re: #607 Josephine

From that article:

“Government officials dispute that they have abandoned the independent funding agency. The government’s view is that it gave Genome Canada $100-million in 2007 and $140-million in 2008. Minister of Science and Technology Gary Goodyear insisted in Question Period yesterday that both of those sums were to be rolled out over five years and that the money should last the organization until 2013.”

Also from that article:

The government has invested in buildings and training bright people, he said, but “without operating money what are they going to do?”

If the funding taps don’t flow, he said, “We could start losing the best and the brightest, they’ll go do something else — or they may just go somewhere else.”

At the University of Toronto, senior scientist Corey Nislow and his wife Guri Giaever, who holds the Canada Research Chair in chemical genetics, wonder whether the apparent reluctance to provide strong research funding in Canada will drive them back to the United States.

In 2006, the couple left their California home and Stanford University lab for the U of T, frustrated by the lack of funding and support for research in the United States at the time. Now they fear the same scenario is playing out in their new home.

“Canada is not even keeping pace. It seems at first everyone thought that this (lack of funding to Genome Canada) must be a typo, but no, it seems like very bad news.”

Dr. Nislow said he and his wife have started to talk about whether they will return to the States. “After 21/2 years here we are in the sweet spot of our research … and the last thing I want to do is think about moving. But we have to be realistic.

Michael Hayden, a world-renowned geneticist at the University of British Columbia and the scientist dubbed “researcher of the year” by the CIHR, said the lack of new research funding here is “a missed opportunity for Canada.”

“Our future depends on innovation and knowledge creation,” he said. “Relatively small measures, including significantly increasing the budgets of our national granting councils and Genome Canada, together with moves to stimulate investment, such as tax incentives, could transform new discoveries into products and services — which would create sustainable knowledge-based jobs for the future.

“The USA , the UK and EU are already on this path and we will need an urgent plan not evident in this budget to remain competitive.”

Liberal MP Marc Garneau said the government knows “that small amount of money [pledged in previous years] is already fully committed and has been for some time. Genome Canada’s world-leading research programs are in jeopardy and thousands of jobs will be lost if the Conservatives fail to fund them.”

“[The government’s money] doesn’t keep pace with future funding,” Dr. Godbout said. “We cannot even ask someone to even start writing a grant proposal if we don’t have the money in the bank.”

One project now in doubt, for example, is the so-called Regulome Consortium, a massive international effort to map the genetic circuitry of stem cells. Canada was to lead the $84-million venture, which involves 64 investigators in 12 countries and is considered crucial to programming stem cells for future treatments.

“I’m hoping there will be an outcry from the Canadian public about the lack of new research funds.

“It shows a lack of understanding in the value of research.”