EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Wednesday, October 4, 1995

.1753

[Translation]

The Chairman: Hello and welcome everyone.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(3)d), we are considering a draft report on chapters 9, 10 and 11, Science and Technology, of the Auditor General's report.

If there are no objections, this will be a public hearing unless there is a request to sit in camera.

An hon. member: This is a public hearing.

The Chairman: This is a public hearing. As usual, we will proceed page by page. You can point out any amendments or corrections you would like to make to any given page.

[English]

Page 1 is okay?

Some hon. members: Agreed.

The Chairman: On page 2, Mr. Williams.

Mr. Williams (St. Albert): In accordance with the amendment circulated in both languages, I would like to amend paragraph 9. Before the last sentence, insert the following:

For example, the Committee believes that more attention needs to be placed on business development activities. Research establishments should develop internal capacities to identify potential clients and partners and to promote their services. Some organizations have already put in place some business development and marketing activities. However, more effort should be made to promote the commercialization of technologies and products.

Speaking to the amendment, I think the report is fine except that it misses the very important concept that research is done to make Canada a more efficient and productive and a richer country by utilizing the research and development that's created within government. I think we need to emphasize that point; hence that inclusion in paragraph 9.

The Chairman: Are there any comments on

[Translation]

Mr. Williams' comments?

[English]

Amendment agreed to

The Chairman: Is page 2 agreed, then?

Some hon. members: Agreed.

The Chairman: Is page 3 agreed?

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[Translation]

Some hon. members: Agreed.

[English]

The Chairman: Page 4. Mr. Williams.

Mr. Williams: Again, following from my previous comments on the recommendation included in paragraph 15, I would like to add an additional recommendation 5, which would read as follows:

A plan at a central and/or departmental level for developing ways and means to ensure research gets into the marketplace.

Again, Mr. Chairman, it is trying to put the emphasis on the fact that we are doing all this research - recommendation 1 says that we have to have priorities and coherent direction; 2, that we have to coordinate these activities; 3, that we have a framework for evaluating; 4, that we provide information to Parliament and the general public on how it's being done - but we're missing the very important point that research has to be introduced into the marketplace. Hence recommendation 5.

[Translation]

The Chairman: Any comments, Mr. Laurin?

Mr. Laurin (Joliette): Mr. Chairman, since the Auditor General has to give his opinion and say whether this strategy meets his concerns, would the Reform Party amendment be withdrawn if the Auditor General tells us this does not meet his needs?

[English]

Mr. Williams: The point I'm trying to make is that the committee feels all research done by and on behalf of government, and paid for by government, surely is done with the interest that it finds its way into the marketplace and returns benefit to our community. There is never enough of that done.

These were the comments that were raised during the hearings. The deputy minister of the Department of Industry acknowledged the fact that more could be done. Hence my recommendation.

[Translation]

Mr. Laurin: I think I know where Mr. Williams is coming from. Sometimes research results in a marketable product, but not always. Sometimes it is not possible to market the product immediately nor in the first few years.

Would Mr. Williams amendment force the government to market a research product? If that is Mr. William's intention, I think we might be going too far. I do not think it is up to the government to market new products. It is up to the private sector to do so.

[English]

Mr. Williams: Mr. Chairman, let me just elaborate on the intention of the recommendation.

It is not suggested for a minute that the government develop new products and introduce these new products into the marketplace and in essence get into business. But the government is assisting and doing a lot of basic and fundamental research through universities and through other avenues that are funded by the government. We have to ask ourselves, why are we doing all this research?

If we find there is a new application or a new methodology or some important progress has been made and it has been done by government, surely we wouldn't put the lid on it and say ``Thank you very much. We've discovered something new, but we're not going to tell anybody.'' We're going to sell it to the private sector to allow them to develop it. We're going to do whatever we can in essence to return the investment we have made in the research, rather than just saying, ``Thank you very much. We have discovered something'' and allowing another country or someone else to duplicate our research and take advantage of it.

It is not the fact that we would expect the government to get into developing products and competing in the marketplace, but why is it funding research? Why is it assisting in research? It is to ensure that Canada as a country is competitive in the international world. If anything is done that is beneficial to enhancing that, it should be out there and used to its fullest potential. That is the intent of the motion.

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The Chairman: Mr. Telegdi.

Mr. Telegdi (Waterloo): I would have no problem with the motion as such if I could find a way of maybe just softening it a little bit. We want the plan and we want institutions to be looking at that, but then again we can't get away from the fact that sometimes you do some pure kind of research and you never know where it will go.

To the extent that you want to get a new way of thinking - and so does the government - that we apply the research and we get the commercial benefits for it, I agree - as long as that is understood. I'm just wondering if there is a way to make that understood, that it gets into the marketplace where at all possible, where it is appropriate.

[Translation]

Mr. Laurin: Mr. Chairman, I have a suggestion. Would Mr. Williams accept a slight change to his amendment? The French version would read ``to ensure results of the research are available in the marketplace'' instead of ``research products''. That would better reflect Mr. Williams' intention; I think those words say it better. So it would read: ``means to ensure results of the research are available in the marketplace''; or: s'assurer que les résultats de la recherche soient disponibles sur le marché.

[English]

Mr. Telegdi: Mr. Williams is talking about making sure that we benefit from it as Canadians and we don't have offshore people grabbing it and running with it. We have had situations where we have done the research and somebody else benefits from it.

