Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
Members of the committee, thank you for inviting me in my capacity as the executive director of the Consortium Érudit.
Let's use the example of a social worker who supports a family in a francophone minority community. She needs research on this reality, in her language. She will find this type of work in the Canadian Social Work Review.
I have another example: A municipality dealing with climate change will be able to freely consult work published in a scientific journal such as Le Naturaliste canadien.
These two examples show the value of research when it can be made available to those who need it. Every year, Canada invests in the production of new scientific knowledge. For this investment to have a real impact, this knowledge must be communicated and used.
For research in French, this communication is not a given. In an environment largely dominated by English, research can be excellent, but if it's hard to find, it won't be as read and used, and it will have less impact.
Work devoted to francophone or Canadian realities meets real needs, even if it is sometimes of little commercial interest to major international publishers or international journals.
In addition, the challenge has intensified with the advent of AI. If our journals and their content are poorly identified by these tools, Canadian and francophone knowledge may simply be less visible in the results they produce.
The advisory group report recognizes many of these challenges.
Érudit is Canada's digital platform dedicated to research dissemination. It was established by universities and developed with the support of governments and many organizations, including the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, the Canada Foundation for Innovation and the Fonds de recherche du Québec. We want to acknowledge that support, for which we are very grateful.
Today, we publish nearly 400 Canadian scientific journals and more than 250,000 scholarly documents. Every year, more than five million people around the world consult the publications published on our site, erudit.org.
Research in French has its audience: 75% of our consultations come from outside Canada, and in the bilingual Canadian journals we broadcast, articles in French are consulted on average twice as often as those in English.
That said, a digital library like Érudit is more than just a web platform. Behind every article and every book, there is a staff that must prepare the files, add the metadata that will make it possible to find those articles and books and ensure that they remain accessible over time. This often invisible work enables a person, a search engine, a specialized database or an AI tool to properly find and use Canadian research.
In a system largely dominated by English and large foreign platforms, this collective capacity allows us to keep the necessary expertise and governance in Canada while sharing our knowledge with the world.
We particularly welcome the establishment of the post-secondary sector and scientific knowledge in French support fund, by Canadian Heritage.
The report we're talking about today proposes to go further. We support the recommendation to spend at least $40 million a year on research and scientific dissemination in French.
For this investment to fully bear fruit, it must support not only the production of knowledge, but also the journals and tools that make it possible to find, consult and retain it.
However, this work is ongoing, while its funding too often remains ad hoc. Technologies and uses change and needs do not end along with a funding program. We therefore invite you to recognize infrastructure such as Érudit as an essential service in Canadian research and to ensure stable and predictable funding. Discoverability, preservation and adaptation to AI are ongoing responsibilities that require sustainable investments.
By giving our digital infrastructure the stability it needs to evolve, we can maximize the impact of Canada's investments in research while strengthening our scientific and digital sovereignty.
Thank you. I'm happy to discuss this further.
Thank you very much.