Science and Politics in Canada 9780773592643

Table of contents :
Cover
Title
Copyright
Dedication
Contents
Preface
Introduction
1. National Research Council: Centre of Conflict
2. Bureaucracy's Views of the Science Secretariat and Science Council
3. Science Secretariat and Science Council: Structure and Personnel
4. Politics of "Big Science": The ING Affair
5. The Political System of the Scientific Community
6. Science and Politicians
7. The Nature and Meaning of Science Policy
8. Science and Politics and the Nature of Decision-Making
Appendix A : A Political Assessment of the Senate Report on Science Policy
Appendix B: National Research Council and Medical Research Council Grants to Universities
Appendix C: Summary of Goals of Six Professional Associations
Appendix D: Federal Government Expenditures on Scientific Activities 1958-59 to 1970-71
Index

Citation preview

Science and Politics in Canada

Science and Politics in Canada G. Bruce Doern

1972 McGill—Queen's University Press Montreal and London

© McGill-Queen's University Press 1972 International Standard Book Number: 0-7735-0101-8 Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 79-180255 Legal Deposit 1st quarter 1972

Designed by Peter Maher Printed in Canada by The Bryant Press Limited, Toronto

This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Social Science Research Council of Canada, using funds provided by the Canada Council.

with gratitude and affection to my parents, George and Christina Doern

Contents

Preface / xi Introduction / 1 1.National Research Council: Centre of Conflict / 21 2. Bureaucracy's Views of the Science Secretariat and Science Council / 55 3. Science Secretariat and Science Council: Structure and Personnel / 77 4. Politics of "Big Science": The ING Affair / 101 5. The Political System of the Scientific Community / 123 6. Science and Politicians / 141 7. The Nature and Meaning of Science Policy / 167 8. Science and Politics and the Nature of Decision-Making / 191 Appendix A A Political Assessment of the Senate Report on Science Policy / 211 Appendix B National Research Council and Medical Research Council Grants to Universities / 225 Appendix C Summary of Goals of Six Professional Associations / 226 Appendix D Federal Government Expenditures on Scientific Activities 1958-59 to 1970-71 / 231 Index / 233

Tables

1 Major Scientific Governmental and Political Structures / 17 2 Major Nuclear Physics Research Facilities / 110 3 Parliament and Science Questions 1960-68 / 155

Preface

It is elementary to observe that science and scientists are becoming significant factors in the politics and governments of most developed societies. Science itself is held to be the developing ideology of the postindustrial state.* The object of this book is to analyse the changing relationships between science and politics in Canada. Three general objectives arise out of the mission implied in the title. The first and most substantive objective is to describe and evaluate the evolution of the structural machinery by which Canadian scientists, governments, and politicians have sought to establish contact with one another. The second objective is to examine the Canadian scientific community as a political system itself. How has it responded when its internal relationships, its relationships with the federal bureaucracy, and its relationships with the values and processes of politics have been altered during a very brief period of time? The third and broadest objective is to examine what science policymaking might tell us about the nature of decision-making in Canada. The parameters of much of the recent Canadian debate about science policy are not limited. They require an exploration of many issues related to the nature of past and present decision-making processes, and they beg many questions about Canada's future capabilities in making political decisions. The term "science policy" has come to involve two dimensions of policy — policies for science and science in policy. Policies for science include policies for the management and support of scientific education, manpower and resources, and policies for the allocation of * See John Kenneth Galbraith, The New Industrial State (New York: Signet Books, 1968), passim, and David E. Apter, ed., Ideology and Discontent (New York: The Free Press, 1964), pp. 15-43.

xii PREFACE

research funds. Science in policy involves the utilization of science as a means for solving problems in other substantive public policy areas. The two are always linked to a greater or lesser degree, and distinctions between the two are often arbitrary. While the book discusses both dimensions of science policy, the emphasis is on the science in policy. For example, considerable emphasis is given to the politics of "big science." In placing emphasis on the decision-making processes regarding big science and broad mission-oriented policy areas, I do not wish to suggest that big science will somehow totally replace the earlier predominant pattern of so-called "little science." The big science cases cited in the study are given emphasis precisely because they raise the broad issues which are related to the meeting of big and little science, and hence they illustrate the meeting of science and politics. The reader will quickly recognize that the book is pitched at a very general level. The study is not concerned with the detailed organization of granting agencies, for example. There are inevitable dangers and difficulties in approaching a topic in this way. The reader will observe that the text is distinguished as much as by what it leaves out as by what it includes. Much of the detail of many issues that are complex topics in themselves are, of necessity, only treated partially and briefly. Because the book is confined to the federal government level, the relevance of federal-provincial relations in science policy is treated only peripherally. The same applies to much of the detail on such issues as industrial research and development, university-government relations, and the role of the social sciences. The omission of this detail is due to the inevitable need to put limits on what one can reasonably cover in one book. The report and the proceedings of Senator Maurice Lamontagne's Senate Committee on Science Policy provide the most up-to-date information on much of the detail not covered here.f An assessment of the first volume of the Lamontagne report is presented; unfortunately, at the time Science and Politics in Canada went to press, the second volume had not been published. Reports and publications of the Science Council, the Science Secretariat, the National Research Council (NRC), and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) are also important sources of more specific information. The book is written with the hope that it will be read by both the specialist and lay reader and that it will contribute to an understanding of Canadian politics and of the Canadian scientific community. Such a 1 For a political assessment of the Senate Report on Science Policy see Appendix A.

PREFACE xiii

general study is long overdue and will hopefully complement (in content, at least) earlier general studies carried out in the last decade in the United States, Britain, and France.;i The general nature of the issues raised here is the same as outlined in these earlier comparative studies and I am, therefore, indebted to them. If there is originality in this book, it is because Canada presents a unique configuration of these issues. It is hoped also that the book will make a contribution to our understanding of the Canadian federal bureaucracy and, therefore, to the study of public administration. The study is very much concerned with behaviour in complex organizations, and none was as complex as the Canadian bureaucracy of the 1960s. Much work and research need to be carried out in the area of science and politics in a Canadian setting, and it is my expectation that this study may help generate some interest in that regard. The research for the book began with the preparation of a doctoral thesis. It is based primarily on my interviews with over one hundred scientists, politicians, and officials, carried out during the past three years. I wish to express my gratitude to many institutions and individuals for their invaluable assistance. The Canada Council, the Institute of Public Administration of Canada, Queen's University, and Carleton University provided financial assistance at various stages for my research. I also wish to thank the Commission on the Relations between Universities and Governments, and the following journals: Canadian Public Administration, Minerva, Journal of Canadian Studies, and Science Forum for permission to incorporate parts of articles originally prepared for them. These appear in chapters 1, 4, 7 and appendix B, and chapter 8, respectively. I am especially indebted to Professor J. W. Grove of the Department of Political Studies, Queen's University, first for whetting my intellectual appetite for the entire field of science, government and politics, and secondly, for his counsel and helpful criticisms of the early "thesis" stage of this study. Three of my friends and colleagues, Vincent S. Wilson, Peter C. Aucoin, and Richard Phidd have also offered valuable suggestions and provided much intellectual stimulation through our many conversations on our respective areas of interest, all of which are closely related to the general topic of science and $ Four works in particular serve as models: Don K. Price, The Scientific Estate (Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press, 1965); Michael D. Reagan, Science and the Federal Patron (New York: Oxford University Press, 1969); Robert Gilpin, France in the Age of the Scientific State (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1968); and Norman J. Vig, Science and Technology in British Politics (London: Pergamon Press, 1968).

xiv PREFACE

politics in Canada. Needless to say, none of these individuals is responsible for the weaknesses and shortcomings of this book. That responsibility is entirely my own. Mrs. Pat Dalgetty cheerfully and diligently assisted in the typing of the manuscript as did Mrs. Flo Barclay and Mrs. Pat Moore of the School of Public Administration at Carleton University. Finally, to my wife, Joan, and daughters, Kristin and Shannon, I owe a special kind of gratitude. They are much more a part of this enterprise than they will ever know.

Introduction

As recently as five years ago, someone undertaking to write a book about politics and science in Canada would have had to launch a rather elaborate explanation of why such a study was needed. The early months of the 1970s have made elaborate justifications unnecessary. Public controversy over "the pill," cyclamates, environmental pollution, and pesticides has propelled the past, present, and future consequences of science and technology into the political realm to an unprecedented extent. The book does not examine these specific controversies, but it does hope to shed some light on the wider issues generated by the meeting of science and politics in Canada, especially as they have emerged in the latter half of the 1960s. It is important, at the outset, to make a distinction between science and "government" and science and "politics." While relations between science and government in Canada have been developed over the past century, especially regarding the creation and subsequent development of the National Research Council (NRC), the relationships between science and politics are primarily of recent (1960s) vintage. The science and government relationships were essentially those that developed between scientists and the federal bureaucracy via a growing network of granting agencies and governmental laboratories. Wider "political" processes were involved only marginally and intermittently. The science and politics relationships which are central to the present Canadian debate are clearly of a different order of magnitude. They involve the determination of broad social priorities and affect the central structures of policy-making. They influence the Canadian scientific community in such a way that the latter must now act politically, as a group, rather than as atomized individuals, merely receiving grants from the bureaucratic patron. Finally, they include the broad problem of communication among scientist experts, generalist politicians, and the scientifically uneducated general public.

2 INTRODUCTION

Any account of the changing relationships between science and polltics in Canada must be preceded by an awareness of the basic structures which have been created. Table 1 (p. 17) places most of the major governmental and political developments and events in chronological order. Several of these deserve brief descriptive comment because they will serve as the major background information for the more analytical chapters that follow. The eight developments and structures include: the creation and evolution of the NRC; the Glassco Commission recommendations; the Mackenzie report; the 1964 creation of the Science Secretariat; the 1966 creation of the Science Council of Canada; the Senate of Canada Special Committee on Science Policy; the cancellation of the Queen Elizabeth II Telescope (QEII) and the Intense Neutron Generator (ING) projects; and the 1969 reorganization of the Science Council and Science Secretariat.

Creation and Evolution of NRC

The National Research Council was created by statute in 1917 as a response to the wartime needs for rationalizing Canada's scientific effort.1 It was initially only an "honorary advisory council" to the Privy Council Committee on Scientific and Industrial Research (a cabinet committee) charged with advising the government on its science programs, especially those related to industrial research. As table 1 indicates, the federal government was already engaged in scientific activity, primarily through the Geological Survey of Canada, the Dominion Experimental Farms, and the Biological Board. The Geological Survey had been created in 1842 and eventually became involved in the location of mineral, forest, and water resources, including aspects of the biological sciences. Then, in 1890, the survey became a part of the Ministry of the Interior. Some of its functions were later transferred to the Mines branch, which was created as a separate organization in the Ministry of the Interior in 1907. The system of Dominion Experimental Farms was launched in 1886 to help improve agricultural methods. In addition to the Experimental Farms, the Department of Agriculture had established several research institutes, stations, and laboratories by the time the NRC was created. The Biological Board was created in 1912 and eventually became the present Fisheries Research Board (FRB). It operated several marine biological stations. 1. See M. Thistle, The Inner Ring (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1965), for an account of the early role of NRC.

INTRODUCTION 3

In addition to these "mission-oriented" scientific activities, the government had experimented with a coordinative mechanism called the Canadian Conservation Commission. Created in 1909, the commission was the first attempt to draw the resources of the scientific community to the aid of government policy. The thirty-two-member, part-time advisory commission was established to advise the government on the conservation and utilization of natural resources in Canada. Although it succeeded in promoting the taking of an inventory of forestry resources in Nova Scotia and British Columbia, it gradually fell into disuse and was dismantled in 1921.2 The NRC was composed primarily of scientists and, as an organization of scientists inserted into a governmental structure composed essentially of nonscientists, it spent a significant part of its early history establishing itself in the internal "political system" of the Canadian bureaucracy. Its terms of reference also brought it into jurisdictional conflict with other departments such as the Department of Agriculture, the Department of the Interior, and Iater the Department of Mines, whose basic objective related to the primary resource fields. For much of the 1920s and early 1930s, the NRC experienced considerable difficulty in securing its independence from successive ministers of Trade and Commerce, who viewed science, especially in this prolonged period of austerity and then depression, with a frugal eye. During this period the NRC was able to exert sufficient influence to build up a program of research support for university research. Through its network of associate committees, it assisted a number of industrial research projects in the primary resources field. Its internal power over politicians or even over other scientists in the existing agencies of the federal government was, however, minimal. From 1932 until 1939 the NRC had begun to build up its own laboratories, a process that tended to displace its role as adviser. With the outbreak of the war the role and influence of scientists in Canada assumed considerable importance. The size of the scientific establishment in NRC increased from 300 in 1939 to 700 in 1945, and NRC clearly became the primary government science agency.$

2. For accounts of the pre-NRC scientific organizations see F. J. Alcock, A Century in the History of the Geological Survey (Ottawa: King's Printer, 1947); Canada, Department of Agriculture, Canada Agriculture, The First Hundred Years (Ottawa: Queen's Printer, 1967); H. B. Hachey, "History of the Fisheries Research Board of Canada," (Ottawa: Fisheries Research Board, Manuscript Report Series, 1965); and D. W. Thompson, Men and Meridians, 2 vols., (Ottawa: Queen's Printer, 1967). 3. National Research Council, Annual Report, 1945-46 (Ottawa: King's Printer, 1946), p. 10.

4 INTRODUCTION

Two aspects of the wartime experience are especially noteworthy. First, the NRC's role as science adviser became preeminent, partly because of the compulsions of war, but also because of the relationship that developed between NRC's president, Dr. C. J. Mackenzie, and the Minister of Trade and Commerce, the Honourable C. D. Howe. Both were engineers and they were, in addition, close personal friends. This very personalized and compact scientist-politician relationship worked quite well, even though it was similar to the kind of scientistpolitician relationship that so alarmed C. P. Snow when he assessed the relationship between Prime Minister Winston Churchill and his wartime science adviser, Dr. Lindemann.4 While Snow felt advisers like Lindemann were close to being scientific "overlords," there is little evidence to indicate that Mackenzie had such power and access even in wartime. Indeed, many others claim that Lord Snow's parable about scientist "overlords" was not accurate in the British case either.' It will be clear from the subsequent analysis in this book that the chances of any scientist assuming an "overlord" posture in Canada are remote, because of both the complexities of the bureaucratic and political relationships and the political ambivalence of scientists. The second aspect of the war experience is that the governmental science sector, especially NRC, became used to initiating scientific programs suggested more and more frequently by its own scientists rather than by scientists or industrialists in the outside community. This was perfectly justified in the wartime environment of secrecy and urgency. However, these wartime habits became difficult to change in the postwar environment. The government science sector tended to make relatively less real use of the advisory committees and other machinery which they had consciously created in the earlier periods to link themselves with their scientist colleagues in the nongovernmental science community. Vis-à-vis their scientist colleagues outside the government, government scientists, especially at NRC, enjoyed a position of great power and status. By 1961 the federal government's expenditures on scientific activity had exceeded $220 million, almost a sevenfold increase over the 1945 level. There had been a smaller proportionate increase in employment of professional scientific and supporting personnel, but by 1961 this 4. C. P. Snow, Science and Government (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1961). 5.For critical evaluations of Snow's parable, see Sandford A. Lakoff, "The Tizard Record," Bulletin of The Atomic Scientists 22, no. 1 (January 1966): 39-41; R. V. Jones, "Scientists and Statesman: The Example of Henry Tizard," Minerva 4, no. 3 (Autumn 1966): 202-13; Lord Birkenhead, The Professor and The Prime Minister (Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 1962); and Ronald W. Clark, Tizard (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1965).

INTRODUCTION 5

sector of the government service had grown to include almost eighteen thousand people. The number of agencies and departments with significant research missions and roles had expanded beyond the earlier triumvirate of Agriculture, Mines and Technical Surveys, and the National Research Council, and now included Forestry, Fisheries, Northern Affairs and National Resources, National Health and Welfare, Transport, and Veterans Affairs. In addition, NRC had spawned such major science agencies as the Defence Research Board, Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL), and the Medical Research Council (MRC).°

The Glassco Commission Recommendations

The Royal Commission on Government Organization (the Glassco Commission), in the course of its mammoth study of the federal bureaucracy, published a report in 1963 on the organization of scientific research and development. The commission is important both for what it said and recommended, and for the linkage between the scientific personnel in the study group that prepared its report and the subsequent personnel of the Science Secretariat. While the commission made many detailed recommendations concerning particular departments and areas of science, it made two major points relevant to the general issues of science and politics. The first dealt with the machinery of science policy, and the second dealt with the apportionment of scientific work in Canada between the governmental, industrial, and academic sectors of the scientific community. The commission was very critical of the then existing science policy machinery. Commenting on the performance of the Privy Council Committee on Scientific and Industrial Research and the Advisory Panel for Scientific Policy (an interdepartmental committee of deputy ministers created in 1949), the Glassco Commission charged: The system has failed to function as intended. The Privy Council Committee has met infrequently and between 1950 and 1958 was not called together at all. The National Research Council has turned aside from its original duty of advising on broad national policy and has concentrated its efforts, albeit with conspicuous success, on the support of research and scholarships on the universities and, in a general way, on its own laboratories and establishments and the fields of science in which they 6. Canada, Royal Commission on Government Organization, vol. 4, Report no. 23, Scientific Research and Development (Ottawa: Queen's Printer, 1963), pp. 195-97.

