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Richard Cannings

Member of Parliament
Member of Parliament
NDP

South Okanagan—West Kootenay
British Columbia
Voting Attendance: 61%
Expenses Last Quarter: $128,729.57

Government Page

Dec/1/22 6:52:54 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the fact is that, for almost 20 years, there has not been any new money for these scholarship programs I have been talking about. These are our best and brightest young researchers, and they are living in poverty. I appreciate that the government has increased spending in some aspects of science. It supports science. However, it needs to support these students. More and more of them are leaving Canada for the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany and Australia. Many countries are providing better living conditions and studying environments than Canada. This brain drain costs our economy almost $1 billion a year, just in lost training dollar investments. The solution is simple: Increase the scholarship amounts and increase the number of scholarships. It would be a relatively small investment that would have an immense payback for our country and for the young researchers our future depends on.

149 words

Context: House Hansard - 139 - Dec/1/22

Mr. Richard Cannings (South Okanagan—West Kootenay, NDP)

Dec/1/22 6:45:28 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, science and research are the basis of our modern life. All the technological marvels and comforts we enjoy come from that. In the research ecosystem, it is graduate students and post-doctoral fellows who do most of the work. They do the heavy lifting, and they work full time on their research. It is a full-time job. They are paid through postgraduate scholarships through the federal funding councils: the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. The values of these scholarships were at one time enough to allow young researchers to live reasonable lives. I had one of these scholarships when I was doing my masters studies at the Memorial University of Newfoundland in the 1970s, and it paid for my housing and food, with a bit left over. By sheer coincidence, I am wearing my MUN tie tonight. However, that is not the case today. The scholarship amounts have not changed since 2003. That is almost 20 years ago. Masters students now receive $17,500 annually, and Ph.D. students get $21,000 annually. That might have been enough 20 years ago, but we know how housing and food costs have skyrocketed since then. On top of that, these students have to pay their tuition, and that adds thousands of dollars to those annual costs. In fact, the average postgraduate tuition in Canada is over $7,000 a year. These are poverty wages. This is below minimum wage, yet this is what we are expecting our best and brightest to live on. We are depending on these students for our future, and we have to keep them here in Canada, but many of them are lured out of the country to find research and educational opportunities in countries that value them more than we do. A group of students, scientists and other concerned citizens formed a group called “Support our Science” recently. They sponsored a petition here in the House of Commons that garnered over 3,500 signatures. They were asking the government to increase the value of graduate scholarships by 48% to match inflation over the past 20 years, and to index that to the consumer price index so it does not fall behind again. They also asked that the number of scholarships be increased by 50% to match the demand for graduate students and the demand for these graduates in the innovation workplaces of Canada. Once these students complete their doctoral degrees, they seek out post-doctoral fellowships. It is the traditional route to finding work in academic institutions and in research and development companies across the country, but the number of post-doctoral fellowships does not line up with the number of doctoral students. About 3,000 masters students receive these scholarships, and almost 2,000 Ph.D. students receive the scholarships, but there are only about 450 post-doctoral fellowships offered. Because of that, a huge number of recent graduates leave Canada for post-doctoral work elsewhere in the world. In fact, 38% of them leave the country. They are drawn by good salaries and good lab support, both aspects in which Canada does not compete well. At its most basic, valuing these students means paying them enough, so I urge the government to do the right thing and the obvious thing, and pay these young researchers a living wage.

573 words

Context: House Hansard - 130 - Nov/18/22

Mr. Richard Cannings (South Okanagan—West Kootenay, NDP)

Nov/18/22 11:44:55 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, Canada's graduate students and post-doctoral fellows are living in poverty because the government has not increased their wages in almost 20 years. This week, scientists were completely unimpressed when the minister tried to tell them that ongoing funding was new money. One Canada research chair even tweeted “just the same old investment with a shiny new bow.” When will the Liberals stop pretending they support science and increase the funding for Canada graduate scholarships and post-graduate fellowships?

84 words

Context: House Hansard - 130 - Nov/18/22

Mr. Richard Cannings

Nov/18/22 10:26:59 a.m.
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Re: Bill C-32

Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola for those comments, and I agree with him right up to the very end of them. I do not know if the member knows how supply agreements work, but we do not get everything we ask for from the government when we enter into those agreements. The Liberals agreed to bring in dental care, and that is something that will change the lives of millions of Canadians. I know that the Conservatives are against providing dental care for poor kids across this country, but the NDP is proud to bring that forward. However, we are very suspicious of the government when it says that, yes, it is going to fix the credit card interchange fees. As the member mentioned, the government has not done it before, and this is all about talking to industry. Therefore, we are going to be watching those pieces very carefully.

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Member of Parliament

Richard Cannings