Thousands of university students, postdoctoral fellows and researchers took to the streets on Monday to demand that the federal government increase the value of scholarships and grants in order to provide the next generation of researchers with a “living wage”.
These demonstrations took place in all the major university towns of the country.
“It has been 20 years since the amounts of scholarships and grants from the three federal granting councils — Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research — have not have not been increased, which means that graduate students and postdocs live below the poverty line,” explained Samy-Jane Tremblay, president of the Quebec Student Union and co-organizer of this national event.
“If we look at inflation since 2003, we would have to make at least a 50% increase to allow them to have a living wage,” she says. Due to a lack of funding, some students will abandon their studies, others will reorient themselves towards something else, still others will decide to pursue their research elsewhere, because in countries like the United States and European countries, the funding is much higher and more attractive than in Canada. »
In Montreal, the demonstration started around 6:30 p.m., with a procession of at least 200 graduate students and professors from the universities of Montreal, McGill and Concordia, UQAM, UQAR as well as the Institut National Institute for Scientific Research (INRS).
Fanny, a French student in her third year of doctorate at INRS, had to change apartments due to a lack of financial resources. In addition to the 40 to 60 hours a week she devotes to her research, she is forced to work to support herself. “I had to take a job in catering on Thursdays, Fridays and weekends to survive,” she says.
But such a schedule “leads to exhaustion and future academic failure, because you have to publish a lot to succeed in research,” adds Adeline, a doctoral student at INRS.
“We are expected to work between 40 and 50 hours a week and often on weekends. We are paid below the precarious threshold, and [avec cette bourse famélique], we have to pay our school fees. This jeopardizes our psychological and even physical health,” points out Mathilde, president of the INRS student federation.
Marie, a master’s student at UQAR, holds three different jobs and works 35 hours a week, in addition to the 40 hours she devotes to writing her dissertation. “Even if the rents are cheaper in Rimouski, we need a car. However, with gas and insurance costs, it is as expensive as in Montreal,” she says.
Robin, a doctoral student at the Institute for Research in Immunology and Cancer (IRIC), denounces the precarious situation in which graduate students find themselves, whose salary is often just over $20,000 a year.
“We have a big disadvantage compared to those who are on the labor market, because, for example, we do not contribute to retirement. When we finish our doctorate, we will be almost 30 years old and we will not have started contributing for our future yet,” adds Régina, also a doctoral student at IRIC.
Trang Hoang, a professor at IRIC, also reminds us that it is the students who do the research in the laboratories. “The future of our society is at stake,” she says.
Earlier, in Ottawa, between 150 and 200 demonstrators had joined parliament, where students, Senator Stan Kutcher, as well as MPs Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, of the Bloc Québécois, and Richard Cannings, of the New Democratic Party, took the floor.
“20 years ago, the minimum wage was $7.30 an hour in Quebec. Today 1er May 2023, it was increased to $15.25. However, in 2023, research students who work full time receive much less than the minimum wage,” noted Samy-Jane Tremblay.
“The whole society will be penalized”
Bloc Québécois spokesperson for innovation and science, Mr. Blanchette-Joncas emphasized in an interview with the Duty that Canada is the only G7 country to have reduced its research investments as a percentage of GDP over the past 20 years, while in 2022 the United States has committed to doubling its research funding program research within five years.
“As our competitors invest more, we in Canada are stepping back by maintaining the status quo. Every day, every week, every year that passes, it will be more and more difficult to catch up, because the gap widens. Our talents will go elsewhere and will not return to pass on their knowledge. The whole of society will be penalized,” he points out.
Mr. Blanchette-Joncas tabled a motion in the House of Commons Standing Committee on Science and Research on the issue of the freeze on graduate scholarships since 2003 and its impact on the student population.
The Support Our Science movement organized this national event that mobilized members of the research community from coast to coast. In particular, last year he delivered a petition signed by 7,000 researchers and students to the Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, François-Philippe Champagne, and to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Bad target
“We had good stories telling us that we had been heard, that they understood the aberration. We had high hopes that the 2023 budget would include an adjustment to excellence scholarships, but nothing happened. What is incomprehensible is that these adjustments do not require huge sums compared to large research grant programs, such as the Apogee program which was announced last Friday,” says Louis Bernatchez, professor at Université Laval, which is the origin of Support Our Science.
“Major programs like Apogée target specialties in universities; they subsidize only a minority of the research teams. With these megaprograms, more traditional programs are abandoned, which reach many more researchers, which ensure the continuity of research already underway and which maintain a certain stability in the laboratories. These Apogee programs are phagocyting funds that should go for continuity. You have to maintain the right balance between the two types,” he says.
Ottawa’s latest budget has greatly disappointed students, says Samy-Jane Tremblay. “In the federal budget, there is only a box on research that mentions the investments that have been made by the government in recent years, but we realize that there is no investment that was made directly for the next generation of scientists. We very briefly mention the Bouchard report, which clearly states that we must invest significantly and massively in research funding. »