6 INTRODUCTION operate. The Advisory Panel met formally fourteen times in its first ten years of existence and has since convened only infrequently.? As a result, the commission felt that the decisions about science tended to fall by default on the Treasury Board and its staff, a group which had minimal technical competence. Decisions also tended to be determined by ministers who wielded the greatest power. And while the commission gave an approving pat on the back to the informal scientist "committee" and "colleague" network created by NRC, it felt that this system was not nearly a sufficient compensation for the failure of the central machinery. To rationalize the input of science and scientists into governmental decision-making, the Glassco Commission recommended that a "central scientific bureau" be created to act as a science secretariat to the cabinet. It also recommended that a National Scientific Advisory Council be created, a structure which was to be broadly representative of the scientific disciplines and of the academic, industrial, and governmental sectors. The central bureau would serve as staff support for the Advisory Council; the bureau's head officer would be the secretary of the council. In evolving its philosophy about the nature of the science policy machinery, the commission and its study group were heavily influenced by the earlier creation of central advisory machinery in the United States and the United Kingdom. Some members of the commission and the study group had visited both countries. The second major point which the Glassco Commission made centred on the relative balance in the total Canadian research effort between the major sectors of performance, the government, the universities, and industry. The commission felt that, compared to several other advanced countries, a disproportionately large part of Canada's research was performed in government and a correspondingly small part in the industrial sector. Industry in Canada in 1959 performed 39 percent of the total, compared with 58 percent and 78 percent in the United Kingdom and the United States respectively.8 While the commission conceded the plausibility of the arguments that this "imbalance" was due to Canada's "branch-plant," foreignowned economy, or to the armed forces' "lack of confidence" in Canadian science generally, it felt that the most important cause was the "nature of the evolution of the government's own programs and the attitudes and motivation of its senior scientific personnel." The commission had noted that one of the original purposes of public support of research was to encourage Canadian industry. It observed that "from 7.Ibid., p. 220. 8.Ibid., p. 199.

INTRODUCTION 7

being a primary goal this has, over the years, been relegated to being little more than a minor distraction — a desirable but rather difficult task, and certainly of less pressing urgency than other items on the program."° It therefore laid great stress on the need for the government science sector to allow and encourage industry to perform a greater relative role in research and development. The organizational and political causes of this change in goals will be the subject of chapter 1. The Glassco Commission is also important because of the composition of its study group and advisory committee, and because of the subsequent linkage between the personnel in these groups and the personnel who later assumed positions in the Science Secretariat created in 1964. Of the thirteen members who served on the project group, five were from the universities, five from industry, and three from government departments. And of the twelve who served on an advisory committee, six were from the universities, four from industry and two "others "10 The important point to be raised is that the relative weight, by sector of representatives, was decidedly different from that which characterized the NRC or other in-house advisory personnel up to that time.11 The nature of the representation is important, especially in the light of the subsequent views which the industrial and university science community had about the government science sector. The Glassco Commission study marked the first occasion where the existing scientific establishment in the government was challenged." The linkage in personnel between the Glassco study and the subsequently created Science Secretariat centres primarily on two scientists, Dr. J. R. Weir and Dr. J. R. Whitehead.'a Both became original 9. Ibid., pp. 231 and 230. (Emphasis added.) 10. Ibid., pp. 189-90. 11. See Chapter 1. 12. It is to be noted also that the entire Glassco Commission, headed by businessman J. Grant Glassco, had a basically business view of organization, a philosophy which pervaded much of their report. Members of the Glassco Commission staff have indicated to me that Glassco took a keener personal interest in the science sector of his report than perhaps any other single part. Indeed, Glassco drafted it. 13. For bibliographical sketches of Dr. Weir and Dr. Whitehead see the Senate of Canada, Proceedings of the Special Committee on Science Policy, 28th Parliament (Ottawa: Queen's Printer, 1969) no. 22 (January 30, 1969): 7-9. (Hereafter cited as Committee on Science Policy.) In reality a third scientist, Dr. Roger Gaudry, could be added to the list. He was a member of the Glassco Advisory Committee and later became deputy chairman of the Science Council of Canada. He is not, however, as direct a link because, both for the Glassco Advisory Committee and for the Science Council, he was much more a part-time participant than were Dr. Weir or Dr. Whitehead.

8 INTRODUCTION

senior personnel in the Science Secretariat, the former eventually becoming the secretariat's second director and the latter becoming the deputy director and principal science adviser. Weir's career in agricultural research was concentrated primarily in the university sector in Canada. Whitehead's career in physics and physical chemistry began in England. He then emigrated to Canada in 1951, and his career centred on a four-year stay at McGill University. He subsequently became director of research with RCA Victor Company, where he initiated and developed its Canadian research laboratories. The presence of ex-Glassco personnel at the senior level of the Science Secretariat clearly affected the way the secretariat saw its role, and influenced the way it was viewed by other government agencies and scientists.

The Mackenzie Report

The recommendations of the Glassco Commission on the organization of science were reviewed by the Bureau of Government Organization in the fall of 1963.14 As an additional part of this review Prime Minister Lester Pearson, working primarily through his chief policy adviser, Tom Kent, requested Dr. C. J. Mackenzie, a former president of NRC, to submit a personal report on the organization of science. The request was made in November, 1963, and Dr. Mackenzie submitted his report on January 28, 1964. Again, the Mackenzie report is important as an event, both for what it said and also because it was Dr. Mackenzie who said it. His substantive recommendations can be stated briefly. Prior to establishing any broad representative National Advisory Committee, he urged that a Central Scientific Bureau or Secretariat be immediately established in the Prime Minister's Office. Its task would be: to assemble, digest and analyze all information concerning the government's scientific and technological activities and their interrelation with university, private, industrial and similar provincial scientific establishments. This Bureau would have no executive authority but would provide 14. For an account of the way the total Glassco recommendations were handled within the federal bureaucracy see G. V. Tunnoch, "The Bureau of Government Organization Improvement by Order-in-Council, Committee, and Anomaly," Canadian Public Administration, no. 4 (December 1965): 55868.

INTRODUCTION 9

the basic information and studies on which policy can be determined by the appropriate authority. In my opinion the establishment should be kept as small as possible; at the start a chairman, two senior assistants and a small clerical and stenographic staff might be suff'icient." The second recommendation dealt with the proposal for a National Committee on Scientific Policy. Dr. Mackenzie agreed, in principle, with the Glassco Commission recommendation but stressed the importance of how this was to be done. He felt that before such a structure was introduced, the role of the NRC would have to be clarified. He therefore recommended that "the Chairman of the Committee of the Privy Council on Scientific and Industrial Research be requested to ask the President of the National Research Council to set up an ad hoc special committee"18 which would carry out such a review. Thus, while there was agreement between the Glassco and Mackenzie reports on the principle of the two major structures, there was a difference of view on the timing, in that Glassco implied that they be concurrently established while Mackenzie said that the Science Secretariat should precede the creation of an advisory committee. Dr. Mackenzie's concern about the relationship to NRC was attributable, to a considerable extent, to his disagreement with the implication in the Glassco report that the need for a new advisory body arose because the NRC had "turned away" from its original statutory obligations, a view which he felt was not "based on a proper interpretation of historical events."" The Mackenzie report was also important because of the stress it gave to the importance of getting the right people to assume the key positions in the secretariat. If the appropriate person were appointed as director and the staff kept small and compact, the Science Secretariat or Bureau could be effective. This was much more important in Dr. Mackenzie's view than organization charts or formal structures. This original conception of the nature of the proposed secretariat and council will be discussed later; however, the important point about this philosophy is that it is derived from Dr. Mackenzie's own experience, especially his experience as the wartime science policy adviser to C. D. Howe. This was a very personalized and compact relationship, 15.C. J. Mackenzie, Report to Prime Minister on Government Science (Ottawa: Privy Council Office, January 1964). 16.Ibid., p. 2. 17.Ibid., p. 3.

10 INTRODUCTION and although Dr. Mackenzie was aware of the fact that the wartime environment made this kind of affiliation difficult to reproduce in a peacetime situation, his report revealed the extent to which he hoped to reproduce, as much as possible, such an advisory relationship. He was also persuaded in his philosophy by the manner in which a small band of economists had been introduced into the central structure of the federal government in the war and postwar period. His recommendations were based on the need to introduce a compact body of scientific expertise, in a manner similar to the coming of the economists.

Creation of the Science Secretariat On April 30, 1964, the Pearson government announced the decision to create a Science Secretariat to be established as part of the Privy Council Office. The decision followed the two recommendations of the Mackenzie report: The first recommendation which the government has now decided to adopt is that a Scientific Secretariat be established to assemble and analyze information about the government's scientific programs and their interrelation with other scientific activities throughout Canada. The organization ... will be a small fact-finding and analytical group serving in a staff capacity without executive authority.... It will, we believe, meet a long-felt need in providing day-to-day support in the work of the Privy Council Committee on Scientific and Industrial Research.18 The government also concurred in the suggestion that an immediate review of the relationship between the NRC and the proposed National Committee on Scientific Policy be carried out. The new secretariat would, therefore, be directed to assist the Privy Council Committee in conducting such a review. At the same time the government announced the appointment of an engineer, Dr. Frank A. Forward, head of the Department of Metallurgy at the University of British Columbia, as the first director of the Science Secretariat. For all intents and purposes Dr. Forward was the secretariat from May, 1964, until May, 1965, and only then were three deputy directors and an executive secretary added to the professional staff. The 1965-66 period was basically devoted to the launching of several special studies, to the study of science policy 18. House of Commons, Debates, vol. 3, 1964, p. 2752.

INTRODUCTION 11

activities in other countries, and to the preparation of legislation that eventually became the 1966 Science Council of Canada Act.1e

Creation of the Science Council of Canada

An act to provide for the establishment of a Science Council of Canada was introduced to the House of Commons on March 17, 1966, and received assent on May 12, 1966. The act provided for a council composed of twenty-five members appointed for three-year terms, chosen from among "persons having a specialized interest in science or technology." In addition, four associate members were to be selected from among employees of federal government departments or agencies.20 In introducing the bill, the Honourable C. M. Drury cited the earlier Glassco and Mackenzie reports and the existence of similar science advisory machinery in other countries. He went on to state that the purpose of the Science Council would be primarily: To define and determine feasible long term objectives for science in Canada, to suggest appropriate paths for reaching them and to consider the responsibilities of the various segments of the industrial, academic and government communities in this field. The Council will be less concerned with day-to-day problems than with developing principles and evolving a philosophy upon which future courses can be charted.... The Council will be advisory only and will have no direct authority over expenditures or budgets of any government department or agency.21

More specifically, the act listed a series of duties strikingly similar to those first given the National Research Council in 1916 and 1917. The council was to make recommendations concerning the following items: a) the adequacy of the scientific and technological research and development being carried on in Canada; b) the priorities that should be assigned in Canada to specific areas of scientific and technological research; c) the effective development and utilization of scientific and technological manpower in Canada; 19.Senate of Canada, Committee on Science Policy, no. 22 (1969) : 3357-58. 20. Science Council of Canada, First Annual Report, 1966-67 (Ottawa: Queen's Printer, June, 1967), p. 25. 21. House of Commons, Debates, vol. 3, 1966, p. 2849.

12 INTRODUCTION d) long term planning for scientific and technological research and development in Canada; e) the factors involved in Canada's participation in international scientific or technological affairs; f) the responsibilities of departments and agencies of the Government of Canada, in relation to those of universities, private companies and other organizations, in furthering science and technology in Canada; g) the statistical and other information on scientific and technological research and development that should be obtained in order to provide a proper basis for the formulation of government policy in relation to science and technology in Canada; and h) the best means of developing and maintaining cooperation and the exchange of information between the Council and other public or private organizations concerned with the scientific, technological, economic or social aspects of life in Canada.22 The chairman of the council would not be a full-time officer, nor would the council itself have any staff. The government proposed that the Science Secretariat in the Privy Council Office would have the responsibility for assembling and analysing information and preparing briefs and other studies for consideration by the council. The question of staff support was later to become an important factor in the eventual separation of the Science Secretariat from the Science Council. A related issue concerning the eventual association between the Science Secretariat and the Science Council centred on the "openness" of the latter's role. That is, the work of the Science Council was to be "analogous to that of the Economic Council of Canada," including an emphasis on making the Science Council's reports available to the public.28 This emphasis on the council's mandate to stimulate a public debate later came into conflict with the Science Secretariat's role as a confidential adviser within the Privy Council Office. On May 27, 1966, Prime Minister Pearson announced the appointment of Dr. O. M. Solandt, chancellor of the University of Toronto, as chairman of the Science Council, and Dr. Roger Gaudry, rector of the University of Montreal, as vice-chairman of the council. The remaining twenty-three members and four associate members were named early in June, 1966, and the council's first meeting was held on July 5, 1966.24 Obviously, the establishment of an organization with such a wide advisory mandate meant that the NBC's old statutory advisory role 22.Science Council of Canada, First Annual Report, p. 26. 23. House of Commons, Debates, vol. 4, 1966, p. 4348. 24.Science Council of Canada, First Annual Report, p. 22.

INTRODUCTION 13

had to be changed. This was formally accomplished, but the informal resolution of the advisory roles is not yet clear. Even though the primary statutory role as adviser to the government rests with the Science Council, the NRC still feels that an overall advisory role was still implicit for it. And although this particular objective of the NRC had not been accomplished, the NRC continued to argue that it had an obligation to advise simply because of the breadth and importance of its continuing role as a granting body and as a research organization. Chapters 2 and 7 will discuss the nature of the advisory roles of the Science Secretariat and the Science Council in greater detail. Other aspects of the work of the Science Council will be analysed in succeeding chapters. The major point to establish here, in addition to that of describing the broad composition and objectives of the council, is the fact that there was a two-year period between the creation of the secretariat and the council, an interlude that had a significant impact on the work of both bodies.

Senate of Canada Special Committee on Science Policy

The most searching opportunity for politicians and scientists in Canada to express their views about science appeared when the Senate of Canada created a Special Committee on Science Policy in November, 1967.26 The creation of the committee was primarily the work of Senator Maurice Lamontagne, a former minister in the Pearson government. Lamontagne was an economist, a former assistant deputy minister in the federal bureaucracy, and an economic adviser to Lester B. Pearson when Pearson was leader of the Opposition. As a member of the Pearson cabinet, he was involved, among other things, in the establishing of the Economic Council of Canada, a body which served in part as a model for the aspirations and role of the Science Council.26 Senator Lamontagne's concern about science policy and the need to conduct a public investigation was prompted by at least two factors. As a newly appointed senator he was concerned about the part that the often criticized Senate might play in the policy process. More importantly, he was also professionally and politically interested in the problems of the postindustrial technological society. His political interest was clearly linked to his own interest in becoming Canada's 25. Senate of Canada, Proceedings of the Special Committee on Science Policy, Phase 1 (Ottawa: Queen's Printer, 1968), p. vii. 26. Ibid., p. 292.

14 INTRODUCTION

Minister of Science Policy. Following a speech by Senator Lamontagne in June, 1967, the Senate finally decided to undertake the investigation that he had urged. While the precise political impact of the Senate Committee is difficult to determine, one result is very clear. It has produced by far the most critical cross-examination of the Canadian scientific community, especially the governmental sector.

