Science and Research committee  It's absolutely important, because the number one problem that the post-docs have been reporting is salary. As I said, 25% of the post-docs right now in Canada are receiving less than $45,000, and the average salary is $52,000. It means that we are still far from the standards of the countries we are comparing ourselves with—Australia, the U.S.

Science and Research committee  Thank you for your question. As a person who has been in different universities from coast to coast in Canada, I have had the experience of working with PSAC as well, so I understand that their support is really important and it's really vital to get things done and moving forward faster, but the fact is, there has to be a union in a university.

Science and Research committee  That's a very important topic to talk about. Many of the post-docs are carrying over with them the debt they had during their Ph.D., so they have to pay it back either to the government or to the university. The fact is that their low income does not allow them to. That's a simple answer, because their priority is paying their bills; it's not the loan, even though the loan is very important.

Science and Research committee  Absolutely. Thank you. If I understood you correctly, I believe part of that is the problem with the benefits, such as EI and CPP, and health care, which we talked about. There is a chain of problems that are linked to each other because of the definition of post-doc, as we just talked about.

Science and Research committee  Thank you. I believe that in addition to the salary, which is obviously the most important part, and also the benefits we talked about, immigration is very important. As I mentioned in my opening statement, we have over 10,000 post-docs in Canada and 60% of them are international post-docs.

Science and Research committee  Absolutely. Thank you for asking. Every four years, we run the national surveys. The last one was in 2016, and we did the 2020, but the fact is, the result was delayed, because many people—again, we are a team of volunteers in CAPS—were affected, so we could not process, and we wanted to have a longitudinal comparison with previous years.

Science and Research committee  That's actually a very important question you raise because, as I said, there is no clear definition of post-doc in any provincial legislation, and that causes a lot of problems when it comes to different universities because the university, or the research institution will decide how to define a post-doc.

Science and Research committee  Thank you.

Science and Research committee  Well, the fact is based on the numbers that we have. We have observed that we have almost the identical rate of acceptance for post-docs for women and men. However, the fact is, what is the next step? The post-doc is a temporary position. Most of the people who want to do post-docs want to get into an academic career, even though some people believe, which I also advocate, that they do not necessarily want to become a professor but they want to have their own research-based institution, start-up, or something similar.

Science and Research committee  This is an important question that you raised. I believe that a lot of things changed during the pandemic, when you compare it with the pre-budget information you just talked about. Based on a publication that Nature published recently, the early career researchers, basically post-docs, were the main people harmed as a result of this pandemic.

Science and Research committee  Absolutely. When it comes to worldwide standards, they're not competitive. In fact, CAPS has done four national surveys with post-docs, and what we have found so far is that the average salary is $52,000 and 25% of post-docs are earning less than $44,000, which is not at all competitive with the post-docs in other countries.

Science and Research committee  Based on the responses we got in our survey, we believe that 40% of our post-docs are in life science; 35% are in physics and engineering, and, I think, 10% or 11% are in social science. Social science, I would say, needs more investment, especially when it comes to post-docs. Sometimes we can see that it is completely ignored or neglected.

Science and Research committee  Absolutely. Thank you for this question. It was actually part of the summary of my talk, but I didn't want to go over five minutes, so I'll take advantage of this question to go through that. There are five top ways, we believe, to help retain post-docs as a top talent group of Canadians or immigrants in Canada.

Science and Research committee  Thank you, Madam Chair, and distinguished members of the committee. Thank you for inviting me to appear before the committee. My name is Edris Madadian, and I am the chair of the Canadian Association of Postdoctoral Scholars. I'm also a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Waterloo, funded by the AMTD Waterloo Global Talent foundation.