Despite critics who argue government research funding levels have fallen from historic levels, Agriculture Canada’s top research official says attempts to compare departmental research spending levels then and now are futile.
The lobby group Grain Growers of Canada and opposition critics have been complaining for years that federal basic research spending lags far behind comparable 1994 levels before massive Liberal budget cuts.
They have been lobbying for a doubling of Agriculture Canada basic research funding over the next decade.
The last federal budget deepened research branch cuts.
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But Gilles Saindon, associate assistant deputy minister for science and technology at Agriculture Canada, has said in the past that comparisons between how research was funded then and how it is handled now are not valid.
He said the emphasis today is on goals, innovation, food safety and environmental issues.
As well, in the 1990s before the deficit-fighting spending cuts, the agriculture department was the primary funding source for public agricultural research.
Today, it looks to the private sector to set research priorities and contribute funding.
“So the question is do we have the right capacity across the country to do the right research at the right time, building on each others’ strengths and I think that’s what we have paid attention to in setting priorities,” said Saindon.
“It is not always us doing. It is other departments, other agencies, universities.”
In the aftermath of the 1995 cuts, the government created the Matching Investment Initiative to try to fill the funding gap with more private sector spending.
The program had limited success.
Saindon said part of the problem was that the government led the process and expected the private sector to buy into research priorities set by others.
Now, industry and universities are involved in planning the priorities.
“So is it more, is it less?” he asked. “How do you put a number on how much you are leveraging at universities so how do you compare? It is not just mathematics. How do you factor in that the canola industry has a huge research investment. That is the complexity of comparing numbers.”
During the interview, both Saindon and Andrew Goldstein, director general of the policy, planning and integration directorate, insisted the department continues to invest in basic long-term research despite questions from critics.
However, they said research project investment decisions must be made through the lens of what the industry needs to be profitable and innovative.
“It isn’t just enough to do scientific research to generate knowledge,” said Goldstein.
“It really is in the commercialization and the widespread adoption that you see that economic benefit of the research being realized.”
It is part of a change in philosophy that has been embedded in federal-provincial agriculture policy agreements in recent years.
“The philosophy of Growing Forward funding and programming is that we have funding to deal with the continuum and not put all the money into general knowledge,” said Saindon.
“We have to make sure it goes to the next step. It has to get to pre-commercialization. It has to get to that next step.”