Cancellation of the QEII Telescope and I NG

While the Science Council was beginning its work and the Senate Committee was holding its hearings in 1968, the federal government announced two decisions cancelling two multimillion dollar research projects. The decision-making processes which surrounded the two projects are of considerable significance because they involved groups of scientists in the governmental, academic, and industrial sectors in open political conflict. The two decisions, when taken together, became the centre of controversy and generated considerable gloom in some quarters about the efficacy of Canada's science policy machinery. The Queen Elizabeth II Telescope (QEII) was a multimillion dollar project proposed by the Department of Mines and Technical Surveys (now Energy, Mines and Resources) . The decision to build the telescope was first announced in October, 1964, to commemorate the visit of Queen Elizabeth to Canada, and it was to be built on Mount Kobau in British Columbia with the observatory headquarters to be established at the University of British Columbia. Because of a concern for the increasing cost of the project, the federal government ordered a re-evaluation of it in the fall of 1967. Following a study by a Science Secretariat working group in the summer of 1968, the government announced its cancellation on August 29, 1968.21 The Intense Neutron Generator (ING) project was first formally proposed by Atomic Energy of Canada in 1966. It arose out of an internal review at Atomic Energy's Chalk River laboratories, a review which sought to determine plans for Chalk River's future research role. The ING project was selected out of several and as a single project it was by far the most costly ever proposed in Canada. The estimated cost of ING was one hundred and fifty million dollars for construction and about twenty-one million dollars to operate after 27. Department of Energy, Mines and Resources, Press Release (mimeo), August 29, 1968. See also Globe and Mail, August 30, 1968.

INTRODUCTION 15

construction. The proposal was referred to the Science Council for an evaluation in the fall of 1966, just as the council was beginning its work. While the council was extremely reluctant to review a single project in isolation, without having reference to competing priority areas, it did agree to study this one. In March, 1967, it gave its cautious approval. Eighteen months later, in September, 1968, the Trudeau government announced the cancellation of the ING.28 Both projects involved the science policy machinery at a stage when it was in its relative infancy; both created somewhat strained relationships between the government scientific bodies which had proposed them and the rapidly expanding academic and industrial science sectors; and both involved decisions by politicians in the context of some implicit or explicit set of priorities.

Reorganization of the Science Council and Science Secretariat

The Science Secretariat, from 1966 on, served as the staff support for the Science Council. In the fall of 1968 the government ended the relationship "in order to give the Science Council more freedom and flexibility and in order to permit the Science Secretariat to concentrate more fully on its duties within the government."24 The Science Council was subsequently made a crown corporation and, therefore, could hire its own staff. In addition, a new director of the Science Secretariat, Dr. R. J. Uffen, was appointed and given the additional title of Principal Science Adviser to the Cabinet. He and the secretariat were to support a fully operational Cabinet Committee on Science and Technology. The need for the separation had become evident to those both inside and outside the government. The Science Secretariat found that the activity of serving the Science Council in the 1966-68 period took up the major portion of its resources, both manpower and financial. And as we have observed, there was a basic conflict between the Science Council's role as a public forum for science policy debate and the Science Secretariat's role as a confidential adviser to the cabinet. The early appearances of the Science Secretariat before the Senate of Canada Special Committee on Science Policy were marked by a 28. See Science Council of Canada, Report no. 2, The Proposal for an Intense Neutron Generator (Ottawa: Queen's Printer, December, 1967), and Office of the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources, Press Release, September 20, 1968. 29. Senate of Canada, Committee on Science Policy, no. 22 (1969) : 3387.

16 INTRODUCTION

vigorous and telling examination of the secretariat's ambivalent duties 8° The present advisory machinery is, therefore, in theory, a dual system. The Science Council of Canada, with its own staff, is designed to be the long-range adviser and a main link with the outside nongovernmental scientific community. The Science Secretariat is to concentrate on its internal role as confidential adviser to the cabinet, to such cabinet committees as the Committee on Scientific and Industrial Research, and to the Treasury Board. Creation of SCITEC

The most recent development that perhaps more than any other event reflects the changing relationship between science and politics was the establishment in 1970 of a new general association of scientists called the Association of the Scientific, Technological and Engineering Community of Canada (SCITEC). As will be seen in chapter 5, SCITEC represented a response by the scientific community to a number of events and pressures, which ranged from a concern about the social responsibility of science to a desire to protect the scientific community from the new coordinative bodies like the Science Council. These developments constitute some of the basic background to the relationships between science and government, and science and politics in Canada. The remaining chapters will explore and analyse the forces and values that have influenced the present Canadian debate about science and politics. 30. See especially Senate of Canada, Proceedings of the Special Committee on Science Policy, Phase 1, pp. 127-50.

Table 1. Major Scientific Governmental and Political Structures, 1842-1970 GOVERNMENTAL

1842 1883 1886 1909 1912

1917

GOVERNMENTALPOLITICAL

POLITICAL

Geological Survey Royal Society of Canada Dominion Experimental Farms Commission on Conservation Biological Board (later Fisheries Research Board) National Research Council (NRC)

Basic pre-NRC science infrastructure Early emphasis on NRC's coordination and granting roles and on industrial research

Privy Council Committee (Cabinet) on Scientific and Industrial Research 1919

Parliamentary Committee on Research (Cronyn Committee) Association CanadienneFrancaise pour l'Avancement des Sciences (ACFAS)

1923

1932 1939-45

COMMENTS

NRC laboratories opened Rapid expansion of NRC laboratories

Table 1 (continued) GOVERNMENTAL

1947

1949

GOVERNMENTALPOLITICAL

Defence Research Board (DRB) created to take over defence research from NRC Advisory Panel on Scientific and Industrial Research (deputy minister-level group )

1950 1952

Atomic Energy of Canada Limited created to take over NRC's atomic energy program

1960

1960-61

Brief attempts to reestablish central coordinative role Parliamentary Committee on NRC

Canada Council (later to become major support arm of the social sciences) Cancellation of ARROW supersonic aircraft

1959 Medical Research Council created to take over NRC's granting role in support of medical research

COMMENTS

Parliamentary Committee on Research

1956 1957

POLITICAL

Parliamentary Committee on Research

1950s was a period of reduced coordinative role and relatively greater emphasis was given by NRC to its granting and intramural research than to industrial research

Table I (continued) GOVERNMENTAL

1962-63

Glassco Commission report

1964

Mackenzie report Science Secretariat created as part of Privy Council Office

1966

GOVERNMENTALPOLITICAL

POLITICAL

Critical of NRC's coordinalive role and its performance in industrial research

Science Council of Canada (to be supported by Science Secretariat)

1967-70

Senate Special Committee on Science Policy (Lamontagne Committee) First issue of new science policy journal Science Forum

1968 Cancellation of Queen Elizabeth II Telescope and Intense Neutron Generator 1968-69 1969 1970

COMMENTS

Period of growing interrelationships between science and wider political processes

Separation of Science Secretariat from the Science Council Cabinet Committee on Science and Technology SCITEC, a national organization of scientists, engineers, and technologists

7 National Research Council: Centre of Conflict

The National Research Council has been under attack in recent years. It has been divested of its former role of general science policy adviser by the creation of the Science Council and Science Secretariat.' It has been recently proposed that it be divested of its laboratories so that it might concentrate on its role as a granting agency.2 The critical attention paid to the NRC in the contemporary period is a far cry from its earlier history, when it was either ignored, unabashedly praised, or simply taken for granted. This chapter is not concerned with the present debate about the future shape and role of NRC; rather, it deals with an analysis of the transformation of the NRC as a complex organization. A full understanding of the present Canadian debate about "science policies" and science and politics can only be developed in the context of such an analysis. The main thrust of the criticism of the NRC is that it has been inflicted with a familiar organizational illness, goal displacement.$ The task of this chapter is to establish the nature of the goal displacement and to explain its cause. As noted in the introduction, the NRC's role 1.See my "Scientists and Science Policy Machinery," in W. D. K. Kernaghan, ed., Bureaucracy in Canadian Government (Toronto: Methuen, 1969). 2. John B. Macdonald et al., The Role of the Federal Government in Support of Research in Canadian Universities, Special Study no. 7, prepared for the Science Council of Canada and the Canada Council (Ottawa: Queen's Printer, 1969). 3. The tendency of an organization to displace its goals is well established in the literature on the sociology of organizations, especially those with very wide and diffuse goals such as NRC. See, for example, W. Keith Warner and A. E. Havens, "Goal Displacement and the Intangibility of Organizational Goals," Administrative Science Quarterly 12, no. 4 (March 1968): 539-55.

22 CHAPTER ONE

centred initially on three missions: to support and promote industrial research, to coordinate the federal government's scientific activities, and to aid the development of scientists by supporting their research activities. A displacement of goals, it is argued, has taken place because NRC placed an increasingly heavy emphasis on the last of these goals relative to the first two. Critics have stressed that their criticism is based on the relative shift in objectives. NRC's industrial research and coordinative roles have been fulfilled in part, but not to a sufficient degree to meet the needs which were already apparent in the late 1950s. An explanation of the causes of goal displacement can be attempted only by relating the way the NRC interacted with its environment. That environment included the Canadian federal bureaucracy, the Canadian political system, and the NRC's major clientele groups, scientists in Canadian universities and Canadian industry. The nature and cause of goal displacement, the changing pattern of relationships between the NRC and its environment, and the impact these relationships have had on the NRC as an organization are the subjects of this chapter. Parts of the following analysis will involve brief excursions into the early history of the NRC. It was during this period that many of the critical relationships, especially with the bureaucracy, were established. In total, however, the analysis covers the evolution of the NRC as an organization to the late 1960s, when the period of criticism reached its most vocal stage.

NRC in the Canadian Bureaucracy

The NRC is an organization whose structure became more and more complex in the period under discussion. What made it different was that it was an organization composed of scientists who were inserted into an overall governmental and organizational structure composed overwhelmingly of nonscientists. The activities of the NRC, both in this period and in its subsequent history, can only be understood if it itself is treated and examined as an organism or as a social system. This implies that a significant proportion of its time, and of its physical and human resources, had to be expended to maintain and adapt the boundaries of the organization and to integrate and insure its long-run survival as an organization, in addition to pursuing prescribed goals. Because its objectives were concerned primarily with science, and because it was composed of scientists, it is to be anticipated that certain of the norms and values of science would be prevalent in

NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL 23

NRC's organizational life. The tendency most clearly established in the literature on the behaviour of scientists in organizations is their tendency to covet organizational freedom. They are clearly imbued with an antibureaucratic ethos in that they strongly prefer nonhierarchical forms of organization.4 The rest of the Canadian federal bureaucracy was hierarchically organized, and hence the relationship between it and the NRC would likely involve considerable strain. This was reflected in the NRC's relationships with the other government departments that had a science mission, with the Civil Service Commission, and with the Treasury Board. The Problems of Interagency Adjustment At the time of its creation the NRC was not the first government agency

to be involved in scientific and technical activities in the federal government. As a consequence it devoted a considerable part of its early life as an organization stabilizing its relationship with the existing departments. The Geological Survey, the Mines Branch and Forestry Branch of the Department of the Interior, the Department of Agriculture and its experimental farms, the Biological Board of the Department of Fisheries, and later, the Department of Defence were all mission-oriented agencies carrying out varying degrees of scientific and research activity. In addition, the NRC had relationships with the minister of Trade and Commerce, to whom it reported, in his capacity as chairman of the Privy Council Committee on Scientific and Industrial Research. This was a relationship which was frequently interpreted by successive ministers and deputy ministers of Trade and Commerce, especially in the pre-1940 era, as one of subordination to the "Department" of Trade and Commerce. The NRC was legally related only to the minister and not to the department, as such. In an organizational context much of the tension which developed in these interagency relationships is attributable to the diffuseness of the NRC's goals. This became apparent in the opposition of the departments (called by the Research Council people the "technical 4. See Barney G. Glaser, Organizational Scientists: Their Professional Careers (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1964); Karl Hill, ed., The Management of Scientists (Boston: Beacon Press, 1963); W. Kornhauser, Scientists in Industry: Conflict and Accommodation (Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 1962); D. C. Pelz and F. M. Andrews, Scientists in Organizations (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1966); and N. Storer, The Social System of Science (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1966).

24 CHAPTER ONE

civil service") to a clause in a 1921 bill which would allow the cabinet to transfer to the then proposed NRC laboratories any existing research or scientific activity. This clause was "vigorously attacked."8 A number of meetings were held as the bill was prepared and debated between members of the council and senior persons in the agencies. The latter wanted representation on the NRC, a goal they eventually achieved in 1924. Dr. A. B. Macallum, the first administrative chairman of the NRC, clearly thought the claims for representation by the departments and agencies were "preposterous" and thus revealed his naivety about interagency and civil service politics: I am greatly surprised at the pretensions of a certain class of the Civil Servants in Ottawa. They assume that no change shall take place for the Country's interests except when their interests are preserved. It is perfectly preposterous for them to claim to have representatives on the Research Council — in effect the granting of their claim would establish the Soviet system in scientific work there at once. Of course the Government and House of Commons would never for one moment think of giving to representatives of its own Civil Servants the privilege of determining how money should be spent for the National Research Institute.e Members of the NRC were quite convinced, moreover, that the subsequent defeat in the Senate of the legislation that would have given NRC its long sought-after laboratories was caused by the lobby of the technical departments and civil servants on the Senators. The truth of this charge is difficult to substantiate, but the more important aspect may be that it was "believed" by the council. That the members viewed this tactic as illegitimate and that the possibility of civil servants, even technical civil servants, acting as an interest group was a rude awakening gives an insight into the council's, and in particular, Dr. Macallum's, conception of politics. In 1928, eleven years after the creation of NRC, a decision was finally made to build the national laboratories. The 1928 decision marked another point where the diffuseness of the NRC's goals and the position of the agencies confronted one another. The announcement to build the laboratories was coupled with the declaration that the government would "gradually coordinate the research work of 5. M. Thistle, The Inner Ring (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1965), p. 102. 6. Letter from A. B. Macallum to R. F. Ruttan, May 5, 1921, quoted in Thistle, The Inner Ring, p. lOS.

NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL 25

government departments under one controlling organization." When discussions were held to revise the then existing legislation, the Deputy Ministers of Agriculture and Mines, J. H. Grisdale and Charles Camsell, respectively, objected. Camsell wanted changes made so that the NRC would not have a blanket mandate to "promote the utilization of the natural resources of Canada." He insisted that the NRC be required to refer all problems which related to the mission of an existing department to that department.8 Camsell was also concerned about the council's freedom to pay higher salaries and especially its power to hire temporary employees. In Camsell's view this "would have a dangerous effect on technical employees in Government departments if the salary paid were much out of proportion to those in the permanent service."8 Grisdale objected to the NRC's statutory power to undertake research in the field of agriculture. This was clearly a threat to his jurisdiction, and he received support from Camsell in this argument.1° None of the suggested changes were made, and the legal powers of the council remained very wide. The confrontations about jurisdiction are important, however, because they informed the NRC about the outer limits of its coordinative role. This role can also be illustrated by referring to interagency relationships at the level of everyday programs. One of the constant sources of tension was the problem of which agency received credit for successful work done, or for overall performance. This problem can be viewed pejoratively as a kind of petty behaviour pattern endemic to bureaucrats in all forms of organization, but it can also be viewed somewhat more structurally. In attempting to persuade sceptical politicians, heads of science agencies became aware of the importance of such indices of power as "size of staff" and "conspicuously successful programs" in assessing departmental estimates. If a deputy minister coveted any long-term expansion of his department, then these indices were important to him. The notion of conspicuously successful programs may be an even more critical point for science-related programs, because, as will be noted later, the Treasury Board and the politicians have a highly utilitarian conception of science. They support science because it 7. House of Commons, Debates, vol. 1, 1928, p. 24 and vol. 3, 1928, pp. 3745-51. See also Thistle, The Inner Ring, p. 261. 8. Letter from Charles Camsell to S. P. Eagleson, February 11, 1968, quoted in Thistle, The Inner Ring, p. 265. 9. Ibid., p. 266. 10.Letter from J. H. Grisdale to S. P. Eagleson, February 16, 1928, quoted in Thistle, The Inner Ring, p. 266.

26 CHAPTER ONE

will have a practical payoff. Most science programs are difficult to evaluate on this kind of balance sheet approach, but once in a while a program achieves a conspicuous financial return. The problem of conspicuously successful programs is critical for a new agency like the NRC. Those programs which come along and which have had a payoff are, therefore, much coveted by all agencies, and the earlier years of NRC testified to the importance of these "events" for the senior departmental personnel. Again, this kind of behaviour can be viewed from a pejorative perspective or it can be viewed as quite "rational," given the general requisites of success for administrative heads. Thus, the NRC Chairman, R. A. Ross, resigned as chairman in 1922 over what he felt was the departments' campaign to dismember the successful NRC-initiated Lignite Utilization Board.11 There was consternation about the refusal of the Department of the Interior to even mention the NRC's role in the creation of the department's Forestry Branch, a structure which evolved out of the NRC's Associate Committee on Forestry.12 Similarly, the Department of Agriculture was concerned about the NRC not giving it public credit for its role in the rust and wool research programs, and the Geological Survey complained about the Research Council's supposed inadequate recognition of its participation in the work on utilization of low grade ores in Canada.ts In addition to these factors, the presence of the NRC in the federal bureaucracy generated a distinction in status between real scientists and mere technicians. "Research" scientists in the regular departments were developing an idealized view of and envy for the freedoms of the NRC environment as opposed to their own departments. This was true before the NRC developed its own laboratories, and NRC became (and still is) even more deeply envied after its laboratories became operational in 1932. In this respect it is interesting to record a collection of views by individual scientists in the departments given before the Cronyn Parliamentary Committee in 1919.14 For example, Dr. F. T. Shutt, the Dominion Chemist, commented: 11. Thistle, The Inner Ring, p. 111. 12. Ibid., pp. 112 and 124. 13. Ibid., pp. 290 and 147. 14. Proceedings of the Special Committee Appointed to Consider the Matter of the Development in Canada of Scientific Research, Journals of the House of Commons (Ottawa: King's Printer, 1919), Appendix no. 5, pp. 126-29. (Hereafter cited as Committee on Scientific Research.)

NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL 27

There must be an opportunity for continuous and uninterrupted patient and free work.... The investigator ought to be as free as possible from routine work, and from the rules and regulations found necessary in the prosecution of routine work.... The scientific worker considers irritating and annoying the rules and regulations of hard and fast discipline. Later, when asked if he would like purely agricultural research left in the laboratories of the Department of Agriculture, he again remarked: I would like to have the agricultural problems separated from the larger amount of necessary routine and control work which occupies time and diverts the attention from regulations which are more or less irritating and annoying. In subsequent testimony, Dr. C. E. Saunders, Dominion Cerealist, commented at length on the organizational environment in the Dominion Experimental Farms : Our experimental farms today are spending most of their time instructing the farmers, making demonstrations ... and solving little problems of a semi-scientific character. But we are doing scarcely anything to advance the science of agriculture.. .. I see no hope whatever for the experimental farms, as far as they are now established and governed, ever becoming the scientific institutions they should be. There are too many things that the Department requires from day to day, and these petty details prevent proper work being done.... There is no hope for scientific research in its best form unless an institute be established which is not under direct, daily, departmental control.... If an institute for scientific research could be established under the control of an independent board of scientists, it might accomplish a great deal both in pure and in applied science. Such an institute could, I think, very well take over the study of the basic problems of scientific agriculture.... Dr. Saunders was, himself, a research scientist, and he described to the members of Parliament on the Cronyn Committee an almost classic portrayal of the ideal research scientist and his working environment: Scientists are different from ordinary labourers or other men doing any kind of so-called practical work, and they are different from ordinary clerks. They cannot do their best work when they are regulated. If a scientist is busy thinking, he should be left alone and allowed to think as long as he wants to, and the idea of having to sign an attendance book at nine o'clock next morning must not be permitted to interfere with him sitting up all night if he needs to do so. He must be largely his own

28 CHAPTER ONE

master. Regulations and limitations destroy the right spirit. A worker in science must have peace and he must have the proper atmosphere. If these essentials are not provided his work will seldom amount to much.16 Somewhat similar views were expressed by Professor Edward E. Prince, chairman of the Biological Board. He also commented upon the norms of the Deputy Minister toward the issue of duplication and science: This waste of energy and duplication, and reduplication, seems to me one of the greatest weaknesses of our present system and some centralization is absolutely necessary where scientific questions dealing with fisheries, as with other matters, can be dealt with economically by qualified experts. I know I am on controversial ground but official heads like to have big departments and the more officials they have the more credit they think attaches to themselves." These and other observations, which can be found throughout the public documents, reveal some concern about the basic bureaucratic environment of the departments as opposed to the NRC environment. They express, especially on the part of individual scientists who considered themselves "research" scientists, a primary concern over the professional working environment. The research scientists also had a decidedly different view toward the jurisdiction of the NRC. Most seemed quite prepared to centralize government research in the NRC laboratories provided it was to a structure with the "right" environment. Their views about the organizational research environment of their departments vis-å-vis the NRC had their counterpart in the NRC's views of the departments. Before the Cronyn Committee, Dr. A. B. Macallum repeatedly made a distinction between "routine men" and "research men," stressing that Canada in 1919 had barely fifty of the latter. These were rare individuals who could not be attracted to government service at the present low salaries. His perception of most of the departmental scientists was that they were of the "routine" type, that they were generally less qualified and their status, therefore, was quite low in his eyes. As noted earlier, he thought very little of their organized opposition to the proposal to create the NRC laboratories. In 1928, Dr. H. M. Tory, president of the National Research Council from 1924 to 1935, expressed similar views: 15.For Dr. Saunders' background see B. M. Pomeroy, William Saunders and His Five Sons (Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1956), pp. 135-56. 16.Committee on Scientific Research, pp. 133-34.

NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL 29

It should be frankly stated that splendid work has been done in the departments of Government where there has been an organization suited to research. On the other hand, it should be stated with equal frankness that men engaged in the routine tasks of government departments generally find it impossible to carry on research on any considerable scale along with other routine duties. The real reason for this is that real research men are rare and require a more intensive kind of training and then only in relation to work for which they have a natural bent.17 Tory stressed the point that the NRC would be looking for a higher quality research man.18 These views of the departments toward the NRC, and of the NRC toward the departments, are, it must be observed, only perceptions. They constitute general images of one another which have clearly helped condition interagency action because they helped reinforce the differences and the separation of the NRC. The diffuseness of the NRC's goals required some clarification and delimitation, and the departments' jurisdictional sensitivities severely restricted any aspirations NRC might have had of being the grand coordinator. The NRC and the Civil Service Commission The differences between the NRC and the departments were also reinforced by the fact that the former was given a degree of structural freedom from the Civil Service Commission while the latter were not. The Civil Service Commission (renamed the Public Service Commission in 1966), after the 1918 Civil Service Act especially, had the power to recruit, promote, and classify personnel and positions, including the technical service. This made it an important structure from the point of view of deputy ministers because it affected seriously their capacity to manage and manipulate their departments. For those research scientists whose motivation was primarily a professional one of securing an organizational environment that would be relatively free, the Civil Service Commission was essentially illegitimate, precisely because it was composed of, and staffed by, nonscientists. To understand this relationship, we must first develop some appreciation of the norms and operating structure of the Civil Service Commission.

17. Letter from H. M. Tory to the Hon. James Malcolm, February 29, 1928, quoted in Thistle, The Inner Ring, p. 273. 18. Proceedings of the Royal Commission Appointed to Enquire into the Technical and Professional Salaries of the Civil Service, Transcript, Public Archives of Canada, Record Group 33, 1929, p. 125.

30 CHAPTER ONE

The essential characteristic of the commission was that it was conceived, especially after the 1918 Act, in an ethos of efficiency and antipatronage in the recruitment and promotion of personnel in the government service. It was to be the guardian of the merit principle, a positive goal, but its basic drive — that is, the elimination of political influence — appears to have been in part negative and preventative.12 A recent study also indicates that the commission was decidedly influenced by the scientific management school, especially in its development of a classification system with itemized detailed job descriptions and categories.20 The result for technical and other personnel was that there existed a great array of classifications most often suited to a particular department, and not conceived from a government-wide perspective. Pay scales were frequently different for men performing essentially the same technical or scientific task in different departments, and this difference became a source of considerable interagency tension, especially as the technical service viewed the newly emerging NRC. It is quite clear that the commission and its staff took its own mission as a control agency very seriously. Indeed, they pursued it with some devotion and missionary zeal. Apart from the ethos of control, it is important to comment on the structure of the commission, especially its machinery for selecting staff. The latter involved filling a vacancy or position by promotion from within, or, if no one was qualified for promotion, by open examination. The commission staff carried out much of the initial investigation to see if there was a technical man in the department qualified to be promoted or to determine when a new class was to be created. This staff, like the commission itself, was composed of nonscientists and nontechnical men; as a result, there were frequent complaints about the capacity of the staff and the commission to make these initial and often critical judgements.21 Similarly, the commission's use, for technical personnel selection, of advisory selection boards, normally composed of one commission representative, one departmental representative, and one outsider, was viewed as cumbersome because a new board had to be found and 19.See Personnel Administration in the Public Service, Report of the Civil Service Commission of Canada (Ottawa: Queen's Printer, 1958), and Taylor Cole, The Canadian Bureaucracy (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1949), pp. 24-58. 20. For a discussion of the importance of the efficiency ethos and the scientific management school to the Civil Service Commission, see V. S. Wilson, "Staffing in the Canadian Federal Bureaucracy" (Ph.D. diss., Kingston: Queen's University, 1970), chap. 4. 21. For a further analysis see G. Bruce Doern, "Scientists and the Making of Science Policies in Canada" (Ph.D. diss., Kingston: Queen's University, 1969), chap. 3.

NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL 31 created for each position being considered. More importantly, its competence was suspect because its majority would be usually nontechnical. There exists a high probability, and indeed, a certain inevitability, that tension will develop between an organization structured and motivated like the Civil Service Commission and an organization like the NRC. It is also to be noted that the appearance of the NRC and the high point of the legislative "crusade" for efficiency and control of patronage roughly coincided. The NRC, moreover, was the first new structure composed almost entirely of scientists and created as a separate agency, rather than being added by gradual growth to an existing, mission-oriented department. It therefore had more to say about its own structure and, as scientists, the council members clearly injected their science norms. However, the strength of the efficiency and control ethos was such that in 1918 the NRC was placed under the jurisdiction of the Civil Service Commission despite the adoption of the principle of independence a year earlier. At an operating Ievel this did not seriously affect the NRC because, apart from the position of secretary to the council, it had hired no one. But, at a symbolic level, the issue of the NRC's relationship to the commission was crucial, and continued to be an issue until amendments in 1924 clarified and made more certain the NRC's independence and corporate status. This relationship was particularly critical for a research scientist like Dr. A. B. Macallum who was determined to make the environment and personnel of the NRC laboratories different from the regular government environment. The following remarks illustrate some of the strongest reflections of the norms of science and of the determination by the NRC to keep its structure differentiated from the regular bureaucracy: If [the laboratories are] put under the Civil Service Commission they will die prematurely or be ineffective as so many Departments of the Government are. The Council wishes the Institute to be put under its own control.... The Civil Service Commission would not make appointments or determine the policy of such an Institute nor could a staff of the same, and a Government Department would entail the results such as you have seen in the past. It would be better not to have such an Institute than have it controlled by a Department, and its appointments made by the Civil Service Commission. The Research Council could be constituted a Civil Service Commission for such an institute and it should be responsible not to any one Department but to the Cabinet as a whole.22 22. Letter from A. B. Macallum to L. B. Westman, December 6, 1920, quoted in Thistle, The Inner Ring, pp. 97-98. See also NRC, Annual Report (1921):

39-40.

32 CHAPTER ONE

Despite the formal establishment of corporate status for the NRC following amendments to its statute in 1924, the issue of scientist control over the recruitment, appointment, and remuneration of scientists was resurrected from time to time, and especially during the early rapid expansion of the NRC during the early 1940s. Normally it involved jurisdictional interpretation over specific appointments despite the apparent clarity of the legislation establishing NRC's independence. Generally speaking, these periodic misunderstandings disappeared after World War II, and the period from 1945 to 1958 was marked by a fairly clear-cut independence for the NRC in personnel matters. The NRC—Civil Service Commission relationship, however, was revived as a symbolic issue in 1958. A Civil Service Commission study had reviewed, among other things, the place of those agencies, such as NRC, which were exempt from the commission's jurisdiction.28 The study recommended a new list of exempt agencies, but did not include the National Research Council. The study generated a spirited and public confrontation between Arnold Heeney, chairman of the Public Service Commission, and E. W. R. Steacie, president of NRC. A sampling of their respective statements on the issue is appropriate here because it reaffirms, especially from Dr. Steacie's point of view, the fundamental differences in the scientist-administrative realms Dr. Steacie's view was as follows: In scientific research there can be no such thing as a job specification. In the Civil Service Commission the job comes first, and the person best qualified to fit it is selected afterwards. Outstanding Canadian scientists are sought wherever they may be and when located are often offered salaries based on their qualifications. The Council is not at all concerned with just filling jobs, since it is also responsible for the reputation of the laboratory. The proposal is made that since the Commission is assumed to possess expert knowledge in the field of organization it be required to make periodic investigations and reports on the organization of all departments. We doubt if the commission has now or ever had anyone on its staff qualified to assess organization for scientific research.24 Mr. Heeney's response was equally blunt, and reflected the norms of a career civil servant: 23. Civil Service Commission of Canada, Personnel Administration in the Public Service (Ottawa: Queen's Printer, 1958). 24. Quoted in J. Norman Smith, "Steacie's Scientists vs. Civil Service Commission," Ottawa Journal, September 22, 1959.

NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL 33

I confess that I find something less than convincing — as well as ungenerous — the assumption that, elsewhere in the Public Service, there is no comparable need for the conditions which permit and encourage creative work and imagination. Dr. Steacie should know that it is almost the rule, not the exception, for heads of Government agencies to claim that the special character of their work — and their personnel — require just the same freedoms from central controls that Dr. Steacie demands so eloquently for his scientists ... [and] many of the arguments made by Dr. Steacie are made with similar conviction though perhaps less vehemence, on behalf of other elements within the Public Service, each with its own particular gloss.25 NRC and the Treasury Board The Treasury Board is a major control structure in the federal bureaucracy. It came to have a great deal to say about the departments' and agencies' financial appropriations.28 While it is preeminently a political body (that is, composed of ministers), some comment should be made about its structure at the nonpolitical level. In the early years of NRC, the Treasury Board staff was small and almost wholly composed of career administrators with no technical or scientific background. The Secretary to the Treasury Board was an official of the Department of Finance, a department generally identified with a sector of government operations decidedly oriented toward control and constraint. Its motivations, in some respect, were Iess suspect than those of the Civil Service Commission from NRC's point of view, perhaps because the board secretariat did not parade their ideology of control to the extent that the commission did. In the NRC's view, the Treasury Board's activities derived more legitimately from the normal requisites of management.27 25. Quoted in Smith, "Heeney Answers Steacie re Scientists and Commission," Ottawa Journal, September 29, 1959. 26. Recent evidence tends to suggest that the Treasury Board did not assume a powerful role until the early or mid-1930s. The budget process before this generally, and in the science areas also, involved a few key powerful ministers who may or may not have been on the Treasury Board. The Minister of Finance was usually one of the powers; but the others, at any given time in the first fifteen years of the Research Council, need not be members of the Treasury Board. See V. S. Wilson, "Staffing in the Canadian Federal Bureaucracy." 27. This impression is derived from a general perusal of the NRC papers and annual reports, plus personal interviews. See especially Proceedings of the Sub-Committee of the Privy Council on Scientific and Industrial Research, NRC Office Copy, First Meeting, April 25, 1929 to Twenty-third Meeting, August 1, 1944, inclusive.

34 CHAPTER ONE

Besides, the NRC did secure control over the detail of its internal budget. It was first prepared internally by the Chairman and Secretary, then submitted to the NRC, and finally to the Privy Council Committee on Scientific and Industrial Research. During the latter part of the 1916 to 1935 period, the NRC's contact with the Treasury Board, per se, was primarily through the Assistant Secretary to the Treasury Board, who, for much of the early years, was Clifford Ronson, a career civil servant. Though there were many expressions of dissatisfaction about rejected estimates, the way in which they were rejected by Treasury Board was by across-the-board cuts of a certain percentage. The Research Council was simply told to revise their estimates themselves in the light of the new aggregate figure. Although the across-theboard cuts were later the object of criticism, there is a sense in which this method was quite congenial to the council. If there had to be interference, then this method was the most palatable because it still left the details of programs to the council and to the scientists, who alone could evaluate them. There was also a general perception that the Treasury Board staff accorded a very low status to science as a whole, and there were severe strains, during the 1930s, when a freeze was ordered on the NRC's recruitment of scientists for the new national laboratories. In fairness it should be stressed that this freeze applied to all departments from 1932 on. The liaison between the NRC and the Treasury Board staff was, therefore, viewed with less concern for most of the 1916-35 period. Only in the latter years of this period did this situation become more salient as a structural factor in the life of the NRC in the Canadian bureaucracy. In the changing relationships between the NRC and the bureaucracy, two key issues were established. Its antibureaucratic ideology was directed primarily against the Civil Service Commission. The NRC's presence, however, tended to reinforce the difference in status and structure between the departmental scientists and the NRC, and its intended role of being a coordinator and central policy adviser was muted by the realities of the bureaucratic political system. It could, moreover, never be sure of its own survival, a factor which undoubtedly persuaded the NRC to avoid its more controversial coordinative duties.

