Federal auditor general Sheila Fraser describes Agriculture Canada’s research branch as a bureaucracy adrift – unfocused, underfunded, unprepared for an exodus of aging researchers and watching key research facilities crumble.
In an April 20 report to Parliament, Fraser said the department sometimes failed to follow through with funding commitments that private sector collaborators thought had been made, did not properly communicate its research results and goals and subjected its research scientists to funding uncertainty that undermined their efforts.
“We noted that financial pressures have had a significant impact on the department’s research efforts,” she wrote.
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“Peer-reviewed project funding was reduced by about six percent in the 2007-08 fiscal year. In the 2008-09 fiscal year, funding was further reduced by approximately 20 percent, which had an impact on the researchers’ ability to conduct some of the research activities identified in the project proposals.”
The department’s senior science bureaucrat said the criticisms are accepted and the situation is getting better since the department set out goals and priorities.
Marc Fortin, the assistant deputy agriculture minister responsible for the research branch, also said the criticisms of inadequate funding do not take into account the fact that Agriculture Canada continues to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on basic research that no one else is willing to do.
“We’re investing over $200 million a year into long-term public good research,” he said.
“That is the niche we have. That is a role no other party can or is willing to play in Canada.”
Fraser raised the case of a $1 million piece of equipment bought for a public-private collaboration project that in the end was not approved.
She said there was often little monitoring of the results of research projects and little follow up to see if they met national objectives.
Like all federal departments, Agriculture Canada’s research branch also faces the potential of significant retirements in the next decade without any clear plan about how to deal with what could be a significant loss of departmental experience and memory.
Liberal agriculture critic Wayne Easter called it a serious indictment.
“It shows absolute confusion in the government, a lack of focus, a lack of follow up, a lack of funding and a lack of purpose,” he said.
“This minister is running the department into the ground.”
Fraser told a news conference the department has been lax in investing for the future.
“The department has not identified the human and financial resources needed for its strategic direction nor the equipment and facilities it requires,” she reported.
“Much of its laboratory and agriculture equipment is past its useful life.”
Her report said 26 percent of research branch buildings are in poor shape and 45 percent are average. She recommended that the department regularly assess the condition of its physical assets and invest in them when necessary to meet other research goals.
Fortin said another way to look at Fraser’s physical plant assessments is to conclude that 71 percent are average or good.
Still, he conceded that investment in infrastructure has lagged and is being improved.
The government’s anti-recession economic action plan has designated $26 million in agricultural research building investment, “more than we’ve ever done before.”
Fortin also said the government is developing a long-term research building investment plan.
“We agree there is an issue here.”
