are we having a response in respect of the response a minister has to their mandate? Are we just giving our opinions as to whether or not we agree with the mandate itself?
This is a committee that, in my view, thus far has done incredibly rigorous work. We've managed to work on some fairly complicated things, in the main, without playing a whole lot of “silly bugger” and get some good work done. However, I'm trying to understand what the intention would be. If it is simply, as I think we all understand, the idea that Minister Solomon appear in the context of this study to do his work, that's great; let's do that. If it's a separate appearance in respect of other things outside of the scope of this study, that's great; let's talk about it in that context.
Minister Joly's appearance is clearly outside the context of this study, as Monsieur Blanchette-Joncas has noted. It has nothing to do with AI—or does it? I don't know. If it has nothing to do with it, then clearly it's separate and unrelated to all of this. If that is the case, are we having Minister Solomon appear in the context of his mandate within the context of this study, or outside of the context of this study but in the context of his mandate? I think we need to be clear about what we are asking people to do.
To go back to the point about the national science adviser, I just want to make sure we're abundantly clear. The idea that we would ask questions of the national science adviser and then posit a response on the basis of that makes perfect sense. If not, let's get some clarity as a group. If we're going to figure out how we keep doing things together, which I think we certainly can, let's be clear about what we're trying to get done through these motions.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Salma Zahid
Thank you, MP Noormohamed.
I have a good list of speakers. We'll go next to MP McKelvie, and then to Mr. Ho, MP DeRidder and MP Jaczek.
MP McKelvie, go ahead.
Liberal
Jennifer McKelvie Liberal Ajax, ON
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I share the concerns that my colleague has raised. We have Minister Solomon coming soon within the context of the AI study. There will be a report that will synthesize what we're hearing from witnesses.
We have lots of witnesses we want to hear from between now and the end of the study. This study, I think, was proposed by the Conservatives as one of their key objectives. I don't think we want to take away time from the witnesses we have coming in. I think we have to be respectful of their time—give them lots of time to get here.
I also think we have to be respectful of the international commitments that the ministers have with other countries. That falls very much in line with what we want to accomplish with science in this country, that is, to show Canada's leadership on the international stage, much like the witnesses here today, who are collaborating internationally. It requires travel on their part for us to get others to come between now and the end of December.
Given that we only have, I think, five meetings left, it's not a proper use of our time. We need to think through very deliberately how we can convene an intentional meeting with Minister Joly that answers questions of importance on Canadian science and research, which is our mandate.
It would be great to hear from her after she's been at the G7 so we can hear what others are doing internationally. We're giving a lot of thought to the next questions we should study at this committee, so the information brought back from the G7 could be useful in that regard.
Likewise, it would be good for us to have time to assemble meaningful questions for Minister Joly. I think we need to continue outreach with the scientific community so we can identify the complex problems we want to solve and which scientists we want to bring to the table to identify what the next pan-Canadian strategy is, for example.
We've been very successful on AI. I look forward to hearing from those researchers. What is the next study for that? Is it quantum? Is it synthetic biology, which is something I'm very interested in hearing about? I would love to ask the minister her thoughts on that. Is it molecular biology and personalized medicine? Is it in the social sciences? Is it around well-being? How do we define well-being, and what are the societal impacts of loneliness—
Conservative
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Salma Zahid
She's just talking about the amendment and the debate.
MP McKelvie, please continue.
Liberal
Jennifer McKelvie Liberal Ajax, ON
It's about Minister Joly's appearance in general, and what we want to hear her talk about. I'm giving examples of why it's important—
Liberal
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Salma Zahid
Hold on one second. We have a point of order.
Go ahead, MP Blanchette-Joncas.
Bloc
Maxime Blanchette-Joncas Bloc Rimouski—La Matapédia, QC
Madam Chair, as far as I know, we are debating the amendment to withdraw the text concerning the report. My colleague is talking about something else right now, and I would like the debate to once again focus on the amendment that her colleague Helena Jaczek moved.
Liberal
Liberal
Jennifer McKelvie Liberal Ajax, ON
Well, the amendment was about deleting the requirement for a report, and my point is that I don't know what's in that report.
If people want to know what happened in this meeting, we have transcripts. You can go to YouTube and can watch the minister's appearances. What I'm speaking to is the relevance of this report and what this report should look like.
I think we need to be more intentional when we're going out there. Let's get what the minister says, but let's pair that with what the scientific community is saying and report back in an intentional way, as we are with the AI study, as opposed to just randomly pulling in a minister.
I don't know what that report would say. That's my point. What would you say in that report? How would we make recommendations?
In fact, I want us to get one of our reports through. We've been here talking since September, and I'm really questioning what we are doing here. What does a report that comes out of science committee look like? On research excellence, okay, great, we heard from lots of witnesses, but what does that report look like? What does that report recommend, and how do we turn it into action?
I'm a great example of that right now—I'm doing a lot of talking—but the point is, where are we going with this? It's not clear where we're going with the research excellence study, but we had incredible people come in and speak. It's not clear where we're going with our antimicrobial resistance study when we had—
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Salma Zahid
The summary of evidence will be coming up soon for the two studies, and then we will be going into reports. I just want to clarify that.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Salma Zahid
Right now, let's keep the discussion on the amendment for this motion, please.
Liberal
Jennifer McKelvie Liberal Ajax, ON
Absolutely. That's my point: What are we going to put into this report?
When we listen to somebody for two hours, is it a transcript? You can get a transcript online. Is it a YouTube video? Well, you can get the YouTube video online. I'm really struggling with the concept of a report. I mean, you could write a report on what I'm saying right now. It wouldn't say very much.
What is the point of this motion? That's what I'm coming back to. That's what I don't understand. I don't understand what this report could entail. I think honourable member Jaczek is quite right that it really doesn't address anything. There's no problem to solve that has been identified through this motion.
The other thing is that the dates are highly problematic. I think we want to ensure we're respecting our—
Bloc