NRC, Scientists, and the Political System The structural relationships between the scientists, the NRC, and

NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL 35

the political sector can be usefully examined by distinguishing between the ministerial and parliamentary levels.28 The NRC reported to a committee of the Privy Council on Scientific and Industrial Research. This meant, in fact, that it worked primarily through the Minister of Trade and Commerce but only in his capacity as chairman of the Privy Council Committee and not through his departmental machinery. It was, therefore, a council-minister relationship. The degree and extent of this arm's-Iength relationship became a source of frustration for the NRC, particularly during the ministerial tenure of the Honourable H. H. Stevens in the early 1930s. He interfered in the internal council matters, including commenting on the council's fellowship and research rewards. The Privy Council Committee was involved in the consideration of the early proposals to create national laboratories in the 1920s. Because it was composed of the ministers of other mission-oriented science agencies, many of the interagency objections and tensions about the NRC's functions were communicated through this structure. Following a fairly active period of work between 1927 and 1932, it lapsed into inactivity, a state which has endured until 1969. In 1929 an attempt was made to formalize the Privy Council Committee's role. The committee resolved to meet monthly and agreed that only major policies and problems of the NRC should be submitted to it. The committee subsequently met three times in 1929, four times in 1930, and three times in 1931. Thereafter, it met only about once a year, normally to give brief consideration to the NRC estimates. The submission of the estimates to the committee in the 1930s appears to have become more and more ceremonial. The real budget process tended to take place between the NRC, the Treasury Board, and the Minister of Trade and Commerce. Most of the public and private statements of support for the NRC, made by several ministers of Trade and Commerce during this period, were not related to science as such. Science was certainly not supported as a cultural activity, nor even as "education" (for that was a sensitive provincial responsibility) . Even the perfectly justifiable rationale that NRC was created to develop scientists and a scientific community in Canada was not really stressed until the 1950s. Then the reputation of the NRC and the de facto evidence that a scientific 28. The position of political parties, as parties, on science policies, does not appear to be important. The parties' views are coterminous with the ministerial level or with the Leader of the Opposition. The attitudes of political parties, as collectivities, begin to appear only later in the 1960s.

36 CHAPTER ONE

community had indeed been created was utilized and cited as a strong reason for continuing political support of the council. The prevailing view was that it existed to help industry, natural resources, trade, and employment, and hence was conceived of as a decidedly utilitarian kind of institution. While the politician granted the NRC a formally independent structure, he was not beyond making periodic excursions into internal matters. In times of depression or austerity the normal tendency to treat science as being the same as any other government output was reinforced. The politician at the parliamentary Ievel, in the course of the several debates on legislation, estimates, and general inquiries, tended to express views similar to those expressed at the ministerial level. A high proportion of the questions and comments directed annually by members of Parliament during consideration of the NRC's and other departmental estimates were related to the very utilitarian experimental farms and to the development of Canada's resource industries. During the 1916-35 period an average of ten to fifteen questions a year about "research" or "science" came before the House of Commons. Those directed toward the NRC, about two or three a year, were concerned primarily about its structure. The overwhelming majority of the remaining questions were directed toward the missionoriented agencies, with responsibilities for the resource industries, agriculture and mining. Beginning in 1929 a large number of questions about medical and health research began to appear.20 Mention has already been made of the concern for economy and frugality that was frequently expressed during and before the Depression. Much of the debate on the proposal to create the NRC laboratories in 1917, 1921, and 1928 was on NRC's structure — something about which a member could claim some knowledge. Such questions as duplication and overlapping, and the degree of permanence of the NRC and Canada's comparative international status with respect to such structures, dominated the comments."° Scarcely a single member had any interest in science per se or in the long-run consequences of science. At various points throughout this period scientists expressed very clearly their view that science and scientists did not stand very high

29. Source: Index, House of Common, Debates, 1916-35. 30. See especially, House of Commons, Debates, vol. 4, 1917, pp. 3907-13; vol. 3, 1921, pp. 2688-2708; vol. 5, 1924, pp. 4415-27; and vol. 2, 1928, pp. 3745-51. See also Senate of Canada, Debates, vol. 1, 1921, pp. 493-506, 575-87, and 626-37.

NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL 37

in public opinion and that nonscientists could not really be expected to appreciate the true value of science. Before the Cronyn Committee,81 Dr. A. B. Macallum lamented the low status of science and the inability of Canada to recognize its value: "I do not say this in condemnation of governing bodies, or the presidents of our Canadian universities because you cannot expect them to appreciate what scientific research is or what it will do, and further they have the conservative forces of their environment to contend with. There is also public indifference, which, however, could have been overcome by education." Another scientist described the politician's expectations by distinguishing between the criteria of light and success: "The Government looks for success for obvious reasons. Governments wish to please the people. They wish to be re-elected, and the ordinary voter wants results right now, just the very time they cannot be had. At any cost, therefore, he must be convinced that success is being attained. Under the other method of control of scientific work one is encouraged to seek not immediate success, but light — a very much finer and more important aim." The relationship between scientists and the political sector in the 1916 to 1935 period was, in short, one of a very cautious and uneven nature. The scientist felt increasingly dependent on the political sector, but clearly felt that the political sector had little understanding of the nature or importance of science. The political sector, on its part, did not treat science with any particular degree of deference. Spurred by recurrent periods of financial austerity, it treated science much like any other government output.

Organizational Transformation

The discussion in the preceding pages would leave the impression that the NRC was engaged in full-time politics of both the general and bureaucratic variety. It was, of course, also engaged in carrying out its objectives. We now want to examine the NRC's internal structure and performance, and thus analyse the goals that the NRC pursued and did not pursue. Any organization has a mixture of both intended and unintended goals. In recent years the social sciences have developed "functional"

31. Connnittae on Scientific Research, pp.

19 and 128.

38 CHAPTER ONE

analysis as a way of observing complex structures.32 The significance of this approach is that it compels us to look not just at the intended purposes of the organization but also at its functions, that is, the observed empirical consequences of the behaviour of the structure on other structures. Some of the enthusiasts for functional analysis suggest that it may be the basis for a theory of behaviour, that is, a theory in the sense of being able to explain behaviour. The use of this kind of analysis here has modest ambitions: it is being used as a way of observing an organization and asking questions about the behaviour and structure which might otherwise be omitted. In particular, the approach is used to study the council's committees and what consequences they might have for several operational aspects. When this kind of analysis is made of the NRC, we must study not only the manifest consequences of the council's work, but also the more latent consequences. Part of the bias of functional analysis is that it tends to give brief treatment to the successful activities of the structure being examined (that is, those activities that have the desired consequences) and concentrates on the latent, unanticipated consequences. This is probably unfair to the work of the participants in the organization under examinaiton, but it is essential that these kinds of questions be asked. We are interested in the NRC as a complex organization, as one of scientists, and in the impact of this kind of agency on the making of science policies in Canada. There can be no doubt whatever that the NRC has had an incredibly beneficial impact on Canada's overall scientific capability. Structure and Organization Any analysis of the organization of the NRC must distinguish between the structure that existed before national laboratories were operational in the early 1930s and the postlaboratory period. The analysis also requires an account of two features in particular, the Research Council itself, and its committees. Initially the NRC was composed of eleven members. It was increased in two stages to its present membership of twenty-one. While theoretically composed of representatives of industry and of academic 32. For a general discussion of functional analysis see Robert K. Merton, Social Theory and Social Structure (Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press of Glencoe, 1957), chap. 1, pp. 72-82; William Flanagan and Edwin Fogelman, "Functional Analysis," in J. C. Charlesworth, ed., Contemporary Political Analysis (New York: The Free Press, 1967), pp. 72-85; and Robert F. Holt, "A Proposed Structural-Functional Framework," in Charlesworth, Contemporary Political Analysis, pp. 86-107.

NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL 39

scientists, it was the academic scientists who tended to pay the most attention to their council roles. The council met, on the average, about eight or nine times a year in the early period. The only permanent part of the council before the laboratory began to be recruited in the 1930s was its secretary and, after 1928, its full-time president. Prior to the establishment of the full-time president, the administrative chairman devoted considerable time to the council's work and, among its members, he was clearly the closest to a permanent participant. When the Research Council was not preoccupied with its campaign for the national laboratories during the first ten years, it spent the better part of its meetings dispensing funds at its disposal on its postgraduate scholarships and on "assisted researches." The major part of its funds in the first ten years was expended on the assisted researches, which provided for assistance to any competent, qualified researcher who proposed research on approved problems. These grants tended to go to academic scientists and were devoted primarily toward pure science problems. Some, however, went to groups of scientists on the council's own associate committees.33 The scholarship program was really a response to the Research Council's early inventory of Canada's industrial and scientific research facilities and manpower which indicated overwhelmingly the poverty and scarcity of Canada's science resources.84 While the major public and legislative rationale for the NRC's creation had been the utilitarian one of using science to assist industry, the NRC's first policies expressed the realization that Canada had to develop scientists first. Both the scholarship and the assisted research programs were administered and granted by the collective council, and the scientist norms of collective and competent judgement of projects were meticulously practised and defended. Scientists and Committees Perhaps the most important and characteristic part of the NRC's structure, both in the prelaboratory and postlaboratory periods, is its committee system. The emphasis that official NRC publications place on this system tells us much about its importance to the organization, and the publications themselves tell us something about how programs and priorities were initiated and evaluated. The most concise description of the early committee structure is found in its own reports: 33. For a summary of the data on the first ten years of research grants see NRC, Annual Report (1927) : 11. 34. NRC, Annual Report (1918) : 20-21.

40 CHAPTER ONE The procedure followed is simple but very effective. When a main problem arises the council calls a conference of all the leading persons in Canada who are working on that problem or who are particularly qualified to advise concerning it, by reason of their special training or experience. The first duty of such a conference is to thoroughly review the present state of knowledge, both in Canada and abroad, on the problem under consideration. When this has been done the conference is requested to draft a complete and specific research program on the problem under review setting forth definitely the work which, in the opinion of the members of the conference, should be carried out in Canada. At this stage the National Research Council usually appoints a carefully selected working committee, known as an associate committee on the subject under review. It is the first duty of such an associate committee to decide how and where the investigation of the problem listed in the research program which has been drafted, can be undertaken most effectively and economically. It is also the duty of the committee to direct all research work which may be carried on by the council on the recommendation of the committee. The National Research Council keeps in intimate contact with the activities of each associate committee through an arrangement whereby the president or some members of the council especially qualified serves as the chairman of each such committee. In this way the council utilizes to the fullest extent all existing laboratory facilities and what is of even greater importance, enlists the cooperation of the highly trained scientific manpower available throughout the Dominion for undertaking work on any important research problem.8s In addition, the council established a group of advisory committees, one in each of the major departments of science, which were available for consultation on important problems at any time. The discussion of these committees in the council's Annual Report and before parliamentary groups invariably stressed the voluntary, unpaid nature of the scientists' work in this committee network. By 1927 there were nineteen committees composed of 268 persons, performing duties on this voluntary basis.88 35. NRC, Annual Report (1927). 36. Ibid., p. 26. While the cadre of volunteer unpaid scientists deserves to be highly praised for the contributions and sacrifices made in this way, this behaviour ought to be commented upon from another perspective. These accounts of the spartan, dedicated, lowly paid scientist are congruent with many accounts of the scientist's image of himself and of the public's image of the scientist. Tribute is paid to this kind of behaviour throughout NRC's history, even into the contemporary periods when the salary status of scientists is competitive with other sectors. These early "trips to Ottawa" also must be viewed as contributing to the individual scientist's status, besides assisting him greatly in exchanging views in an era when such means of communication were less developed than they are now.

NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL 41

It is undoubtedly true that the committees did perform their avowed function of coordinating the search for solutions to research problems, especially in the early years. It would appear, however, that the choice of this highly decentralized, colleague-based system of participation and management by committee acted as an organizational ideology. For the scientists in the council, it performed the more important additional function of differentiating their own indigenous scientist-run organization from other structures at the government level. The "problems" that came to the Research Council through the network of committees in the first decade and a half tended to reflect a high proportion of problems in the area of "industrial" research. It is to be noted that, at this stage in Canada's development, industrial research involved research on primary resource industries. The network of communication to and from the council passed primarily through the committee structure. In the postlaboratory days, especially as the laboratory establishment and divisions expanded in the 1940s and 1950s, the committee system had to compete with, and even work through, the growing laboratory personnel. As will be assessed later, the volume of program and research priorities began to include not only initiatives from outside via the committees, but also from the in-house scientists who had their own sense of priorities and professional research interests. Before commenting further on this change in communication patterns, we must consider the philosophy of management and the structure of the NRC laboratories. Dr. H. M. Tory's conception of the organization of the laboratories was influenced by his own experience in organizing university laboratories and was confirmed by an extensive tour of several international laboratories in 1928 and 1929. The organization chart enclosed in the 1929-30 Annual Report, for example, revealed that the organization was to be decentralized and centred on four "professional" divisions composed of three functional science disciplines, chemistry, physics, and biology, and a division of research information; there was also to be an administrative section. Organization charts are always an inadequate base on which to make judgements, but the decentralized nature of the research laboratories is interesting and important. The fact that the chart had no gradual pyramidical hierarchy of positions and the fact that the administrative sector was placed at the base of the pyramid rather than at the top are important. The chart reflected the extent to which the NRC laboratories were to be coordinated horizontally, by scientists collectively, rather than vertically by stages of supervisors and

42 CHAPTER ONE subordinates.$? Hierarchical supervision has always been held by Research Council members as being an unfit environment for science to flourish. As noted earlier, the bureaucratic rigidities of government departments and control agencies always served to remind NRC members and presidents, over the years, of how not to run a laboratory. A brief account of these public expressions of managerial philosophy should be recorded to illustrate the saliency and the strength of the original concept initiated by Dr. Tory. By 1950, the Research Council had ten Iaboratory divisions in addition to its responsibility for managing the Atomic Energy project at Chalk River. Speaking before a 1950 parliamentary committee, the President of the NRC, Dr. C. J. Mackenzie, distinguished between the organizing of the mission-oriented Chalk River project and the rest of the national laboratories: The Atomic Energy Project is a converging operation and everything is designed to the one end. On the other hand the Research Council is a diverging operation. It is like a university with different departments, with the ultimate objectives being reached in a divergent way.38 One of the primary means by which these "ultimate objectives" would be reached "in a divergent way" was the associate committee system. The committees would frequently have members from more than one division of the laboratories, in addition to outside members. Dr. Mackenzie commented at length on the effectiveness of this system of feedback and evaluation: We have another activity in connection with major research projects. The Council built up a mechanism which they called an associate committee. The associate research committee is different from departmental organizations due to the nature of our body. The National Research Council is not a department, it is a corporation. I want to stress that. However, we try to fit into the normal public service pattern. We do not use our special powers except when it is necessary for the benefit of the country. But we are a corporation. We can arrange for cooperative 37.This is not to imply that there was no superior-subordinate relationship. There clearly was a loose supervisory structure within divisions. I am speaking here, however, of general emphasis and tendencies, and the organization tended very strongly to de-emphasize these structures. In classic organizational terms the chart was kept flat and horizontal. See Canada, Royal Commission on Government Organization, vol. 4, Report no. 23, Scientific Research and Development (Ottawa: Queen's Printer, 1963), p. 269. 38. House of Commons, Special Committee on the Operations of the National Research Council Minutes of Proceedings and Evidence, no. 1 (Ottawa: King's Printer, 1950), p. 9. (Hereafter cited as Committee on NRC.)

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research whenever a big thing confronts us. When we have a problem of sufficient importance we call in the best informed persons in the field concerned, from government departments and other organizations, for a conference. We survey the field and then arrange for a program of work. One of the things the Council did in that way was grain work in Western Canada, rust work, soil diseases and crop diseases; all matters which were of special importance from the standpoint of national economy in Canada. We do the same thing in a number of other fields. At one time we had about forty of these committees. The responsibility of the Council is in the selection and appointment of the committee, and then to back that committee up. The Council gives the committee real authority in the spending of the monies allotted and the carrying out of the projects. You see, without authority you do not get efficiency. If you appoint a competent committee and do not take its advice you won't get the real results you want; so our associate committees have become a very real and effective means for organizing and directing research on major projects. Their general responsibility is to investigate the projects assigned to them.89 The President of the NRC in the 1950s, Dr. E. W. R. Steacie, expressed his views and philosophy about management even more forcefully: There is no question that creative work runs counter to administrative organization.... In a major scientific institution the main thing is to develop a character and an atmosphere which distinguish the organization from all others. In my view everything that can possibly be done to make such an organization different administratively should be done.4° Seven years earlier he had commented on the coordination of research: I feel strongly that the inefficiency of large coordinated programmes is something which is very hard to combat, except by extreme decentralization... . Unfortunately the empire builders are always with us and any such decentralization will usually meet with much opposition. Finally, the larger the organization the greater the predilection for pieces of paper. Essentially this means more and more "progress reports," usually reporting little progress. The idea, of course, is that everybody is "kept in touch" with everyone else. I wonder if it wouldn't be better to

39. Ibid., p. 11. (Emphasis added.) 40. Speech before the Institute of Public Administration of Canada, 1959, quoted in J. D. Babbitt, ed., Science in Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1965), p. 144.

