44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 31, 2022 10:00AM
- May/31/22 11:04:25 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, Canada's science and research ecosystem is extremely important for economic development in Canada, and we must ensure that there are equal opportunities for all Canadians and international talent who wish to work in Canada in order to fill a shrinking labour pool and to fill an enormous and important growing future in Canada.
We have never seen a moment like this in history in terms of the amount of change that has already started, with five innovation platforms evolving at the same time. We would have to go back to the early 1900s to see anything like it, and we had only three platforms then. In the 1900s we had the telephone, the automobile and electricity. Today we have DNA sequencing, robotics, blockchain technologies, energy storage and AI. All of them are in exponential growth and converging with each other in profound ways.
Over the past several months, those of us on the science and research committee have been studying the state of science and research in Canada, and we found a few fundamental conclusions; actually, we found three of them.
First, Canada is leading in several key areas of research worldwide, including genomics, DNA sequencing, biomanufacturing, AI and quantum physics. We have an incredible genomics program in Canada. When it comes to AI, the University of Waterloo, in the Kitchener area, is doing incredible things in quantum computing. We lead the world in quantum computing, which is fascinating and far above what I sometimes understand.
However, we are failing not only when it comes to funding for research, and specifically private business research funding, but in what we call the “Valley of Death”. We give a lot of money to universities to develop intellectual property, and then that intellectual property gets shelved. It stays in a drawer and we do not commercialize it. That Valley of Death is costing us a lot of money.
The measure of science and research in Canada is intellectual property. We call it the currency of innovation. It includes patents, trademarks, copyrights and trade secrets, but we are falling behind the world in getting science and research out the door. Dr. Bell stated, “To a large extent, the question of how to attract and retain top scientists should therefore be rooted in how science innovation can be fostered in Canada right now.”
Translating that IP, commercializing it and accelerating Canadian companies and Canadian GDP should be paramount to our whole strategy of how Canada develops and attracts talent. If we compare ourselves to the United States, we see that the United States creates 169 times the IP that Canada does, despite being only 10 times our size. It has $6.6 trillion of IP, and nearly 90% of the growth of the United States can be attributed to the generation and commercialization of IP. What it means for Canada is that if we attribute just 5% of GDP growth to innovation, research and development, it would equate to over $80 billion in GDP and thousands of high-paying jobs.
I want to thank the chair of the science and research committee, the member for Etobicoke North, for starting the committee. It is very important to Canada. Within the recommendations from the first report that the committee submitted is the note that Canada is lagging in attracting and retaining top talent with research and innovation, which is in parallel to the crisis we have with the shortage of skilled trades and workers across this nation. This is a main barrier, alongside bridging the Valley of Death, to unlocking Canada's true economic potential.
We have an acute labour shortage right now in Canada to add to our acute housing crisis and our acute inflation crisis, and they are all converging at the same time, causing massive economic peril to our nation. We are short 1.03 million jobs in this country right now, and this number has risen by 150,000 jobs in just a few months. “Help wanted” signs are all over Canada, and I do not think there is a riding where employers are spared from the perils of looking for employees.
However, we have not spoken very much in this Parliament about the cost of that. According to the Conference Board of Canada, the cost is $25 billion. We can compare that to our tourism industry in Canada, which is trying to get back on pace. It is worth $35 billion to Canada, and the cost of not having talent in Canada is costing us $25 billion a year. It is costing employers and it is costing companies when they cannot scale and cannot grow. This costs Canada money; the money we need to grow this country and ensure that we are becoming the best country we can.
When it come to top scientists, Dr. Thomas Bell, a professor at the Imperial College in London, stated at committee that “top scientists are attracted by top science” and that “The best scientists will not come to Canada and will not stay in Canada if they feel that their science will suffer.” Dr. Bell stated that “the question of how to attract and retain top scientists should therefore be rooted in how science innovation can be fostered in Canada right now.” Dr. Bell also spoke to how “attracting scientists and retaining scientists are two separate issues.”
When we are trying to attract a scientist, Dr. Bell states:
There are significant academic costs in moving labs. It's hugely disruptive. Packing up and reassembling a lab takes time, often resulting in months of inactivity. Moving to a new university means relearning all of the internal systems and ways of doing things, and moving countries is doubly disruptive. Scientists moving to Canada for the first time need to learn how funding and hiring works and how to attract students, and they need to build their collaboration networks from scratch. Many will have young families and would need to learn how the school system works. The cost of moving is therefore very high for a scientist, so attracting the top scientists to Canada is more difficult than retaining scientists. If you want to attract the top scientists from outside the country, these significant additional costs should be considered.
We spoke to many different witnesses in the science and research committee, including the chancellor from the University of Waterloo, who stated that we are losing 75% of our software engineering grads to the U.S., so retaining top talent is something we are not only striving for but are failing at.
