Science and Research Committee on Oct. 1st, 2025

[Vincent Ho, Conservative, Richmond Hill South, ON]

To study German children's books—

[Ted Hewitt]

Madam Chair...?

[Vincent Ho, Conservative, Richmond Hill South, ON]

I mean, shouldn't the German government study this? Why are we studying this? How does that help Canadians?

[Ted Hewitt]

It would be a great idea to bring the researcher here and ask the researcher those questions.

[Vincent Ho, Conservative, Richmond Hill South, ON]

Well, the researchers are at the University of Calgary, both of them. They're Canadian, or they're based in Canada, rather. Why are we studying this? How does that provide value?

[Ted Hewitt]

I can assure you, first off, that the research would be of excellent quality, as deemed by peers. I think it would be a great idea to bring the researcher here to ask the researcher those questions. It's very hard to tell from a title and a short description exactly what the research is and how it would benefit Canada—

[Vincent Ho, Conservative, Richmond Hill South, ON]

Let me start with another one. I know that my time is running out.

This again goes to SSHRC. Another project is entitled “Situated Apathy: The Politics of Postcolonial Climate Apathy and Artistic Mobilization in Sri Lanka”. It was granted in 2023 to applicants at McMaster University for $20,000. That's a lot of money.

How does that help taxpayers? How do we explain to taxpayers, when trust in public institutions is at an all-time low among Canadians, that this is good value for money?

[Ted Hewitt]

Here again, I think Canadians and Canadian researchers have a broad variety of interests. It's our obligation to fund that broad variety of interests. You should ask the researcher how that's important and how that assists Canada.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

I'm sorry, Mr. Ho. Your time is up.

We will now proceed to MP Jaczek.

MP Jaczek, you have five minutes. Please go ahead.

[Helena Jaczek, Liberal, Markham—Stouffville, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you to all the witnesses for appearing.

During the course of this study, I think it's been said many times that diversity in the design of the research project is very important.

Dr. Hébert, you will perhaps remember the days when a lot of medical research was done on men only, and therefore the implications were not seen in terms of perhaps women's results. In terms of the design of a study, it seems to be important to have diversity.

Ms. Thompson, you also talked about talent development and supporting new researchers. When an application is successful and it has shown that there is a very diverse pool of talent within the research team, do you follow them to see if in fact it has developed their talent in a way that is useful on an ongoing basis?

[Anne-Marie Thompson]

Perhaps I can speak about our evaluation criteria. That is considered in the training plan. We ask the researcher to elaborate on processes or procedures or how they are building inclusive research training environments. That is assessed by their peers on the committee. NSERC itself doesn't monitor what is happening in the research labs. However, when that researcher comes back to make an application for their next grant, they have to share with their peers what they did with the previous grant. That's where that would come out.

[Helena Jaczek, Liberal, Markham—Stouffville, ON]

Dr. Hewitt, do you have a similar evaluation method?

[Ted Hewitt]

We all do. All research funding programs are subject to evaluation.

If there are to some extent, with respect to the submission of applications, criteria that relate to equity, diversity and inclusion, they would be assessed or evaluated, or, if data are collected at that point, then that would be subject to evaluation. The results of that would be published. We have done that in the case of one or two programs already, such as the new frontiers in research program, which is actually a tri-agency program.

I don't know if Madam Laflamme wants to speak to that or just in terms of some very early indications we've had.

[Valérie Laflamme]

When we get the reports from the grantees of the new frontiers in research fund, we get results about outcomes. What we see in the context of the exploration grants is that 67% of the respondents say the diversity of the research team has brought innovation in research and brought them to results they initially did not expect.

That's innovation, and we have those metrics.

[Helena Jaczek, Liberal, Markham—Stouffville, ON]

I am not at all surprised that you seem to be very much in favour of including EDI criteria in the assessment of the research projects you look at.

If I have a little more time, Madam Chair, I'll move on to Canada research chairs. Apparently, there are specific targets to ensure that women, those with disabilities, other groups and indigenous people have the appropriate opportunity to move into those positions.

Perhaps we could start with the CIHR. Are you involved in any way with Canada research chairs?

[Paul Hébert]

Not in their evaluation, but we fund them. TIPS and the Canada research chairs program are run by my colleague Madame Laflamme.

[Ted Hewitt]

This is a unique program in its formulation. As I've explained at committee before, this was mandated by a Federal Court order that was subject to a mediation run by the Canadian Human Rights Commission following complaints that were made over a number of years about the fact that this program was the least diverse of the programming we had funded previously.

Madame Laflamme runs this program. She can certainly speak to that and how it operates.

[Valérie Laflamme]

Thank you.

EDI equity targets are one of the elements that are put in place based on the Federal Court order tied to the 2019 addendum.

I'll throw out a few metrics. When the program was launched, 14% of the chairholders were women when, in fact, in academia, more than 40% of the faculty were women. We have that metric because it's the only one that was gathered at the time. The equity targets have contributed to ensuring that the chairholders, as a whole, are representative of the Canadian population.

It goes far beyond the question of just ensuring that people have access to the program. There are other measures put in place to make sure that the universities are providing equitable environments, ensuring that the research can be done in a very good quality and environment.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you.

Now we will proceed to Mr. Blanchette-Joncas for two and a half minutes.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski—La Matapédia, QC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I'd like to table a notice of motion, with the understanding that I won't lose any speaking time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Go ahead.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski—La Matapédia, QC]

All right.

In order for our study on the impact of the criteria for awarding federal funding on research excellence in Canada to be credible and factual, it's essential for the committee to have access to complete and disaggregated data.

However, we have found that some agencies refuse to make public data that is essential to understanding the source of inequality in funding, be it institutions, disciplines, languages or criteria such as equity, diversity and inclusion. Without that information, our committee runs the risk of working in the dark. It's our duty to demand full transparency from organizations managing billions of dollars in public funds in order to be able to objectively assess whether their criteria truly foster research excellence or whether they're introducing systemic biases. That is why I'm tabling the following motion:

That the committee request the three funding councils, namely the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC), and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), as part of the study on the impact of federal funding allocation criteria on research excellence in Canada, to provide it with the disaggregated data of all submitted applications, whether funded or not, for all student and faculty funding programs from the master's level onwards for applications made between 2020 and 2025. That this data include (1) demographic data of applicants and collaborators, including applicants' responses to the equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) questionnaire, (2) the institutions and departments of applicants, including the institutions of collaboration, (3) the language of the application, (4) all data regarding the type of application and project content (application year, grant program, discipline, title, summary, amount requested by the applicant), as well as (5) the identity of the evaluation committee, comments, opinions, scores assigned to applications for each criterion, and (6) the outcome of the application and the amount awarded. That the three funding councils submit all this data to the committee within 15 days following the adoption of this motion, in an Excel spreadsheet format.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Are you just putting it on notice or are you...?

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski—La Matapédia, QC]

It's open for discussion, Madam Chair.

I also just want to clarify a correction that was made to the paper copy I provided. I'm referring to the period between 2020 and 2025. I can resend the text of the motion to the clerk if you wish.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

We have a motion on the floor, and it's open for debate.

MP Noormohamed.