Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak about the budget implementation act.
Before I do so, I would really like to express my sympathies to the people of Alberta who are going through a terrible natural tragedy with the fire at Fort McMurray. I would also like to express my thanks to the Government of Alberta and our government here, which are extending help, as well as Canadians who are pitching in in ways we have never seen before to help people who have been dislocated and affected by this fire. Again, thanks to all involved and may it end quickly.
I stand today to speak about the Bill C-15, the budget implementation act. I would like to focus on my role here in the House, assigned by my caucus, which is to look after the issues of science.
There is not a lot of science in the bill, I must say. Bill C-15 clarifies funding and appointment processes for the Foundation for Sustainable Development Technology. There is some reference to science, and of course there is some funding and measures in the main budget when it comes to science, but there remains a big gap to fill when it comes to science in the act.
Although this is an omnibus bill and it does have many measures, I think that if the government is going to make a bill this size, perhaps it should have included a few more measures about science. In fact, I have to say that science is not even mentioned once in Bill C-15, which is surprising to me, since it is a 179-page omnibus bill, amending over 30 separate statutes and referring to nine different ministries.
Again, the government claims that science is front and centre in its agenda, yet it has not really said much about it in this implementation act, where one would think we would see it.
There are some positive things that the government has been doing in regard to science. I would like to touch on those before I move to things that I think it should do.
First, the government has shown some positive inclinations in terms of science so far in its mandate. There has been a substantive reinvestment in science-based departments. We see that in the budget, although, again, there is no mention specifically of how this money should be used in the implementation act.
Important stakeholders, like the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada, have said that many years of intense cuts under the previous government were so far-reaching that even more investment is needed to fully restore and position Canada as a global leader in science and research.
I did send a letter to the minister in charge of this file requesting that more funding be included in the budget for science. There was some extra funding included, but I do think that a lot more is needed when it comes to moving us ahead as a global leader, especially for the tri-councils, SSHRC, NSERC, and CIHR.
In fact, when we look at our investment in research and development, which is a good indicator of how a country is doing, our competitor countries, like the United States and most European countries, set a target of 3% of GDP to be invested in research and development. Here, our investment in R and D is around 1.5%, which is really pitiful, and dropping.
In the past, in the 1990s, we used to spend 2% of GDP on research and development, but now it has dropped to 1.5%. The government has not set a target in regard to GERD investment, which I think would have been a good idea. For example, it could have taken place in the bill, where at least we would have had a discussion of targets for investment in research and development.
Let us talk about the National Research Council. Again, there is a lot of speculation about what is happening with the National Research Council in Canada, one of our most well-known scientific institutions. It is a $1-billion institution. We have had recent news in the media about the National Research Council, but again, nothing in the bill.
If the government is going to put forward an omnibus bill and it is going to pretend to be a champion for science, then this would have been a very good place to put this.
After being nearly dismantled by the Conservatives, I am disheartened to see that chaos still continues at the NRC. Even in this large bill, there is no pathway forward for this major institution. I am disappointed that this is not included in the bill.
The National Research Council president is on leave with no explanation, and morale continues to be low. I have talked to scientists who are either within the NRC or have left recently. They say that there has been a lot of confusion in the National Research Council and this is not going to help at all. Again, what I was hoping to see in the budget implementation act was more specific measures when it came to the National Research Council, but there is nothing at all.
What worries me is that we are now past six months into the Liberal government's mandate. We were promised 100 days of action when a lot of things would happen, but there really has been no mention of our most important scientific institution in Canada, which is the National Research Council. We owe our scientists much more than that and if we are going to send a positive signal to the world, the government has to show them that science is foremost in its mind, but again, there is nothing in the bill about that.
Regarding muzzling, there was a lot of debate in the House in 2011. Being charged with the science file for the NDP, as the official opposition, I spoke about muzzling about 100 times in the House. During the election campaign, the Liberals spoke a lot about unmuzzling scientists. However, there has been no concrete change in policy in science-based departments, and it could have been in the budget implementation act.
I do not think scientists will be fully unmuzzled until there is something in writing, either a policy directive within a department or perhaps something more broad that the government puts into the public service, which could easily be fitted into an budget implementation act to accompany some of the extra funding that the government has put in place for science. However, there is nothing.
Therefore, until there is an actual change in policy, I do not think the government has really acted on its pledge to unmuzzle scientists. It says it has unmuzzled scientists, but there has been no action and nothing in writing to say that this will not happen again in the future.
Another thing I was hoping to see in the budget implementation act that I do not see is the promise to establish a new chief science officer. There is no talk about funding for this new position. There are no new rules in place. My suggestion for the last five years has been that we have a legislated parliamentary science officer who would be an independent officer for science in Parliament and would be like an auditor general for science. In order to do that, it would have to be legislated, and a bill such as this would be a great place for that kind of legislation, but again, there is nothing from the government.
We hear that it may appoint somebody, but this is not an improvement on what we have had in the past. It is just the same old thing. Without any new measures to unmuzzle scientists, to make sure they can speak freely, and nothing about legislating a science officer, it does not seem like the Liberal government is taking science seriously, and I am disappointed to see that.
In terms of science, like I said, it is not mentioned once in the budget implementation act. From what we heard during the election campaign, we always kind of thought that science was a sub-theme in the campaign. There were promises of unmuzzling, there were promises of a new science officer, there were promises that the National Research Council would be revamped, there were promises for funding, and this was the place to do it. The bill was the place for the Liberal government to say that it was not just talk during the election campaign and it would actually put something in writing. We have not seen that.
We heard a lot in the throne speech and there were some extra funds put in the budget, which I think scientists are grateful for, but in terms of long-term protections that would come through my idea of a parliamentary science officer or a directive issued by the government for protecting not just the voices of natural scientists but of social scientists, there was nothing.
I am quite disappointed. There is a lot of stuff shovelled into this omnibus bill, but not the things I was looking for. Perhaps the government can revisit that as we debate this. I look forward to hearing Liberal members' thoughts as to how we can move forward.