TranslatePolitics.ca

Recent debates

8 latest topics

06-18 Spring Economic Update 2026 Implementation Act 57 statements 06-18 Spring Economic Update 2026 Implementation Act 19 statements 06-18 Arab Heritage Month Act 5 statements 06-18 The Economy 15 statements 06-18 Government Priorities 2 statements 06-18 Government Priorities 2 statements 06-18 Housing 12 statements 06-18 The Environment 2 statements

Adjournment Proceedings

2026-06-11 Sitting 134 Showing 1–4 of 4

A bill to adjust various tax rules and rates, affecting income tax deductions, excise taxes on fuel and alcohol, capital gains exemptions, and more. The Green MP raised concerns about government respect for science, mentioning a deceased colleague and endangered species protections. The Liberal MP defended the government's science commitments and engagement with the chief science officer.

Official Hansard ↗

Elizabeth May

Green 9:10 p.m.

“The government is not listening to science. We need to spend more on scientific research. The Prime Minister should meet with the chief science adviser. I'm very concerned about cuts to government science programs.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, I am pursuing a question I first asked on April 14. I have been concerned for some time that the new Liberal government has less respect for science than previous governments had. We recently mourned the death of our colleague Dr. Kirsty Duncan. In all the eulogies, people remembered her as the first minister of science in Canada. We may note, and I hate to say this, that she will be the last minister of science in Canada, because there is not one now. The gravitas, the importance, of scientific briefings and scientific advice from core government departments that are science-based is sorely lacking. This is reflected in the cuts to Environment and Climate Change and to Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, to basic scientific research. Whole branches of science are being shut down in this country. A scientific expert, an anthropologist and taxonomist, contacted me because the whole national collection of insects in the Diptera order has been shut down. There are no scientists to pick up this work. They have all been laid off. An international petition was launched; 495 scientists from 47 different countries are raising the alarm about Canada's dropping the ball. It may seem to people that it is obscure to keep track of what species of insect we have in our collection, but it can cause enormous economic damage when we lose the brainpower to know which insect is which. If it is an exotic species that does not belong in a particular forest, we need to know about it soon, and we need to take action. There are cuts across the board. An open letter was sent just today to the Prime Minister's office, from 425 scientists from many jurisdictions, including internationally, concerned that the cuts to the ocean protection plan mean that we simply will not be able to understand and protect our marine environment. These are serious matters, and I asked the Prime Minister, in April, if he had ever consulted his chief science adviser about these cuts. The hon. parliamentary secretary made a good go of it, saying that, in general, people appreciated the advice of Dr. Mona Nemer, the Prime Minister's chief science adviser. However, since I asked the question, I have had it verified that the Prime Minister has not once sat down to meet with his chief science adviser. This is deeply worrying. Changes are being proposed, such as in the massive discussion documents issued May 8, that would have profound impacts, endangering endangered species. Also, we are losing the precautionary principle. If we look, buried in the omnibus budget bill, Bill C-30, we find the single biggest assault on bringing evidence and science to bear on the dangers of pesticides to human health and the environment. However, buried in an omnibus bill, it will be studied only by the finance committee, which had no time to hear from witnesses really concerned about this issue. With that, I ask the government again, will it please rethink, stop and be concerned? The precautionary principle has been recognized by the Supreme Court of Canada as fundamental to our legal jurisprudence. In this country, we do not want to find ourselves once again with decision-based evidence-making. We need to look at the science and do our research first, before we decide we have to build whatever fast and not be concerned with what the scientists are warning us will occur if we fail to think first, plan well and then build.

View on ourcommons.ca ↗

Karim Bardeesy

Liberal 9:15 p.m.