When it comes to attracting top talent, Canada starts at a disadvantage. In particular, we need good Canadian research chairs to oversee major development and research in intellectual property, but overreach of government policy is leaving applicants out, despite good intentions. Diversity targets set by the government are unrelated to the research; they exist only to fulfill targets of inclusivity, rather than being included in criteria that include merit.
This new practice is called target ad postings. They are meant to meet diversity, equality and inclusivity targets, and they were created to tick boxes off as per government quotas, or government funding would be lost. Examples of targeted ad postings for CRC positions included a Queen's University posting for an engineering chair that was only open to women. Men could not apply. That means that if a Black man of equal merit were to apply, he would not qualify. A position in the University of Waterloo faculty of environment exempted men from applying. That meant that if an aboriginal male applied, he would not be considered, despite any merit he might have.
All these institutions were following guidance and diversity targets laid out by the Tri-Agency Institutional Programs Secretariat, which is the government body responsible for administering the CRC program. The promotion of diversity, equality and inclusion allows CRC program job postings to exclude applicants if they do not meet diversity targets, and that is wrong.
Target postings need to be reviewed so that diversity, inclusion and equality remain key pillars in hiring, but the practice of exclusion needs to be reviewed immediately, as it sets a target for equality of outcome instead of providing all candidates with an equality of opportunity. Only an equality of opportunity will ensure we will look at breaking down barriers that exist with inclusion and diversity and still ensure we hire top talent where we need it. Only by ensuring there is equality of opportunity do we ensure we do not practise inclusion by excluding someone else.
Additionally, because we are also striving for equality of opportunity for all our institutions, Canada research chairs should always maintain excellence as their primary criterion. We are simply not seeing enough talent. What equality of opportunity means is that we break down barriers that exist. It is not going to be easy. It is going to be quite hard, but we have to do that.
We have to do that especially when some smaller institutions are lucky to get any applicants and are under threat to meet quotas or lose funding. By all means, let us work together toward improved opportunities for everyone, but let us not pretend that targeted hiring does not, by design, put other criteria ahead of excellence or put some institutions ahead of others.
Professor David Wolfe, of the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the University of Toronto, has noted that talent was important 20 years ago and it is 10 times more important now. He said, “If we don't fund, support and nurture that talent and put it out into the local labour market, we don't have the base either to grow our own domestic firms or to attract other firms into our regions.”
The CRC program was launched in 2000 to fund 2,000 research chairs, although there are now 2,285 of them. The program's aim is to attract and keep top academics in Canada. Tier two chairs are five-year terms worth $100,000 in annual federal funding and are awarded to emerging researchers; tier one chairs are awarded to leading academics and are worth $200,000 annually over seven years. The research chairs are Canada's effort to recruit top talent from around the world and enhance our competitiveness. We need more than one or two demographic groups to do that.
With the 2022 deadline looming, universities are acting on their EDI plans. UBC, which has 199 chairs, has filled 60 CRC positions in 2020, which is great, but they are all targeted hires.
Moura Quayle, the UBC associate vice-president of academic affairs, said:
We’ve been more than successful with white women, we’re now over that target. But we need to work on finding people with disabilities.
That is fantastic for UBC, but now white women are going to be excluded. At the same time, if we look at that across the nation, we see that we have a lack of talent at the table to apply for these institutions, and if we look at areas like Quebec, which has smaller institutions and smaller areas, we are eliminating huge sections of the population instead of looking at the barriers that exist for those individuals to apply and to get into the programming.
I think when it comes to this motion, all we are looking at is a review of the program and the criteria to ensure that anyone who wants to get an education and become a Canadian scientist or work with our innovation sectors in Canada—which, by the way, are going to grow to 2.25 million jobs by 2026, which is 11% of the whole workforce population, and pay over $80,000 or $90,000—should be afforded the opportunity to do just that. When we are a million jobs short and are so many jobs short in our science and research industry, our government should be doing the best it can to ensure that anyone from any creed, any background or any community who wants to join the industry has the opportunity to do so.
We are doing it all wrong. This practice is not only excluding candidates in the name of exclusion, it is not a one-size-fits-all across the nation. Each region in Canada has its own talent needs. What I love about the college system is that there is a college within 50 kilometres of 95% of Canadians. Through our research for top talent for SRSR, science and research, we have found that if universities and colleges are located in a certain region or city, it encourages students to enrol there and enables people in the labour force to go back to university to develop their talent if they so wish.
Furthermore, follow-up data on graduates shows that students who have studied in the region generally pursue careers there. For nursing talent, universities at Trois-Rivières, Rimouski and Abitibi-Témiscamingue offer nursing programs. We learned this in the science and research committee. Between 80% and 90% of professionals trained by those universities remain in and work in those regions, so those universities are training nurses who are working in those same regions that desperately need nurses. We are short 60,000 nurses in Canada right now.
