Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to stand in the House today to speak to Bill C-13, an act to establish the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and to repeal the Medical Research Council Act.
I will begin by congratulating our member for Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca who has done so much work on the health portfolio of recent, doing battle against the Liberal government which continues to cut funding to the provinces. It is a difficult job to actually look for other alternatives within not only provincial initiatives but here federally to help fix the medicare problems that the government has put on the country. I would like to just take a moment to congratulate our member for all his hard work.
As was mentioned, the CIHR will replace the Medical Research Council and will provide a more direct and systematic approach to research in Canada. The CIHR will provide an annual report detailing the workplan and budgetary expenses of its scientific grants.
If the goal of this particular bill and the new Canadian institutes of health research will be to help direct funding more equally and more effectively to various medical research endeavours across the country, that is obviously a good thing.
I would also point out that the establishment of the Canadian institutes of health research will be a vast improvement on the current system of non-accountability administered by the Medical Research Council. This will in fact create a quasi-independent council that will be able to operate independent of the government and make its first priority research funding.
When looking at this particular effort by the government, even though it is headed in the direction that we in the opposition would say is the right direction, there are some red flags that are thrown up, especially when it comes to the issue of budget.
When I look at the CIHR, I see that it will strive to ensure that only 4% to 5% of its total budget will be spent on administrative costs. A new institute will require a bureaucratic infrastructure to perform the necessary functions. Can the CIHR avoid the trend of having a huge part of its budget administered for bureaucracy and not have sufficient funds to administer the actual research which is dictated under its mandate? That is the question we have to focus on here today. Even though the official opposition will give its support to the bill, will the budget, which is outlined at 4% or 5% toward the administrative costs, remain within that fraction?
I have had the pleasure in the past of talking to various people involved in medical research around the country, mainly in my riding of Edmonton—Strathcona at the University of Alberta. I know you, Mr. Speaker, have travelled across the country and have been to the University of Alberta Hospital. I know you are aware of the wonderful research it does, especially the wonderful research it does with the limited resources it is given.
This is where that red flag has to be thrown up. We have to consider the fact that we know the track record of this government. We know that when it can, it spends, spends, spends and continues to raise taxes to exorbitant levels. Unfortunately, it does not prioritize its spending effectively as we here in the opposition have outlined time and time again in the House, where we would like the government to focus its resources more effectively but that does not happen.
As I mentioned, if there is a total budget of 4% or 5% strictly toward administrative costs, we in the opposition hope that the government will continue to live within that means of spending for bureaucracy and that the spending put toward medical research will go toward medical research.
I mentioned the experience of talking with people involved in medical research at the University of Alberta. I think they would generally agree that the government is heading in the right direction because they would like to see funds more effectively used within medical research. However, in my past discussions with people at the University of Alberta, it was brought to my attention—and I do not have the figures off-hand—that Canada does lag quite far behind when compared with some of the other industrialized countries, especially in medical research funding. This makes it very difficult for many of these institutions, such as the University of Alberta, to meet their requirements of really excelling in research and continuing to be leaders across the country.
One of the issues they continue to bring up with this lack of funding are the problems that do arise. For instance, one issue the advisory board will hopefully address and something the official opposition continues to raise in the House, is the issue of the brain drain that currently exists in Canada regardless of what the government does or does not want to say on the topic.
Many of the people I have spoken with at the University of Alberta and other research facilities have told me that it is difficult to retain the proper talent, attract professionals and continue to build solid research foundations within the country because of the lack of funding in research and the lack of funding that comes from the federal government because of its inability to prioritize.
One of our biggest problems in actually keeping people here is that funding is not available in many cases. Institutions are trying to make ends meet with whatever little funding they have. Some of the biggest research organizations south of the border continue to recruit the talent that exists in this country. They bring them down to the U.S. to work there, pay them well, and obviously give them the research budgets they require to do their research.
That provides an enormous amount of burden with regard to current research budgets within the University of Alberta, for example, that are difficult to meet. As well we have to factor in the element of competition. Nowadays people tell me all the time, especially as I said with respect to the University of Alberta, that they have to deal with bigger institutions, bigger research budgets and the biggest competitors to the south of us. It is very difficult to retain people in this country.
I met with the dean of science at the University of Alberta. I remember specifically his telling me that with the increased research funding outlined in the new advisory board there needs to be a level of tax relief. That was very interesting, coming from the academic community. The official opposition continues to try to convince the government that there has to be a balance in tax relief in the equation of increased spending.
It was fascinating that even the academic community, along with increasing areas of research funding, identified the fact that keeping taxes at a competitive level or keeping taxes lower would actually help to retain many of the talented people leaving to go south of the border. When identifying the issue of brain drain, especially in medical research, the dean mentioned that on occasion he had recruited potential students in his office when dealing with budget issues.
One student had been at the University of Alberta for only two years. The issue of research funding was not the only issue, but when the student came into the office to talk to Dean Peter he produced two forms of budgets and two forms of balance sheets. One dealt with what he would end up at the end of the day in Canada and the other with what he would end up if he went to the U.S. He balanced the issue of how much money the particular institution had to do its research, but because of high taxes, because of the exchange rate and because of many other factors which unfortunately make us less competitive in this country, it was much more enticing for him, as much as he wanted to stay in this country, to go elsewhere, and unfortunately south of the border was where he was looking.
Even a member of the academic community called me to say we in the House have a responsibility not only to look at increasing funding research in this country but at balancing it with tax relief.
There are potential benefits to the particular legislation and establishing the CIHR. There are many good parts to the bill. It appears to be an excellent model of an institute which will remain at arm's length of the federal government and conduct research independent of the government. I think that is very important.
The consultation process for appointments will draw leading experts from conceivable fields of expertise. This should reduce the influence of high ranking government officials and people who are actually suited to do the job. However, these and all the details I mentioned can be addressed before committee when the bill reaches that stage. There is a strong need to consult the scientific and health communities for input on the direction of the CIHR.
Even though we are supporting the legislation we hope that it will be given the right attention in committee where we can make further suggestions on how to make it a useful institution.