Science and Research committee  I always worry a bit about government or bureaucrats, or anyone really—myself—picking winners. It's always hard to know what the next big thing is going to be. I think there probably is a limited role for that, but we don't want to put all our eggs into that basket. The other t

Science and Research committee  Absolutely. I think we need to find ways to do that with all of our institutions. Another model, by the way, is the Waterloo model, where the inventor or the researcher owns the IP. That seems to explain part of the success in this region. If you own it, you have much more ince

Science and Research committee  If the question is how to keep STEM-educated students from leaving Canada, obviously one key is to have good-paying jobs in the STEM sector in Canada, and I think the government can control that only so much. One change that has come with COVID-19 is that we've all learned to w

Science and Research committee  That's a million-dollar question. It's complicated. However, let me at least share a few ideas. The biggest challenge is at the interface of research and invention, in universities and other places and industry. It's that interface between the two; there just isn't enough commun

Science and Research committee  I don't know if I'm best placed to answer that question. The obvious answer is that when the movement of people around the world was restricted due to COVID, it became more difficult to bring in foreign talent. Right now, I suspect that some of the other panellists would be in

Science and Research committee  The COVID-19 crisis presents Canada with a tremendous opportunity. As I pointed out at the beginning of my testimony, we are lagging in innovation and productivity. My research has shown that during crises is the time when there's rapid change. If you embrace change—if you embrac

Science and Research committee  My apologies that I don't know the number, so I can't give you hard data on this. My sense is that at least when it comes to academia, I think what Dr. LaMontagne was mentioning earlier was that there are more lecturer positions instead of tenure-track positions doing research.

Science and Research committee  We found that, unlike in the U.S., our STEM-educated immigrants were not having as large an impact on innovation in the places they were moving to. We tried to dig a little deeper to find out why. The biggest piece of evidence we found was that, as you point out, only about a thi

Science and Research committee  You raise a good point. It's a challenge. On the one hand, we want to integrate and incorporate our immigrants as quickly as possible. On the other hand, in certain cases I'm sure there are questions around the quality of their education, depending on where they come from. One

Science and Research committee  AI robotics will not be replacing these researchers. They'll be replacing.... Actually, I should mention that this is still an open question, but they'll probably be replacing people in the middle and lower end of the skills distribution, not the researchers. As a matter of fact,

Science and Research committee  Thank you very much, Madam Chair and committee, for the invitation to speak to you today. I'm a professor of economics. I've been studying talent and innovation for almost two decades, and I speak to you as an individual and as a Canadian who deeply cares about our country. If

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you very much, Ms. Normandin. I will answer you in English, if you don't mind, as I studied in French a long time ago. I think the question is, and correct me if I'm wrong, is whether immigrants going to smaller centres make their contributions, and whether those centres

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Again, that's a hard question to answer. In general, immigrants—my own parents, for example—tend to make less than Canadians do and intend to use government services at about the same rate or a little bit more. If you look at it from that perspective, in terms of income from the

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I would say in net terms, it's not clear that it would be a big benefit from immigration.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Fantastic. Thank you very much for inviting me to appear before this committee today. I am an immigrant, but today I'm appearing as an individual and, more importantly, as a professor of economics. I don't have any personal interest in the matter beyond trying to inform policy w