Dear CSMB members

We would like to bring to your attention that the government is currently soliciting feedback in advance of Budget 2021 and invites all Canadians to fill out the following questionnaire.

https://letstalkbudget2021.ca/pre_budget_consultations

This consultation is open until February 19, 2021

We encourage you to provide your feedback, and particularly this question:

If you were designing the federal budget, what would you like to see in it to help create jobs and grow Canada’s economy? 

We encourage you to review the recent pre-budget CSMB submission and our recommendations, here is what CSMB recommends

That the Government implement all recommendations from the 2017 Fundamental Science Review, notably:

• • Recommendation 1: That the Government significantly increase investment in science and discovery research in line with the recommendations of the Report, by 25%.
  • Recommendation 2: That the Government increase investment in training of the next generation of scientists, over 4 years, to an additional $140M per year (increases at $35M per year).
  • Recommendation 3: That the Government increase its investment in the Research Support Fund, over 4 years, to an additional $478M to help institutions across Canada to support their researchers as effectively and efficiently as possible.
  • Recommendation 4: That the Government increase investments to support  investigator initiated fundamental research at CIHR, NSERC and SSHRC by increased investments into the granting councils.

Science has an important role to play in the recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, and the voice of scientists needs to be heard.

Please participate in these important consultations!

Dr. Imogen R. Coe

President of the Canadian Society for Molecular Biosciences