44 CHAPTER ONE follow normal scientific practice and report only when there is something to say.41 Steacie was the first "research" scientist to become president of the NRC. He was even more of a "scientists' scientist" than Dr. A. B. Macallum had been, and his basic scientific norms characterized the overall evolution of the NRC in the 1950s. Before the Chemical Institute of Canada, in 1956, he reiterated his strong preference for a functional decentralized system of organization:

The work of the ... laboratories is divided into divisions based on fields of science. We have always strongly opposed organization by projects because we feel that the only way to develop first rate people is to keep them working in their own field. Essential projects are, therefore, fitted into the divisional structure, responsibility being given to the division to which the project is most closely related scientifically... 42 Under Steacie, the associate committees were expanded, and they formed a major part of the content of the NRC's public documents. They therefore retained their symbolic importance. For most governmental departments, committees are viewed with some disdain. For the NRC, they remained a mark of distinction which differentiated it from the regular departments 48 There is strong evidence to suggest that the committees, by the late 1950s, had much less real coordinative impact on science programs in Canada. Actually, this changing role of the committee structure was partially revealed as early as 1947 when Dr. C. J. Mackenzie commented: Committees were asked to suggest where and how such work should be done. Later when the Council established its own laboratories, the 41. Speech before the Industrial Research Institute Incorporated, October 27, 1952, quoted in J. D. Babbit, ed., Science in Canada, p. 126. 42. Quoted in Babbitt, ed., Science in Canada, p. 126. 43. My assessment that NRC's public emphasis on committees constitutes an ideology of organization congruent with the norms of science is partly influenced by previous research. My M.A. thesis on the role of interdepartmental committees in the policy process involved the extremely tedious task of conducting an inventory of every federal agency's committee involvement. The striking part about the taking and the subsequent analysis of this inventory was that only NRC kept a ready inventory and viewed their committee structure with some pride. For the other departments and agencies, my requests involved a painful hunt to provide even a crude listing. The departments, moreover, tended to view these committees, and committees in general, as a necessary evil at best. The Glassco Commission also viewed them with disdain. See G. Bruce Doern, "The Role of Interdepartmental Committees in the Policy Process" (MA. thesis, Ottawa: Carleton University, 1966).

NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL 45 need for personnel to work directly under committee direction was largely eliminated since problems arising from committee activities could be referred to appropriate labs for investigation and report.44

An even more important result was that the committees were used to legitimitize and generate support for research projects and priorities initiated by the NRC laboratories rather than by outside researchers. The committees, therefore, performed a different function.46 The attitudes to these committees of outside researchers — especially academic — came to be coloured by the fact that the Research Council laboratory staff was closely involved with the NRC granting committees, from which university scientists received their research funds. University scientists, moreover, no longer viewed their work on NRC committees as a status symbol and an opportunity for "interesting exchanges of viewpoint" with colleagues. The status of university science had increased immensely since the early days of the council, and opportunities for frequent professional contact had developed in professional associations and through greater ease of communication4e By 1950 the personnel establishment of the council laboratories had grown from three hundred in 1939 to over three thousand (including the Chalk River staff) 47 Following the creation of a separate corporation for Atomic Energy in 1952, the total personnel establishment reached almost twenty-four hundred in 1959.48 The rapid World War H growth of the laboratories resulted in the provision of two vice-presidents in a 1946 amendment to the Research Council Act.

44. NRC, Annual Report (1946-47) : 8. (Emphasis added.) 45. Some criticism of the structure of committees appears to have developed in the mid-1950s. In 1955, Dr. Steacie's report felt compelled to declare that "no associate committee is permitted to outlive its usefulness." See NRC, Annual Report (1954-55) : 10. 46. These general impressions of the changing approach to committees by outside scientists, and of the use which NRC personnel made of the committees to legitimize their preferences for research, are based on confidential interviews. Several scientists suggested that they, themselves, used committees for this purpose. Again, this kind of change in function is not necessarily deliberate and premeditated. Nor does it mean a blanket criticism of all committees. We are dealing with very broad shifts in the effect and functions of such structures as the organization becomes more complex. For an account of a particular cluster of committees dealing with aeronautical research see D. H. E. Cross, "The Administration of Government Sponsored Aeronautical Research and Development in Canada" (M.A. thesis, Ottawa: Carleton University, 1964), pp. 74-103. 47. Committee on NRC, no. 1 (1950) : 31. 48. The 2,400 included 613 research staff, 883 technical personnel, and 887 others. NRC, Annual Report (1958-59): 11.

46 CHAPTER ONE

This was a direct reflection of the need to have more hierarchical management support for the increasingly complex organization'° NRC and Science Priorities The wartime experience also exposed the Research Council's personnel to other organizational environments which have had some impact on the NRC's subsequent behaviour as an organization. During the war the NRC operated in a general environment of secrecy because it became primarily an agency for defence research. Many of the initiatives for research priorities were taken intragovemmentally due to the war effort. Following the war much of the defence research was transferred to the newly created Defence Research Board, a transfer which most scientists in the NRC applauded because of their aversion to secrecy and to working under a constrained security environment.60 The combination of the growth of the laboratories and their wartime experience with in-house initiatives tended to linger in the 1950s, a situation which was reinforced when the NRC, for a brief period in the early 1 9 5 0 s during the Korean War, had several divisions devoted almost entirely to defence research b1 This was reflected in a greater tendency to assume that each research priority and accompanying facility ought to be located at the centre in the national laboratories. For NRC, there was less and less disposition to follow the earlier instructions it had given its own committees, namely, to look for that sector (industry, university, or government) which could best perform the research.52 In a period of general expansion it became relatively easy for new programs to be started, on the initiatives of the working level divisions, but it became exceedingly difficult to evaluate their impact and to stop projects, should that be necessary. 49. House of Commons, Debates, vol. 2, 1946, pp. 1884-1908, and vol. 3, 1946, pp. 2324-67. 50. For accounts of the war research effort see W. Eggleston, Canada's Nuclear Story (Toronto: Clarke Irwin, 1965), and D. J. Goodspeed, DRB, A History of the Defence Research Board (Ottawa: Queen's Printer, 1958). See also NRC, Annual Report (1945-46). 51. NRC, Annual Report (1950-51) : 9. 52. This has been one of the major criticisms levelled, not only at NRC, but at government science as a whole. The criticism is one of the major comments of the Science Council of Canada's report on major science goals. There is a striking similarity between what this report says about seeking out the best sector (government, university, or industry) that can perform new research priorities and NRC's own early instruction to its associate committees. See Science Council of Canada, Towards a National Science Policy for Canada (Ottawa: Queen's Printer, 1968), p. 23.

NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL 47

Throughout this period the NRC preferred to evaluate itself and its efficiency less in terms of its successful programs and more in terms of such aggregate indicators as the percentage of overhead to total expenditures, or the cost of the NRC per scientist, indicators which would allow comparison with other international laboratories. These are not unimportant, and NRS reports point out the envy other countries have for its decentralized structures and their aggregate efficiency indicators.83 The NRC did undertake a general review of its future goals and general priorities in 1935 and 1936 when General A. G. L. McNaughton became president, and again near the end of the war when postwar reconstruction priorities were assessed. The first evaluation led to some changes in organization, especially in the administration of university research grants." The second review is worth commenting upon in some detail, particularly when taken in the context of Dr. C. J. Mackenzie's expectations, as the war ended, of what NRC ought to be doing. Dr. Mackenzie, an engineer, clearly seemed to have intended a very practical applied role for the NRC laboratories. Although he believed some pure research would have to be done, he asserted that, "the chief concern of these laboratories ... should be to carry on research on problems which might be expected to yield results of immediate practical value. Provision should be made for this work to be carried to the stage of pilot plant operations."b6 Future priorities, needed to assist postwar reconstruction, included road research, housing and building, transportation, and cold weather research. In the following Annual Report of 1944-45, there is an interesting point to be noted. For the first time in over twenty years, the NRC explicitly declared that one of its major functions was to act as "adviser to the various Departments of Government, particularly those of National Defence, Munitions and Supply and Reconstruction."" This role had never been overtly declared following the first years of interagency jurisdictional adjustment. The fact that it does form a part of the 1944-45 report is a reflection of the power of a wartime environment to overcome many of these bureaucratic constraints. The particular departments cited above also reflect the very close 53. See NRC, Annual Report (1924-25) : 16, and (1958-59): 12-13. 54.See NRC, Annual Report (1934-35): 12-13, and John Swettenham, McNaughton, vol. 1, 1887-1939 (Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1968), pp. 321-40. See also NRC, Annual Report (1943-44): 7. 55. NRC, Annual Report (1943-44): 7-8. 56. NRC, Annual Report (1944-45): 7.

48 CHAPTER ONE

scientist-politician relationship that developed between C. J. Mackenzie and the Honourable C. D. Howe. As I have mentioned, it was a very personal relationship, and the experience with this appears to have influenced Mackenzie in his 1964 recommendations about science policy machinery. For the moment it is important to realize that the NBC's role as a general science adviser was re-established briefly during the Second World War. The 1935 and 1944 priority reviews, however, still did not constitute any regularized evaluation of past and present programs, nor did they accomplish significant changes in the philosophy of decentralized management. By the early 1960s, the Glassco Commission commented on the problem of in-house research and program evaluation. The commission was very critical of the performance of the NRC, and of the Privy Council Committee on Scientific and Industrial Research and the Advisory Panel for Scientific Policy, the interdepartmental committee of deputy ministers created in 1949 as instruments of policy coordination. The NRC had concentrated its efforts on the support of research and scholarships in the universities and, in a general way, on its own laboratories and establishments. The Glassco Commission was also critical of the NRC's inability to attain the goal of developing industrial research. This goal seemingly had been displaced, and the commission felt that the most important cause of this failure was the nature of the evolution of the government's own programs and the attitudes and motivation of its senior scientific personnel. It therefore urged the government to encourage industry to perform a greater role in research and development. In short, the NRC had tended to drift from a situation where a fairly effective form of evaluation by associate committees had existed, into an organizational environment, in the 1950s, where evaluation may even have been discouraged as being a manifestation of the "overorganization" of science. The NRC had a strong tendency to err on the side of "academic freedom for the researcher" by allowing projects to go on undisturbed even after the payoff rationale (pure or applied) could no longer be found. It had also, in relative terms, displaced its goal of giving primary emphasis to industrial research. By 1968, to bring the analysis of the internal organization of the NRC up to date, the problem of internal evaluation and how to provide for it organizationally had been discussed, and the NRC laboratories were restructured. A vice-president for industrial research was created, in addition to a delegue general, a senior scientist with responsibility for advising on long-term objectives and methods of evaluating objectives and performance. Before the Senate Special Committee on

NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL 49

Science Policy, the President of the NRC, Dr. W. G. Schneider, was persistently questioned by the Senators about how programs are, and were, evaluated. Dr. Schneider replied: There is certainly an area here where one has to periodically do a very thorough assessment of these programs and what we are doing and we have done this on a continuous basis although we were not satisfied this is necessarily always completely effective. The difficulty is that research directors are very busy people and they don't really have the time to be able to go into this in depth to try and do a complete projection and even an economic analysis if it is possible. So we have now deliberately built into our our organization a group headed by what we call di ldgud general whose function will be simply this, to analyze ongoing projects to try to project them into the future, whether this is the best way to tackle the program, if the program is getting anywhere or whether it should be discontinued....67

Causes of Goal Displacement The Glassco Commission asserted that the causes of the displacement of NRC's advisory and coordinative role had been because NRC "turned aside" from this goal. The displacement of the goal of supporting industrial research, it suggested, was caused by the "nature of the evolution of the government's own programs" and by the "attitudes and motivation of its senior scientific personnel." In my view, it is a correct assessment, but only in part. The analysis in this chapter supports the view that the transformation of goal emphasis from the relative primacy of industrial research to research motivated more by scientists' interests signifcantly was "caused" by the strength of the norms of science against "overorganizing" science and in favour of organizational freedom. This was, moreover, greatly reinforced by the sheer growing complexity of the NRC as an organization. Both factors had altered the capacity of the NRC to monitor its own goals and had increased the power of the scientists in the NRC divisions. It is argued here that these two factors probably were critical, but they were not, in themselves, 57. Senate of Canada, Committee on Science Policy, no. 3 (1968): 57, 71. The Science Council also stresses the problem of evaluation and calls for a regular "technical audit" in all government laboratories. See Science Council of Canada, Towards a National Science Policy for Canada, p. 26.

50 CHAPTER ONE

sufficient conditions to cause or explain the pattern of behaviour that has been traced. Other forces tended to complement and assist the behaviour patterns, forces emanating from the Canadian bureaucracy, from general political environment, and from the industrial sector. The NRC's goal of being a general science adviser to the government was attempted only during the early years of NRC and again during World War II. Such a role would ultimately have required the NRC to have some form of control over the other departments with a science mission. The main burden of the analysis of interagency adjustments in this chapter has been to demonstrate precisely the power and sensitivity of the departments toward maintaining their organizational boundaries and jurisdictions. In this sense, NRC is right in claiming that it did not "turn aside." It realized how far it could go and its role, in this regard, was in part determined by others. However, after interagency relationships became normalized, the norms of science, and especially Dr. E. W. R. Steacie's deeply held view that science should not be overorganized, tended to support the pattern of interagency relationships which the bureaucratic "political system" had earlier established. The pattern of goal displacement was also reinforced by changes in the political climate that surrounded the NRC. Contrary to its earlier, somewhat critical, concern about overlapping, industrial research, and practical payoff, Parliament tended to look upon the NRC with some awe and mystery. This was particularly true when a 1950 parliamentary committee inquired into the operations of the NRC. Its final report to the House of Commons is so glowing and unreserved in its praise that one would think it had been written by an NRC public relations man.68 Some of the general parliamentary attitudes are clearly attributable to the secrecy which surrounded the NRC operations during World War II.b" The leader of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation Party, M. J. Coldwell, expressed this general sentiment in 1950: "Very few of us, in this house, even those who have been here a number of years, know much about the Research Council. I remember driving along Sussex Street a few years ago, seeing this old mill which was turned into a research facility for the National Research Council, and wondering what was coming out of a place of that sort. Suddenly during the war we saw on the Montreal Road some fine buildings being erected surrounded by barbed wire, obviously under measures 58. Committee on NRC, no. 1 (1950) : 143-44. 59. House of Commons, Debates, vol. 2, 1950, pp. 1678-79.

NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL 51

of security. We learned afterwards that they were for the National Research Council." Spectacular science feats, such as the Atomic Bomb and Canada's own revelation of her role at Chalk River, also had a considerable impact. Commenting on his own reaction to serving on a 1949 committee on atomic energy, a committee whose "esprit de corps ... was higher than that of any committee" on which he had served in Parliament, a member of Parliament observed: "When the atomic energy committee visited Chalk River, the members of that committee met most of these leading scientists, and during that visit I had a chat with Dr. Cook. I have been inspired by the attitude of these men at Chalk River. They were keen about what they were doing, and no one was keener than Dr. Cook. I remember saying to him, `It is a grand thing that you young men are doing this job for Canada; I am glad that you are staying here, even though you might be able to get a higher salary if you went to the United States.' I remember so clearly his reaction; it was immediate. Referring to the work he was doing, he said, `Oh, this is so exciting.' " The transformation at the parliamentary level seems to have had its counterpart at the ministerial level, but in a slightly different way. The decade following the war was dominated by the Honourable C. D. Howe. It is clear that Howe was quite prepared to leave NRC free to do what it had to do. He was also looked upon by scientists in the NRC as a "great statesman," an accolade conferred primarily because he tended to support science, but left it alone to do its work.80 The establishment of an arm's-length relationship with the political sector tended to reduce the outside political forces which had been a more salient reality in the earlier life of the NRC. This tended to leave the NRC with more manoeuvrability. Because this outside force was less often felt, the NRC's internal forces, which I described earlier, became that much more the relevant framework for internal decisionmaking. A similar kind of vacuum tended to develop with respect to one of the council's major clientele groups, Canadian industry. The representation of industry on the council tended to decline in importance. Beginning with an average of three (out of eleven) representatives in NRC's first five years, the business-industrial representation averaged 60. For Howe's relationship to the "scientific bureaucracy" see J. Porter, The Vertical Mosaic (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1965), pp. 430-32. The scientist's high regard for Mr. Howe was clearly impressed upon me in several of my interviews with scientists.

