Science and Research

Opening remarks

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and honourable members. Thank you for the opportunity to speak before this committee today. My name is Adam Green. I'm the director for national security policy at Public Safety Canada. Part of my remit is to oversee the activities of Public Safety's research security centre. To begin with, I want to properly frame the remit I will speak to you about today. The research security centre is at the heart of Canada's approach to the challenge of research security, which is a topic that I know has been at the core of the concerns of this committee. For the committee's clarity, while we do provide information to researchers in academia on a range of security-related topics, during which questions about the security process can be raised, responsibility for personnel-vetting and for delivering security clearances is beyond the scope of the centre's activities. As you are likely aware, national security threats targeting intellectual property and technological know-how have been increasingly prevalent over the last decade as Canada is placing itself amongst the global leaders in research and technology. Canada's cutting-edge innovation in fields such as…

Opening remarks

I'm not particularly familiar with air defence. It's not my specialty, but we can certainly look into that.

Opening remarks

Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee, for the invitation to appear today. I am Dr. Mike Commito. I am here on behalf of Cambrian College in Sudbury, Ontario, where I serve as director of research and innovation. Cambrian is a college with deep roots in northern Ontario's industrial economy. Our work is closely tied to mining, critical minerals, applied research, workforce development and the practical challenges that come with operating in remote, harsh and technically demanding environments. That foundation shapes how we see this study. Cambrian is already active in areas that matter to Canada's dual-use and defence-related innovation agenda. We are not starting from scratch. We are already working with industry, training the workforce and supporting the applied research and testing that help move technology from an idea into something that can actually be used. One example is our centre for smart mining, where we support industry-relevant research and technology development in real operating conditions. That includes underground environments that are highly useful for testing technologies in GPS-denied, low-visibility and communication-constrained settings.…

Opening remarks

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair and members of the committee, for the invitation to appear today. In my opening remarks, I'm going to concentrate on three issues: the need for clarity, priorities and pathways to capability. On clarity, it's welcome to see the various movements, some of which you've just heard about from national defence in the prior session, including BOREALIS and the creation of DISHs, as well as wider efforts at the National Research Council, regionally and in other academic pursuits. Recognizing that this is still early days—only 104 days, by my count, since the industrial strategy was introduced—it will be important to articulate clearly the intent of these respective lines of effort, what they're all intended to do and how they're supposed to connect and complement each other. Similarly, with increased interest from Canada's post-secondary institutions and ongoing interest in and enhancement of the industrial technological benefits policy and other industry-focused measures, the wider research and development effort in defence is spread across government research, industrial R and D, and academic activity. Who is doing what in Canada and what the intended…

Opening remarks

Thank you, Mr. Chair and the members of committee, for having me. I’m Matthew da Mota. I'm research director of emerging technology and national security at the Canadian Shield Institute for public policy. We work on creating solutions to enhance Canadian economic and digital sovereignty. Defence spending, generally, is a notoriously poor long-term economic investment, though it is important and essential for national security. The real value we're going to get out of the promise from the defence industrial strategy has to do with how we leverage dual-use technologies, multi-use infrastructures and spillovers into other sectors. That won't happen by accident. The risk in not delivering on that is that we spend to meet our targets of 2% and 5% of GDP on defence spending without building anything lasting or durable. A further risk is that in rushing to meet those targets under external pressure, we damage an already strong research ecosystem, which has deficiencies and issues around IP and other areas but is nevertheless world class. What we need is an ecosystem where non-military research thrives freely, defence needs are communicated clearly and the pathways between them are…

Opening remarks

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair. Members of the committee, thank you for giving me the opportunity to contribute to this discussion. I am Alexandre Blais, scientific director of the Quantum Institute at the Université de Sherbrooke. The Université de Sherbrooke ranks among Canada's research-intensive universities and is recognized for its collaborative research model. We are also a founding partner of the Quebec innovation zones in quantum science and microelectronics—strategic ecosystems at the heart of today's security and technological sovereignty challenges. Today I will argue that fundamental research is a strategic contribution to Canada's defence objectives, and that investments in research universities should be recognized as part of Canada's effort to meet its NATO commitments. Research universities like the Université de Sherbrooke not only produce knowledge; they build strategic capacity for the country. I would now like to expand on three important points. Firstly, there is fundamental research. When we talk about dual-use technologies, attention often turns first to their applications. While these applications are essential, we must recognize that investments in…

Opening remarks

I will just add that one thing we try to do at the Université de Sherbrooke is to really make sure that we have a clear line of sight, whether we're doing fundamental research or doing research with industrial partners that do need to be more protected. Depending on where we are on a particular research project, we put the right kinds of protections in place to make sure that industrial-supported research is protected and that we know whom we are working with. We have an ethics committee that does review our more sensitive research to make sure that the mechanisms are in place to do what we need to do and to protect IP, which goes to the point that you made earlier.