The House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance (FINA) has released its report of pre-budget consultations held this Fall. The full report, titled Cultivating Competitiveness: helping Canadians succeed, is available here:
http://www.ourcommons.ca/DocumentViewer/en/42-1/FINA/report-27/
We invite you to read this document, as it is instructional on how to position science, research funding, universities and research institutes in the context of the objectives the government wants to reach in the next budget. There is no specific section that focuses on science, but it is rather interwoven into innovation, education, healthcare, job creation, environment and climate change. Science is integrated in all these areas, and scientists can advocate at all these levels – and work with the government to help them achieve common goals.
We invite you to look at the whole report but note that scientists may be especially interested in chapters 4, 5, 6 and 8, and recommendations 29, 42, 43, 45, 59, 60, 65-69, 72.
The CSMB is a member of Research Canada, which advocates for Canada’s health research and innovation ecosystem. We invite you to view their summary of FINA’s recommendations pertaining to the health research and health innovation sector, which can be found here on their website:
https://rc-rc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/RC-Summary-FINA-Report-Cultivating-Competitiveness.pdf
Next steps:
The Minister of Finance is currently holding consultations in advance of budget 2019. We invite all our members to participate in these. You can answer a survey, and submit your ideas by email at this website:
https://www.budget.gc.ca/2019/prebudget-prebudgetaire/index-en.html
Consulting the FINA report offers insight into how to frame your submission to the Minister of Finance consultation.
Scientists and science have an important role to play to ensure the government of Canada reaches its objectives of helping the middle-class Canadians, providing better jobs for today and tomorrow, and making Canada healthier. We invite you to share this message with the government today.