52 CHAPTER ONE

two (out of fifteen) during the 1924-46 period, declined to one (out of twenty-one) in the 1954-62 period, and began to rise (three out of twenty-one) in the 1962-68 period.61 In addition, there was a marked transformation in the structure of Canadian industry, away from primary industry toward secondary industry. In this transformed structure the most research-intensive sectors of Canadian industry came to rely on the fairly free flow of science, technology, and production processes from the parent American firms.62 While the NRC developed a very beneficial technical information system to provide firms with information, the general prosperity of Canada's economy in the decade after World War II, buoyed primarily by a favourable international market, tended to develop a general disposition within Canadian industry to view research as being a problem of somewhat less critical importance. NRC Annual Reports recorded the steadily increasing volume of requests for information being made by industry. In 1954 over eight thousand requests were made and by 1962 there were over seventeen thousand requests a year. The reports emphasized this volume of output as an indication of NRC's beneficial effect; however, especially in the 1950s, they also revealed a constant impression by NRC people that industry continually had to be prodded. Such prodding occurred, for example, when NRC scientists urged the private sector to do its share in the peaceful use of atomic energy. The Canadian Manufacturers' Association continued to pass resolutions supporting the need for industrial research, but there appeared to be a generally passive posture toward the NRC.83 Until the late 1950s, therefore, there existed a vacuum which, in combination with the political vacum, left the internal forces of the NRC that much more the critical frame of reference for NRC's decisions. The NRC's other major clientele group, the academic science community, remained generally satisfied. It was undergoing tremendous growth and it relied on the NRC to support much of its growth.64 61. Source: NRC, Annual Reports, 1916-68. 62.See James Gullet, "Nationalism and Canadian Science," in P. H. Russell, ed., Nationalism in Canada (Toronto: McGraw-Hill, 1966), pp. 221-34; and A. H. Wilson, Science Technology and Innovation, Special Study no. 8, prepared for the Economic Council of Canada (Ottawa: Queen's Printer, 1968), pp. 20-93. 63.See for example, "Industrial and Scientific Research Conference," 79th Annual Meeting of the Canadian Manufacturers' Association, rpt. from Industrial Canada (July 1950). 64.NRC, Support of Research in Canadian Universities by the National Research Council of Canada, March 1968. See Appendix B for a summary of expenditure data.

NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL 53

During most of this period it was in no position to be a critic, for it would be biting the hand that fed it. In many respects the entire decade of the 1960s marked the gradual "filling in" of the industrial and political vacuums. The industrial and political sectors and, eventually, the university sector, increased the volume and pace of their demands on the NRC and the scientific community. The internal patterns of communication generated within NRC, both by the norms of science and by the needs of its growing internal complexity, tended to become a less powerful frame of reference for the NRC. It is during this period that Canada made her second attempt to create science policy machinery and to organize science to serve social goals. The NRC, as it approached the mid-1960s, must be seen in the light of this constellation of forces. It was ultimately the absence of any significant societal and political pressure that allowed the NRC to wander off the prescribed path. Many NRC scientists, especially those who have had their careers linked closely with the growth and development of the council over the past thirty years, quite naturally resent the nature of much of the present criticism, especially the tendency of the critics to disregard the NRC's considerable accomplishments. There is an intense and understandable pride felt by these scientists in the council's achievements. It was, nonetheless, the NRC's overall performance that was the centre of conflict as Canadian science became an increasingly important political issue in the late 1960s.

2 Bureaucracy's Views of the Science Secretariat and Science Council

The Science Secretariat and the Science Council of Canada are organizations composed of scientists, inserted into a federal bureaucracy composed overwhelmingly of nonscientists. As organizations they were required to spend a great amount of their early energy in establishing their legitimacy in the eyes of the bureaucracy in general and the NRC in particular. Their roles were more complicated than the NRC's had been fifty years earlier. The two organizations had not only to clarify their relationship with respect to their predecessor (the NRC), but also to develop their role in a key central structure of the federal government, the Privy Council Office. They were to be related to the central structure of decision-making in a much more intimate, permanent, and immediate way than the NRC had ever been. These complications were especially relevant to the Science Secreteriat. Its position in the federal bureaucracy will receive greater emphasis in this chapter, partly because it preceded the Science Council by two years and, hence, for a time constituted the only central science policy structure, and partly because, by its very nature, it was designed to be closer to the day-to-day science problems in the federal bureaucracy while the Science Council was to be primarily a nongovernmental advisory structure. The Science Council and the perceptions which the government science agencies and departments developed toward it will also be analysed. This chapter, therefore, is concerned with the interagency adjustments produced by the coming of Canada's second generation of science policy machinery. The view that the NRC held toward science policy machinery in general and toward the Science Secretariat and Science Council in particular must be seen in the light of the evolution of the NRC's

56 CHAPTER TWO own role as described in chapter 1. The mere fact that new machinery was thought to be needed was a reflection of NRC's own inadequate performance as general science adviser. The evolution of these general views can best be seen by referring first to the 1959-60 Annual Report of the NRC. The late Dr. E. W. R. Steacie devoted much of his report to a commentary on the events in 1959 and 1960 in the United States and Great Britain where structures proposed for the central management of science were being debated. It is worthwhile to record his reaction to these developments in some detail. It is pertinent that, during the past year, there has been a re-examination of the organization of science, both in the United Kingdom and in the United States. The U.K. has now established a Minister for Science and the U.S. Congress has under continuing discussion several bills that would establish something in the nature of a Department of Science. Both these movements are symptomatic of a concern for the current organization of research and both represent an effort to pattern science in the departmental mould, and to centralize administrative authority of an endeavour that naturally tends to diverge. Neither the U.K. nor the U.S. possesses the clear but flexible delineation of administrative authority for science that exists in Canada. This is due partly to the greater size and diversity of their scientific efforts. But greater central administrative responsibility for science is advocated in both countries largely to correct practices that have been avoided in Canada, or to provide procedures that are already well established here. In the U.K. a Minister for Science has been appointed, although many British scientific organizations have doubts about the wisdom of this step. The U.K. discarded the idea of a vast ministry of science covering both defence and civil science and taking in all the existing research councils. Although this might prove administratively efficient it would deprive scientists of their independence and would submerge civil science in a department which would undoubtedly be dominated by defence interests. In the end the U.K. established a Minister for Science with few responsibilities beyond that of answering for science in Parliament. In Canada this responsibility is constitutionally exercised by the Chairman of the Privy Council Committee on Scientific and Industrial Research and there would seem to be no advantage in a Minister of Science on the model of the U.K.; i.e., in this respect we are 40 years ahead of the U.K. In the U.S. the concern over the organization of research arises because of the domination of research by military and quasi-military agencies and a lack of coordination and planning in the support of basic research. There is concern about the operation of government support of research in the universities and a fear that the administration of

BUREAUCRACY'S VIEWS 57 research contracts may result in excessive control of the universities by government departments. None of the points advanced in support of a department of science in the U.S. has relevance for Canada and, in fact, in spite of these points there is strong opposition in the U.S. to a centralized Department of Science. In Canada all these troubles have been avoided, partly because Canadian industrialization came rather later into the picture and partly because of wise decisions that were made when the opportunities arose. Thus, it was firmly decided that research organizations having departmental responsibilities should report to Parliament through the appropriate Minister (agricultural research through the Minister of Agriculture, mining research through the Minister of Mines and Technical Surveys, etc.). Equally important, when research organizations with broader responsibilities eventually became necessary, to serve secondary industries in general and nuclear industries in particular, these younger organizations were given the broader freedoms that accord with their broader functions. Nevertheless, in spite of the necessary freedom that has been exercised by such agencies as the National Research Council and Atomic Energy of Canada Limited, they do report to Parliament, and through a Minister. They report to the Chairman of a Committee of the Privy Council on Scientific and Industrial Research, which consists of the Ministers of the nine Departments having the greatest interest in research. This admirable device of Government has saved the country from the uneasiness now being experienced by her older, larger, and more complicated allies. In the U.K. and the U.S. the several kinds of research, which we had the opportunity to differentiate clearly from their beginning, have been to some extent confounded, so far as the role of government is concerned.l Dr. Steacie's comments are aimed at a Minister or Department of Science as a specific form of science policy machinery; at the same time, they do reveal a strong sense of satisfaction that the 1960 machinery was working quite well and, indeed, that it was somewhat ahead of our closest neighbours. The views held by Dr. Steacie are not isolated views. Because of the loyalty and esteem with which Steacie was regarded, his comments were endorsed by many scientists in the senior levels of the NRC. The NRC's views of any future science advisory machinery were also conditioned by what it felt was unfair and inaccurate treatment at the hands of the Glassco Commission. Generally, the annoyance and resentment against the Glassco report centred on the two items raised in the previous chapter: Glassco's view that NRC had "turned 1. NRC, Annual Report (1959-60) : 14.

58 CHAPTER TWO

away" from its role of general adviser, and that the high and unbalanced proportion of in-house research, to the detriment of industrial research, had been caused to a considerable degree by the attitudes of senior scientists. As one NRC scientist put it, "The basis on which the Glassco group criticized NRC was wrong; the reason why NRC could not advise on science policy was because the government did not use it. It allowed the departments to build up their scientific resources without any reference to general advisory bodies. NRC was forced out of this role. 2 Another scientist placed the cause of the breakdown even more directly at the doorstep of the politician. "The advisory role didn't work because Cabinet ministers were overworked and because science did not loom large in their scheme of things. "a With respect to the supposed preponderance of the in-house research over industrial research, the common response was that, here too, Glassco had erred. Some questioned the accuracy of the data used, in that figures put under a government head were often spent and performed in the industrial sector. The major response, however, was one of labelling industry as the real villain, relating it both to foreign ownership of many research intensive industries and to a general lack of appreciation for science and technology in the Canadian business and industrial sector. Even a scientist such as Dr. C. J. Mackenzie, who was committed to the need for new science advisory machinery, was careful to defend the NRC's interpretation of the causes and to question the Glassco analysis. Dr. Mackenzie also attributed the causes to the failure of successive governments and to the unbridled growth of the agencies and departments, especially in the latter's growth as "regular" departments without the appropriate research environment. "Probably the NRC has been most embarrassed by the way developments have occurred here because it is still theoretically operating under an Act which originally gave responsibilities that successive governments have taken away in reality without substantially revising the Act." 4 In the discussions among senior bureaucrats and scientists which followed the Glassco recommendations and the Mackenzie report, the NRC, in spite of its implicit admission that its advisory role had not been carried out, was extremely reluctant to give it up to either a

2. Confidential interview. 3. Confidential interview. 4. C. J. Mackenzie, Report to Prime Minister on Government Science (Ottawa: Privy Council Office, January, 1964), p. 10. (Emphasis added.)

BUREAUCRACY'S VIEWS 59 Science Secretariat or a Science Council. A one senior official remarked, "the NRC greatly coveted its nostalgic role." It was probably in recognition of this great reluctance that Dr. Mackenzie had suggested that the Science Secretariat be created first and then a committee under the chairmanship of the President of the NRC be created to study the relationship between the NRC and the proposed Science Council. In the period between the creation of the Science Secretariat in 1964 and the Science Council in 1966, the NRC's views of the new central scientist advisers were conditioned by three factors: the personality and role of the first director, Dr. Frank Forward, the vagueness and uncertainty of the secretariat's functions, and the NRC's experience with the secretariat over a few of the initial projects which required decisions in the 1964 to 1966 period. Dr. Forward was an engineer whose career had been primarily in the nongovernmental sector. At the time of his appointment as the Science Secretariat's first director he was a member of the NRC (the council itself and not the NRC laboratories) and was identified as a critic of NRC, especially of its performance in industrial research and development. Because Dr. Forward was the only member of the secretariat for one year and then, only later, was joined by two other scientists, Dr. Weir and Dr. Whitehead, who were identified with the Glassco group, the NRC's attitude toward the secretariat, at the outset, was somewhat suspicious and strained. Dr. Forward was an aggressive engineer with a decidedly different view of the place of science in society than that which generally prevailed in the higher levels of the NRC. And though he had a distinguished record in his own career, he did not fit the generalized NRC image of a prestigious scientist. Even though he was endorsed by an NRC man such as Dr. C. J. Mackenzie, he was not regarded as a person who fitted in with all the qualifications that Mackenzie himself had suggested for such a sensitive post: i) He must bring prestige to the job. This is particularly essential in the organizational stages when there is no "built-in" prestige associated with the position. ii) This means he must have had experience and professional associations in the three scientific sectors of government, universities and industry. He must also be "persona grata" with the senior officials in these respective fields and his "governmental status" must be high, i.e., Senior Deputy Minister grade, in order that he can associate on an equal status with the heads of all scientific organizations in his area and be accepted in the operating establishments as a senior official.

60 CHAPTER TWO iii) It follows that a chairman can probably only be found in a senior post in a university in the age groups 58 — 62 who might be attracted by an opportunity to round out his career in a prestigious posting.5

We shall be analysing the expectations and the realities of this new scientist-adviser role and the kind of personal qualifications that accompanied it, but the point to be made here is that the council's view of Dr. Forward was that he was not NRC's kind of scientist. It is clear also that the NRC (and indeed all the agencies) had only the vaguest conception of the role of the Science Secretariat. The secretariat had no statutory basis and no terms of reference. The only public documents which might have communicated its intended role, both to the agencies and departments, and to the secretariat itself, was the Prime Minister's statement of April 30, 1964, which in turn was directly derived from the Mackenzie report. Its duties were those of "assembling, digesting and analyzing all information concerning the government's scientific and technological activities and their interrelations with university, industrial and provincial research establishments."e It would have no executive authority. Issues such as whether the secretariat would be only a passive "feeder of information" when asked by the cabinet, or whether it had a duty to actively offer advice on its own initiative, were left undefined. So was the issue of whether the secretariat would be involved in dayto-day budget matters dealing with science programs. The impression in the minds of both the senior NRC scientists and the Science Secretariat personnel appears to have been that it would not have any regularized budget role. What minister would the Director of the Science Secretariat report to? Would it be the Prime Minister or would it be the NRC's minister, the Chairman of the Privy Council Committee on Scientific and Industrial Research? Because these issues were undefined, because the range of potential future relationships between the Science Secretariat and the NRC were couched in uncertainty, and because each of these issues involved areas in which the NRC had jurisdictional claims, they tended to complicate and "escalate" the jurisdictional politics between the two structures in the early years of the Science Secretariat's existence. The attempts of the two organizations to establish the acceptable limits of each other's roles can be seen by referring to two decisions on fairly major projects, both of which brought the NRC and the 5.Ibid., p. 24. 6.Ibid., p. 22.

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secretariat into a relationship with each other. The decisions concerned the Churchill Range for Upper Atmosphere Research and the proposal for a thirty-foot Wind Tunnel for aeronautical research. The Churchill Rocket Range had been built by the U.S. Defence Department for upper atmosphere research.? The launching facilities were made available at no charge to Canadian government and university scientists with NRC support. In 1963, proposals were made for an expanded Canadian involvement in upper atmosphere and space research including the creation of a space agency. In 1964 the American government indicated they would be withdrawing their support of the Churchill Range, and thus a decision was required by the Canadian government as to whether or not it would support the project. The decision-making processes initially followed a normal preScience Secretariat pattern. The NRC first studied the future alternatives and decided to ask for an additional appropriation to enable NRC to assume the costs of the project. The President of NRC discussed the project with the Chairman of the Privy Council Committee on Scientific and Industrial Research, and the latter, after convening meetings with the Departments of Industry, Defence Production, and the Defence Research Board, submitted a proposal to the Treasury Board. The Treasury Board, however, in January, 1965, asked for the advice of the Director of the Science Secretariat and in so doing fundamentally altered the "rules of the game" by which science decisions heretofore had been made. After receiving a report by a group of outside consultants, the director subsequently gave his advice to the Treasury Board and the project went ahead. The NRC's account of the project before the Senate Committee merely reports that the "Treasury Board ... sought the advice of the recently appointed Director of the Science Secretariat"8 and says no more. In view of the fact that NRC reported the secretariat's positive endorsement of the wind tunnel project, its silence on the Churchill Rocket Range could invite at least two interpretations: the director's recommendations were unfavourable to NRC's proposal or perhaps not as favourable 7. The following account of the Churchill Rocket Range decision is documented in NRC, A Supplementary Report to the Senate Special Committee on Science Policy, presented by the NRC, rpt. as Appendix 22 in The Senate of Canada, Proceedings of the Special Committee on Science Policy, no. 21 (1969), pp. 3245-49. Confidential interviews also provided information about the nature of the decision-making process. 8. Senate of Canada, Committee on Science Policy, no. 21 (1969): 3248.