The work of inclusion and diversity would include, in this instance, not just hiring qualified applicants from diverse backgrounds, but ensuring that colleges break down barriers and enrol students from all backgrounds. However, colleges need funding, and not all funding is equal. If we want to talk about quality of opportunity, let us look at the funding.
It is well known that 15 universities in Canada receive over 72% of the research funding. Let us think about that for a moment. There are over 380 colleges in Canada, but 15 universities receive 70% of all research funding. Colleges receive 2.5% of funding. What was awesome at this committee was that when we looked at what colleges do, especially when it comes to commercializing IP for existing companies, they are doing that work. They are engaging with companies and doing such great things.
My point is that setting diversity targets flows funding that is absolutely lopsided to the few rather than to the many. I am talking about another problem, which is that in Canada we spread the peanut butter a little too thin across the country, but when we look at programs, we see that extra funding for research and development can attract many Canadians to participate in an innovative and prosperous Canada. We need to look closely at where funding is going and how we are attracting talent where it is needed, and ensure that we are developing those programs and the science to make sure Canada prospers. Canada will prosper from that.
We need to work more on breaking down barriers for equality of opportunity. That means more work, not less. That means that we make diversity a top priority, not cherry-picking the results we want. For instance, J.P. Morgan in the U.K. is pushing for more inclusion of Black diversity in the finance industry, and recently held its first EMEA Black advocacy program, with about 200 people from institutions across London gathering to discuss how progress could be made.
The bank in the U.K. has increased its Black U.K. employees by 45% by breaking down barriers and ensuring that Black people see themselves in roles and seek to obtain the education for the roles they want. It involved mentorship. It involved making sure that there was community promotion and inclusiveness. It made sure there was internship programs and co-ops. It meant breaking down a lot of barriers that existed in those communities. It did not mean that 45% of those positions were posted only for Black men for J.P. Morgan. That is not how that was done, nor how it should be done.
In Canada, we see barriers broken every day. The Alpine Club of Canada just appointed its first female leaders: Isabelle Daigneault, the first female president, and Carine Salvy, the first female executive director. The Alpine Club is an organization based in Canmore, Alberta. It manages a network of cabins across Canada's remote back country, and it has worked to educate people in the world of mountain climbing. It was a big barrier and it took many years, but how great it is. We celebrate that the barrier was broken.
Amita Kuttner is Canada's first trans person and the first person of East Asian descent to lead a major Canadian political party, the Green Party. This is very important. It is a major glass ceiling to be broken.
We have Major Guenther, who is an F-18 fighter pilot in Cold Lake, Alberta. How amazing is that, to have those barriers broken?
In my own riding today, I am sad to announce that our own Loyalist College CEO, Dr. Ann Marie Vaughan, is resigning to become Humber College's first female president and CEO, near Toronto. We are sorry to lose her, but how great is it that she is breaking barriers and moving on?
Our university, college and polytechnic system has been a critical provider for many of our technical skills shortages for technology clusters across Canada in the past two decades. We are so happy she has been a leader in our region for that.
At the end of the day, we really have to look at what this motion is and what it is not. This motion is about looking at equality of opportunity for all Canadians. What I like about this motion is that we are going to review a program that ensures that the barriers that exist are going to be broken down.
The other side of it is that we are going to make sure that we do things the right way so that when we are funding research in Canada, we are getting the best and brightest, as well as having an inclusive and diverse policy. That means not posting jobs that say “for women only”, or for a different sector of diversity only, and that we include that in decision-making, in policy-making, in interview processing, in various education and in funding.
As a parliamentarian, a Conservative and a Canadian, I believe in equality of opportunity for Canadians versus equality of outcomes. Canadians are unique, innovative, creative, entrepreneurial and competitive. As long as we focus on breaking down barriers, we focus on that equality of levelling the starting blocks. Equality of outcome as a goal skips that part, whereas as Canadians, we can do the work ourselves. It is a utopian fantasy that often ends in a dystopian outcome: excluding someone else in the name of inclusion.
We are a great nation. We have so much to achieve. As we work through the work in reporting, new science, research and industry, I look forward to the policy that will not only build the future, but policy for the government that embraces this new era when Canada has the opportunity to leap ahead. Let us ensure that we break down any and all barriers for the future leaders in this country and for all who will find this country home.
Let us not practise inclusion with exclusion. Let us break down barriers to include everyone and provide equality and opportunity.
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- May/31/22 3:04:29 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for allowing me to speak about the investments we have made in science.
In recent years, we have seen what an important role science, technology and innovation play in finding solutions to the great challenges that humanity faces, from climate change to COVID‑19. We have also seen the key role that diversity and inclusion play in scientific research.
That is why we expect the research councils to put the right policies in place to achieve this goal.
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