Mr. Williams: First of all, Mr. Chairman, there might - just might, and I'm certainly no expert en français, as we all know. But I see in the English version we talk about ``to ensure research gets into the marketplace''and in the French version, que les produits, perhaps, is an extra addition, or les produits in the French version. Maybe that is where Mr. Laurin is getting the ambiguity of the intent. Can I ask our researcher, who has more capacity in both languages than I do, Mr. Chairman, what her opinion is?

[Translation]

Mrs. Michelle Salvail (Committee Researcher): It is probably a poor translation, but I did not know how to say ``ensure research gets into the marketplace''. It is not research, but the products or results of the research.

Mr. Laurin: Research does not always lead to a product.

[English]

The Chairman: The word ``product'' in that sense means the result, product for result.

Mr. Williams: Okay. That's why I say, Mr. Chairman, I had not intended - and you can see it is not included in the English version - that there is anything to do with products. There is all kinds of research done that has nothing to do with the final product brought to the marketplace.

As I say, there's a lot of basic research done at universities, paid for by the government. There's all kinds of other research that is done with the hope that (a) it is going to further our knowledge, and (b) it will have some beneficial application. Sometimes we find out that research discovers products and it takes many years before we even find an application for them.

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Lasers are the perfect example. When they were first discovered in 1961 or 1962, people said they were an answer looking for a question. Today, lasers are used everywhere. Once we had this research, we found out we could apply it in the marketplace.

The last thing we'd ever want is research to be done that didn't have the marketplace as the end game. Why are we doing research strictly for the benefit of research? Second, if there is a market application of any kind, it should be developed with that in mind rather than just closing the book on it.

[Translation]

The Chairman: Mr. Laurin, are you using the word ``product'' in the sense of ``results''.

Mr. Laurin: Yes.

The Chairman: It can be used...

Mr. Laurin: I think I understood Mr. Williams very well. Research results can refer to the discovery of the principle. Those are the results of research. However, that principle may only find a practical application in a product a few years later. If a newly discovered principle was made available to Canadians on the market, many people could try to find a practical application for it. That's why it would seem to me preferable to say, at least in the French text: ``that the results of research get into the market place''.

The Chairman: I think everyone is in favour of that amendment.

[English]

Amendment agreed to

The Chairman: Page 5?

Some hon. members: Agreed.

The Chairman: Page 6?

Some hon. members: Agreed.

On page 7, Mr. Laurin.

[Translation]

Mr. Laurin: Mr. Chairman, on page 7, paragraph 26, we would like to add something before the last sentence which reads as follows:

In order to monitor this question closely, the committee recommends:

We would like to add the following text before that last sentence.

The Chairman: Mr. Laurin, we will give a copy of the French text to the interpretor so that he can copy it more easily.

Mr. Laurin: While that's being done, I would like to explain the reason why I would like to add the text I will be proposing. A newspaper article indicated that Mr. Manley had tabled a draft strategy before Cabinet, that that document was considered void of ideas and sent back to officials so that they can go back to the drawing board.

I have here a copy of the article in question. It was published July 16, 1995, under the byline of David Crane. For that reason, I would like the following text to be added.

The committee deplores the fact that the government has delayed tabling this new strategy which was expected in early June 1995. The committee did not obtain answers to all the questions raised during the meetings since the witnesses could not discuss a strategy that had not yet been made public. In order to ensure that the government new science and technology strategy provides answers to the concerns raised by the auditor general, the committee recommends:

Then the text that has already been submitted would continue.

We would therefore be referring to the discussions we have had.

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At other meetings of the committee, Mr. Fillion himself had asked that this strategy be drafted and submitted to the committee. It was supposed to be tabled in June. It was indeed tabled and presented to the Minister, but Cabinet did not find this strategy sufficiently well developped to adopt it. Officials were therefore asked to go back to the drawing board. That prevented us from getting certain answers and I think that it should be pointed out here.

[English]

Mr. Telegdi: Mr. Chairman, I appreciated Mr. Williams' amendments being written in both official languages. I think that's allowed us to deal with this. I certainly want to see this presented to us in both of our official languages before we insert it in the report.

I take it we have agreed with everything on this document with the exception of what's being presently talked about. I think it might be useful if we dealt with that the next time we get together. It should be a fairly simple process. I'm having trouble following all of the wording, and I think the least we can do with this report is to make sure we have it in writing so we can have it for our consideration.

[Translation]

Mr. Laurin: Please note that I don't have any objection to that. I do have the right to table it the way I just did. However, I do want to cooperate. It doesn't bother me if we wait for the next meeting of the committee; we can then get the translation. I don't know if it's up to the researcher to do that.

The Chairman: Agreed.

Mr. Laurin: That's to fulfill the requests. We could adopt the rest of the report and leave this pending.

The Chairman: I think most of you will be there tomorrow when the supplementary report of the Auditor General is tabled. We could reserve a few minutes just before the end of the morning in order to adopt the report. We will then have the English translation of your amendment and we can settle all that in a few minutes. I'm therefore counting on your presence tomorrow morning.

M. Laurin: Will someone look after the translation?

The Chairman: Yes.

[English]

The Chairman: Mr. Telegdi and Mr. Williams, can you stay here for a short meeting of the subcommittee?

This meeting is adjourned.