OTTAWA — Canada has some world-class science research sites but it’s not using them properly or preparing them for the future, according to a new report, commissioned by the federal government itself.

The report warns that a decades-long habit of “muddling through” is not good enough.

“I do no research anymore,” laments a manager at one of those sites, quoted in an appendix to the report by the Council of Canadian Academies. “My time is all related to positioning the lab for continued success, which includes funding. I’m in Ottawa every month.” 

This is fixable, Janet King, a former senior federal public servant who chaired the panel that produced the report, told The Logic in an interview. It’ll be hard, but the need is urgent.

“Science is changing fast and hard,” she said. International competition is fiercer and fractured alliances hurt co-operation we used to be able to count on. Artificial intelligence and digital tools are affecting all sorts of research.

“In this era of increasing pressures, of competition for Canada, if we do not take some action on optimizing our national research infrastructure, we’ll fall behind,” King said.

The federal government sought this advice from the council, an Ottawa-based not-for-profit that convenes experts to weigh in on issues of public interest. The organization turned to King (holder of a geological science PhD and a former federal associate deputy minister who spent much of her career working on issues in the North), university research executives and leaders of some of Canada’s premier science facilities for the work.

A few of the crown jewels: SNOLAB, two kilometres underground in an Ontario mineshaft, where scientists can study the very slightest of subatomic particles without background noise. The Arctic research icebreaker CCGS Amundsen. The VIDO infectious diseases centre at the University of Saskatchewan that fights human and animal contagions. A set of remote radars called SuperDARN—part of an international network—that help predict solar storms that can wipe out communications.

Together, says the panel report released Tuesday morning, these are “enablers of the broader research ecosystem that is critical to Canada’s well-being and position in the world,” and the country should treat them like a portfolio of assets that deserves some long-term planning.

What Canada has instead is critical science infrastructure that runs on “uncertain and fragile funding arrangements” that make thinking beyond the next budget cliff impossible. There’s no plan for maintaining and improving these facilities, or even closing them when they’re someday obsolete.

If you’re trying to run a world-class science facility, the result is a mess: “Many funding programs are not effectively connected, co-ordination is often ad hoc and funding structures are dispersed across multiple programs and levels of government,” the report says. 

This patchwork yields perverse results, says another facility manager (or possibly the same one) in the appendix: “I talk to many researchers who have equipment which is still useful, but they have to replace it with expensive new equipment because there is no funding for maintenance.”

“We do not advocate for a single point of control anywhere,” King stressed in the interview. Nor is there one single country with a model to copy. “We’re looking for stronger co-ordination. We’re looking for stronger information to inform and guide decision-making. We’re looking for deeper awareness of what’s possible and what could be effective. Not one set of rules.”

Ideally there’d be a national science strategy that links strategic and economic goals to research that could help the country reach them, it says. Canada doesn’t have one. It has a collection of strategies that have scientific parts to them—such as for artificial intelligence, critical minerals, nuclear energy and quantum technologies—but aren’t linked. Everything suffers from a “lack of clear national intentions.”

The Canada Foundation for Innovation, a federal agency, is a big up-front funder, paying for up to 40 per cent of a research site’s infrastructure costs. The report credits the agency with working on something resembling a long-term plan—including for funding—that draws on the various sector strategies, but it covers only six sites. Plus, the work is incomplete and not public. 

Meanwhile, foreign governments and scientists don’t understand what we’re doing, says the report: “Canadian decision-making is perceived as opaque and unco-ordinated… Partners lack clarity about Canada’s research priorities, which limits Canada’s voice and participation in international [research], as well as the resultant benefits.”

The current arrangements do have an upside, King acknowledged: “There’s no one point of failure,” she said. “There’s a certain resilience and flexibility and responsiveness” in what Canada has.

For instance, when the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans cut support, in the early 2010s, for the Experimental Lakes Area in northwestern Ontario, the Ontario and Manitoba governments stepped in to fund its unique freshwater-lake research. They turned it over to the International Institute for Sustainable Development, which runs it to this day.

Still, King said, “bottom-up brilliance and messiness, with occasional super-wins,” aren’t as effective as some planning would be.

“Canada has built a suite of research infrastructures that are commendable and are endeavouring to support our national interests,” she said. “I think the panel’s findings are that Canada can do so much better.”