“I want to cheer for our increased science spending. Our government believes in science. We are investing in many programs and strategies. More money will help inform policy.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my colleague from Saanich—Gulf Islands' concern about this and her long-standing advocacy for evidence-based approaches to public policy. With respect to the chief science officer, she is somebody I engage with and the Minister of Industry and her department engage with regularly. That is where the chief science officer is based. Also, she has significant engagement with parliamentarians, including through the Standing Committee on Science and Research. I want to join my colleague in paying tribute, which I think we have each done in different forms in the last few months, to the late Kirsty Duncan, who had a significant responsibility in helping with the existence of the Standing Committee on Science and Research. When we think about the ways to honour her, it is by continuing the ideals and principles for which she stood, and I see those quite well reflected in the recent actions of this government. In the 2024 budget, we made historic investments in the tri-council agencies, which are the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, as well as the Canada Foundation for Innovation. They are the federal government's main mechanisms for driving scientific discovery all the way from the discovery phase to the application phase. We made historic investments, making up after a significant period of relative underinvestment, with billions of dollars of investment going to those agencies. We followed up on that in 2025 with another new major set of investments toward the impact+ research chairs program. We just announced almost 700 new doctoral and post-doctoral fellows coming from outside of Canada to help support the next generation of scientific research. These funds, as well as our forthcoming impact+ research chairs program, are not only crowding in other private and philanthropic funds, but generating excitement around the prospect of doing leading-edge research in science that has the translational piece, results in policy advice and helps inform government in very significant ways. Those investments in the 2024 budget and the 2025 budget are informing Canada, Canadians, the public policy community and parliamentarians with new information to help tackle some recent challenges. I will also note a number of our new major strategies, whether it is the national food strategy, which was launched today; the AI strategy, which was launched last week; our critical minerals strategy; our national electricity strategy; or a number of other strategies. They place at the centre evidence, research and the innovation that derives from that research. Sprinkled across a number of different recent actions of this government, we see investments in science. The hon. member is a champion of a particular set of institutions that are very important. We are very proud on this side to be hosting the Our Ocean Conference in 2027. I know the health of the oceans is of particular concern to the member, and we have committed, through our nature plan, to protecting 30% of Canada's lands and waters by 2030. That, too, is evidence-informed, evidence-based and scientifically informed. We believe in the investments we have made. Yes, there is some attention to be paid to government-direct research, but if the member looks at the full set of research in which we are investing and the full set of science in which we are investing, we are the place to do this scientific research. I think the results with respect to the interest of those outside of Canada wanting to come to Canada to do this work speak for themselves.

View on ourcommons.ca ↗

Elizabeth May

Green 9:20 p.m.

“I'm going to jump on this example to say: the government should spend more money so our committee can have more meetings to talk about saving animals.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. friend, and he is a friend, the parliamentary secretary. Let me give him an example right now that is not hypothetical. None of the wonderful press releases he has mentioned has done a single thing to allow the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada to have a budget sufficient enough to hold the meetings it is required to hold by law. It is supposed to assess and monitor species at risk along a continuum from threatened to critically endangered, but these top-notch scientists have to meet to do that. The committee did not have a budget to meet, so it has gone from two meetings required a year down to one, and it is not going to have enough time to plow through the backlog of species that need attention, need recovery plans and need habitat attention. At the same time that the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada cannot meet, we see a discussion paper that says maybe it is okay to lose the southern resident killer whales. It is not acceptable.

View on ourcommons.ca ↗

Karim Bardeesy

Liberal 9:20 p.m.

“I'm not going to answer the question about funding that committee. Instead, I'll fill time by saying our government really likes science and spends money on it. We want people to think we're serious about science by doing big projects every now and then.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the intervention. Although I cannot speak to the circumstances of that specific committee, I know that as a government we try to resource all the activities we say we are doing as effectively and efficiently as possible. I want to reiterate that the status of science for this government is the status of science as represented by the investments we are making, the status of science as represented by the image we are projecting to the world of the kinds of investments we are seeking, and the status of science in the public spirit that we are trying to share, whether it is with the Artemis mission or with some of the leading work being done by some of our leading scientists, whom we try to elevate on this side of the House. That speaks very strongly to the status of science overall for this government.

View on ourcommons.ca ↗

What they said. What they meant.

Recent debates