Science and Research Committee on June 8th, 2026

[Mona Nemer]

It's a very important question, and we can take many examples. Right now, what's happening with the new Ebola outbreak, for example, in the Democratic Republic of Congo is that things are going much worse because of disinformation, because people are refusing treatment. They're refusing to identify themselves or to isolate themselves. These things have real impact on not just the people but on the entire community. The disinformation is very significant.

The loss of trust in science is also very detrimental. Right now, I'm happy to see that trust in scientists is still high. It's taken a beating in certain places around the world, but it's still high. It's our physicians, for example, and so on. If members of the public lose trust in scientists, and they already don't have much trust in other actors in society, then we're.... I don't know. It's going to be a bit chaotic.

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

I want to double-click a bit on this now, and then I want to layer on the misinformation around equity of hiring. As you rightly pointed out, there is no difference in quality when Canadians are well represented in research. You've made it very clear that there's never been a degradation in the quality of the research, the quality of the academics or academia and what the outcomes of that research are.

What is the added impact, positive or negative, when people believe that somehow science is being degraded or the quality of the work is being done more poorly, when we look to expand the number of folks in the research realm?

[Mona Nemer]

Questioning science has to be done thoughtfully. Scientists question themselves and question science, but contributing to the distrust in science is counterproductive for all of us. That's really important.

On the other hand, I want to say that diversity in science is very helpful, because people want to look and see people like them who are in science, not people who don't look like them. Whether they are people whose colour is different or people whose gender is different is important. I can tell you about the number of people who come to me to tell me how important it is for them, whether they're immigrants or whether they're women, to see someone like me, an immigrant and a woman, doing this kind of job. I think that's very important for communities.

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

Just to be clear, it's without any impact on the quality of the research.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

The time is up. We will now end this panel with MP Gaudreau for two and a half minutes.

Please, go ahead.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I'll come back to how we can maintain respect, information, science and all that.

I would also like to congratulate you on your role. I'm glad to see people talking about how important it is. I can tell you that at times, as a woman, as a young person and as a francophone, I, too, go through a lot, so I understand you.

I don't know if you've seen this, but last week, the deputy minister of Quebec's ministère de la Cybersécurité et du Numérique—Mr. Le Bouyonnec, not to mention any names—appeared before a parliamentary committee. He mentioned that he was very concerned about Quebeckers' health data because of the CLOUD Act, given that, scientifically speaking, the data doesn't migrate to a secure government cloud for 18 or 24 months.

Now we're talking about geopolitics. We are patting ourselves on the back and saying that, in Canada, we're well organized and have safeguards in place, even though 85% of the products we use are American.

Can you set the record straight? Are we truly protected, or is there an urgent need to stop saying that and do what needs to be done?

[Mona Nemer]

I would say that there is an urgent need to do what needs to be done to ensure that we have control of our data. We have actually produced a major report on data because, until now, it has been somewhat of a blind spot in all strategies related to digital technology and artificial intelligence. As long as our data doesn't belong to us, does not remain with us and is not used with algorithms developed here, we'll remain vulnerable.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Absolutely.

With that said, Madam Chair, I hope we all understand very clearly that the time to act is now. In a context where we want to build Canada and foster trade among the provinces, there is innovation and science, whether in Quebec or even in Toronto. So the government must act very quickly.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you very much.

On behalf of all the members, I would really like to thank Dr. Nemer for coming to the committee.

Thank you for all the work you are doing in your capacity as the chief science adviser.

Is the will of the committee to adjourn the meeting?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

The meeting is adjourned.