Liberals cool to science panel’s expert advice
Funding request must be carefully ‘ balanced’
The Trudeau government came to power boasting that it “believes in science,” but it seems faith goes only so far.
Kirsty Duncan, the science minister, poured cold water Wednesday on two key pieces of advice from an expert panel she appointed to examine Canada’s flagging science research world.
The panel’s request to boost research spending by $ 1.3 billion a year must be “balanced” carefully against other priorities, while the idea of a body of distinguished scientists that could affect f unding decisions won’t happen, she said in an interview.
“I believe that as elected officials … who are responsible to the people who put them in government, we have to be prudent with taxpayers’ money. We have to be accountable,” said Duncan. “I don’t think putting in place an unelected body, I don’t think it should have say over funding. That’s not on.”
The rookie minister has generally earned positive reviews from scientists like Dr. David Naylor, the former University of Toronto president who chaired her panel on “strengthening the foundations of Canadian research.”
Naylor said Wednesday he still believes Duncan is a champion for science, regardless of how much she might dampen expectations publicly. But he said he was puzzled by her comments on the advisory body his panel recommended, saying it was only meant to give counsel on spending and policy, not make decisions.
“The assertion of political prerogatives is a bit baffling because we didn’t propose to usurp them,” he said. “( But) let us not, please, get back into the situation where we starve peer- reviewed mechanisms that make evidencebased decisions about who gets funding, and re- impose a regime where priorities are set top-down.”
Boosting the role of sci- ence was a key plank of the Liberals’ 2015 election platform, a reaction to the perceived anti- science posture of Stephen Harper’s Conservatives.
To t hat end, t he new government freed up civilservice scientists to discuss their work publicly, reinstated the l ong form census considered key to much research and added $ 95 million to the main research granting agencies last year.
But the 2017 budget gave them no new money, and Duncan has yet to fulfil a key promise to appoint a chief science adviser. She said Wednesday she wanted to first consult the scientific community and promised the adviser would be named “soon.”
Meanwhile, t he panel headed by Naylor painted a grim picture of the science scene.
Canada’s spending on research and development relative to GDP has been slowly shrinking over the last 15 years, the report said, its standing among industrialized countries slipping as a result. Canada, for instance, lags “well behind” even Australia in winning international science prizes, despite having a 50-per-cent bigger population, the panel noted.
A separate UBC survey of scientists across the country suggested that 70% are scaling back research projects, most citing lack of funding.
The Naylor panel urged the government to spend an extra $ 1.3 billion annually — phased in over four years — for the three agencies that bankroll study in health, natural- sciences and engineering and social science, as well as the Canadian Foundation for Innovation.
Duncan didn’t embrace that advice Wednesday.
“It is our government’s job to balance the needs of the research community with the needs of Canadians,” she said about the recommendation. “I think we have to be realistic. It was 10 years of cuts — 10 years of cuts to science … There is not a quick fix here. It’s going to take time to make up that lost ground. It takes time to turn the Queen Mary around.”
Naylor said he believes the Liberals will inject more cash in the 2018 budget, but said the scientific community will be disappointed if that doesn’t happen.
Duncan did commit to establishing a science advisory council, though without any say over spending.
Another observer rated the minister as highly motivated and competent, and the government’s intentions positive, but said progress has been incredibly slow.
In fact, Amir Attaran, a health- policy expert and Canada Research Chair at the University of Ottawa, said he’s disbanding his own research program because of funding challenges.
This government’s overall approach is “massively better” than the Conservatives’, he said, but “things from a researcher’s perspective have not really improved.”