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as NRC would have liked, or perhaps NRC did not know what the director communicated to the Treasury Board. Regardless of the actual recommendation, the important point about the Churchill project was that it brought the NRC and the secretariat into a decision-making relationship which was quite unexpected, especially from NRC's point of view, at that time. The availability of alternative sources of advice to the Treasury Board and cabinet on matters of scientific content was certainly a part of the logic of creating a Science Secretariat, but its real impact on interagency relationships was perceived only when particular cases were being contested or decided upon. The decision-making processes surrounding the wind tunnel project were somewhat similar.° Beginning in 1962 an NRC committee representing the government, university, and industrial sectors of aeronautical research reported an "urgent industrial requirement for a large low speed wind tunnel." The recommendation was eventually placed before the National Aeronautical Research Committee (an interdepartmental government committee of officials) which endorsed the proposal and recommended that NRC be the responsible authority. In March, 1964, the project was approved by the Treasury Board. Following more detailed technical and engineering studies in 1964, the ultimate cost of the project was found to be over six million dollars. This cost, higher than was expected, prompted the Treasury Board to refer the matter for advice to the Science Secretariat and the Department of Industry. The review was also prompted by the receipt of two counter-proposals from the Montreal and Toronto-based aircraft industries, each of which wanted the wind tunnel located near their respective centres.10 While the Science Secretariat recommended the construction of the tunnel, to be built in Ottawa, it also became an additional point of entry into the centre of government for the competing interests that were concerned about the location of the project. The NRC already had a considerable interest and financial stake in existing aeronautical research and support equipment. This factor would weigh heavily in any decision regarding the location of the wind tunnel. While the 9. The following account of the wind tunnel decision is documented in NRC, A Supplementary Report ... , Appendix 22, Senate of Canada, Committee on Science Policy, no. 21 (1969) : 3240-44. Confidential interviews also provided information about the nature of the decision-making process. 10. An interesting sidelight to this is that the major spokesman for the Toronto interests was Dr. O. M. Solandt, who was Iater to become the first chairman of the Science Council of Canada.

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NRC reported to the Senate Committee that "the decision to locate the wind tunnel in Ottawa was made by the government on primarily economic grounds," it would appear that the "politics of location" also bulked very large in the decision.tt Although the NRC tended to view this second involvement with the Science Secretariat as a somewhat disturbing inconvenience, it seems plausible to argue that the presence of the secretariat, both as a means of channelling political demands and as an alternate source of advice, may have helped legitimize the NRC location as being the only alternative that would prevent having to choose between Montreal and Toronto interests. The factors described above — the personal role of Dr. Forward, the vagueness of the Science Secretariat's role, and the early involvement of the secretariat and the NRC over particular projects — do not constitute events which individually had a decisive impact on the NRC's view of the new advisory machinery. But taken together, and concentrated into a fairly short, two-year period during which NRC felt itself to be under considerable public criticism, these factors did influence the NRC's general attitude toward the new machinery. Publicly, the posture of NRC during this time ranged from viewing the secretariat as a "public menace"12 to ignoring it altogether." Privately, and in the reality of interagency day-to-day life, it was becoming accustomed — albeit somewhat grudgingly — to the necessity and inevitability of the secretariat's presence.

Views of Other Departments

The manner in which the mission-oriented departments and agencies as a whole viewed the new machinery must also be analysed by referring first to their reaction to the Glassco report. Generally they gave the report a somewhat warmer welcome. They tended to support the Glassco view that NRC could not act as an impartial adviser 11. NRC, A Supplementary Report ... , p. 3243. 12.This phrase was applied in a speech by Dr. L. Marion, a vice-president of NRC from 1963 to 1965. He was giving his view of the secretariat being created without a Science Council. By itself the secretariat was a "public menace." See Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada 3, no. 4 (June 1965) : 5. 13.The Globe and Mail science writer, David Spurgeon, commented on the fact that at the NRC's fiftieth anniversary celebration, not a word was mentioned about the new machinery nor about the NBC's views toward it. See Globe and Mail, September 24, 1966.

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because it had too much of a vested interest in the primacy of its own operations. They strongly agreed that a Minister or Department of Science would be totally unworkable and undesirable, and they were in complete accord with the Glassco criticisms of the management of scientific personnel and of the great rigidity of rules to which the regular departments were subjected, but which the NRC, in particular, escaped. On the other hand, the departments and agencies shared with NRC the same resentment against Glassco's comments about the causes of the supposed imbalance between in-house governmental research and nongovernmental research. And, although they were in agreement that NRC should not play the role of central science adviser, their initial reaction, during the period in late 1963 when the review of Glassco's report was under way, was one of preferring not to have any machinery to perform this role. This view about the central machinery was really a reflection of the departments' and agencies' sense of comfort in maintaining the existing methods of making decisions concerning their scientific programs. While the technical official-level advisory panel for scientific policy and the ministerial Privy Council Committee on Scientific and Industrial Research met only infrequently (as Glassco had reported), when they did meet to consider problems or proposals, there was a strong built-in tendency for the committees to be used merely to legitimize or generate an authoritative mandate for the programs as they appeared. It is clear that a "you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours" philosophy developed over the years. The advisory panel and Privy Council Committee did not invariably perform under this philosophy, but as a broad tendency the philosophy was operative. Departmental and agency program proposals, when they did come before these committees, would come one at a time and, therefore, would not be considered in relation to any competing priorities. The mechanics of this kind of advisory process were such that the departmental representatives would tend to support most projects (provided they were good for science) proposed by any given agency on the grounds that, on another day, they may be the agency making the proposal. This system of trade-offs characterized a good part of the pre-Glassco decision-making processes. Just as often, however, the system was characterized by the "end run." Rather than proceeding through the advisory network and perhaps from there to the Treasury Board, the departments and agencies frequently found it possible and advantageous to go around the machinery directly to the cabinet. It should be stressed, in fairness

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to the scientists, that this was a common phenomenon in many nonscience programs also. It was a system of decision-making that was characterized by the lack of an "adversary" procedure. Programs were not assessed against other programs, and when the proposals reached the cabinet or the Treasury Board, these agencies had no competence or machinery by which they could obtain an independent assessment of the merits of the proposal. The general system and philosophy seems even to have pervaded the processes of evaluation not only between agencies and the central machinery of government but also within particular departments. Speaking before the Senate Committee, the Deputy Minister of the Department of Energy, Mines and Resources observed: At least four of the different branches [of the department] have a long history, along with their own traditions and specialties. Their tendency has sometimes been to consider the department and quite often the deputy minister simply an administrative inconvenience to their work. Only in the last few years has there been a noticeable tendency for the branches to work together as a department rather than as separate units.14 The coming of the Science Secretariat in 1964 was, therefore, viewed with great reluctance because of what it might do to alter this system of interagency behaviour. The attitudes of the departments and agencies were also conditioned by some of the same factors described in the earlier discussion of the NRC's views. The vagueness of the secretariat's intended role left a great deal of uncertainty. A fairly typical response to my question about the secretariat was that it would be all right as long as "it works the way C. J. Mackenzie said it would work" — that is, with no executive authority. My interviews also indicated an initial ambivalence about the potential authority of the secretariat. On the one hand the vagueness of its duties carried with it the potential for having some power, and this was realized by the departments and agencies. On the other hand, as the Science Secretariat became operational, there was, and is, a tendency to view it as having a fairly low status. These views were not directed in a personal sense at the secretariat's personnel, but rather at their collective inexperience in the government-scientific scheme of things. It would be impossible for such a small group to keep adequately informed about what the departments were doing, let alone give competent judgements. These views did not seem to flow from 14. Senate of Canada, Committee on Science Policy, no 16 (1969) : 2344.

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any deeply internalized view that fellow scientists in the secretariat were to be feared in the sense of being science "overlords." They seemed rather to flow from the very nature of the complexity of science and the complexity of government. The evolution of the departmental and agency perceptions toward the new machinery was also conditioned by their particular experiences with the Science Secretariat over specific programs. Perhaps the most classic kind of case was the decision respecting the Queen Elizabeth II Telescope (hereafter referred to as QEII).15 It is useful to look at it briefly because it straddled the two kinds of decision-making mechanisms, the earlier trade-off system and the newly developing adversary system. The Queen Elizabeth telescope plan was initiated by the Department of Mines and Technical Surveys in the early 1960s as a major research telescope that would allow Canadian astronomers, and especially the group of scientists in the Observatories Branch, to "resume" a position of world leadership in some branches of astronomical research. The project was steered through the decision-making machinery primarily by Dr. W. E. Van Steenberg, then deputy minister of the department, and a man described by one government official as having "great influence and knowledge in the techniques of persuading the Cabinet." In 1962 and 1963 Van Steenberg succeeded in building up a series of authoritative endorsements. Resolutions of support were solicited and received from the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada and also from the more important Canadian Committee of the International Astronomical Union. Within the governmental machinery Dr. Van Steenberg presented the proposal to a National Research Council group which declared the project to be desirable and worth doing. Armed with these several endorsements, the proposal was then taken to the Privy Council Committee on Scientific and Industrial Research. At this stage some opposition began to appear, primarily from within NRC (and from astronomers in the university community), but the proposal was approved on the weight of the several endorsements, especially that of the NRC which Van Steenberg produced 15. The account of the processes involved in the QEII decision is drawn from confidential interviews and published comments. See Donald A. MacRae, "The Alternative to the QEII," University of Toronto Graduate (December 1968): 43-47; Science Secretariat, Physics in Canada Survey and Outlook (Ottawa: Queen's Printer, 1967), pp. 87-123; David Spurgeon, "Stymied Stargazers," Globe and Mail, September 18, 1968; Letters to Editor, Globe and Mail, November 4, 1968; Department of Energy, Mines and Resources, press release (mimeo), August 29, 1968, pp. 1-3; and John Clark, "A Telescope Project Astronomers May Not Use," Globe and Mail, May 3, 1969.

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before the meeting. The final thrust to gain approval came from a somewhat unexpected source, the visit of Queen Elizabeth II to Canada in October of 1964. Van Steenberg went directly to the cabinet and convinced it that the telescope should be named after the queen and announced to commemorate her visit. The project was declared by the government as one project that would "set off an aggressive research program, bolster Canada's scientific prestige and stimulate development of scientific manpower."" The Science Secretariat had become initially involved in the decision about the QEII in 1964 only in a marginal way. One of the first meetings of the Privy Council Committee that Dr. Forward attended, on becoming director of the secretariat, was one which considered the QEII project. The director was subsequently asked for his views by the Honourable C. M. Drury, chairman of the Privy Council Committee, and he suggested the project be reviewed. Such a review was not carried out, however, when the queen's visit, and the Van Steenberg strategy to use the visit, propelled the decision on the project beyond the review stage to a fait accompli. Following the decision some work of a technical nature began, and Mount Kobau in British Columbia was chosen as a location. This was a decision in accordance with the department's and the government's desire that the project had to be located in Canada. In the period between 1965 and the cancellation of the project in 1968, a series of events occurred which involved the communication of information and the representation of several scientific "interests," a great proportion of which was funnelled through the Science Secretariat. While these events will not be described in any chronological detail, it is important to list them so that we might have some awareness of the kinds of information that passed through the secretariat. The Department of Energy, Mines and Resources was invited by the Carnegie Institution, in the spring of 1967, to share in the building and operation in Chile of an even larger telescope than the QEII. Canadian astronomers in the university community, concentrated almost wholly at the University of Toronto, became aware of this proposal and were convinced that the Chile site would be infinitely superior, not only in terms of the size of the telescope, but also in terms of the site's clearly superior length of viewing time (2500 hours per year versus Mount Kobau's 1200-1400 hours). The latter was important because any use of the facility would have to be shared among many researchers, including graduate students. The University 16. Quoted in Globe and Mail, August 30, 1968.

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of Toronto group's interest was interpreted by both the Department of Energy, Mines and Resources and by the small astronomy group at the University of British Columbia (near where the QEII was to be built) as being an attempt to prevent the development of the UBC group, or at least an attempt to prevent the shifting of the centre of astronomical research in Canada westward. The Treasury Board also became interested in the project, especially after the contents of a special consultant's report became available in 1967. The costs and the nature of the basic infrastructure which was to be built around Mount Kobau had mushroomed beyond their original limits. The site itself was coming to be regarded as something other than just a site for a telescope. The British Columbia government was interested in the potential tourist attraction of the telescope. This caused some anxiety among the scientists about the intrusion of these potential auxiliary purposes for the project. It also prompted the Treasury Board, in the light of its concern over costs, to order a slowdown on the project in August of 1967. The Science Secretariat was also on the receiving end of some representations on the part of American astronomers and American science agencies which indicated that another telescope in North America was not really needed, and that it would be better to support the Chile project. As a result of these events the government ordered the Science Secretariat to examine the project. From the point of view of the Treasury Board and the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources, the Science Secretariat was called in as a means of vetting the claims of the competing interests which were coalescing around the QEII project. The scientists in the department were certain that the secretariat study would support their views. To review the project the Science Secretariat created a Study Group on Astronomy, headed by Dr. D. C. Rose, a retired NRC physicist, and composed of two other scientists, Dr. C. S. Beals, the former Dominion Astronomer, and Dr. W. H. Wehlau, the chairman of the Department of Astronomy at the University of Western Ontario. The study group held public hearings in early July, 1968, and submitted its reports to the secretariat on August 12, 1968. The terms of reference of the study group were: As a first priority 1. To evaluate the merits of the Queen Elizabeth Telescope, the southern hemisphere proposal and other astronomical projects of the government from the point of view of scientific excellence; this should be considered in the context of the total effort devoted to

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astronomy by both government agencies and private institutions in Canada. To the extent and depth that time permits, recognizing the lack of comparative data:

2. to appraise the allocation of resources to astronomy by all agencies in the context of the total scientific effort of Canada, including an assessment of the priority of astronomy in relation to the technical and economic capabilities of the country. 3. to appraise the possible economic benefits to Canada of astronomical research in comparison with other fields of scientific research. 4. to consider the recommendation of the Glassco Commission that all government astronomy be combined under one agency.17 While the immediate cause of the inquiry was clearly item 1, the other three provisions were inserted at the request of officials in the Department of Energy, Mines and Resources. The resulting report and recommendations clearly revealed the nature of the split in the interests that had been communicated to the government and Science Secretariat earlier.1S The group felt it could not recommend the completion of the proposed Kobau telescope by itself because "it would fail to meet the overall needs of astronomical research in Canada." They, therefore, recommended it only as a part of a much larger establishment, partly in Chile (the Carnegie proposal). The resulting proposals would cost about twenty-five million dollars. The government's subsequent decision to cancel the project was announced officially as being based on the grounds of economy.l9 While I will have more to say about the QEII project in the context of the wider relations between scientists and politicians, the purpose in discussing the case in some detail at this stage is to see how it affected a department's perceptions of the secretariat. While officials in the Department of Energy, Mines and Resources were upset about the secretariat's role in the ultimate decision to cancel, they tended to place most of the blame, not on the government, but on the Toronto "lobby" — that is, on other scientists outside the government. 17.Science Secretariat Working Group on Astronomy, "Hearing and Briefs" (mimeo), June 21, 1968, p. 1. 18.The study group's composition "represented" the interests concerned. Dr. Beals and Dr. Wehlau were there to give symbolic legitimacy to the interests of the department and the universities respectively. Both, however, were not, in a sense, totally identified with the immediate interests of these two groups in that Beals was retired from the department and Wehlau was not a direct University of Toronto representative (although certainly acceptable to the university). As chairman, Dr. Rose was an acceptable third party. 19.See Department of Energy, Mines and Resources, press release (mimeo), August 29, 1968, pp. 1-3.

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The concern they expressed about the secretariat was couched much more in terms of its role as a source and a means of transferring confidential information, information from the United States, from the Toronto group, and information to and from the Treasury Board. It was confidential in the sense that the department was not always privy to the information being circulated. It was this role which fundamentally altered the rules of the decision-making game.20 The initial view that other agencies and departments may have had toward the secretariat was also affected by particular program events. The High Altitude Research project (HARP) was a research project which, though ultimately cancelled, helped condition the views of both the Defence Research Board and the NRC. Both these agencies opposed the continued support of the project, and their view of the secretariat's scientific judgement was by no means enhanced when at least one secretariat member advocated continued support for the HARP project.21 A more general impression of the way in which the departments and agencies viewed the machinery can be derived from the way they responded to the questions I posed during interviews with twenty-one senior scientists. When asked to state their preference for a form of science policy machinery, nineteen of the twenty-one scientists indicated they would prefer a form of machinery modelled after the Economic Council of Canada, that is, an independent agency, with its own staff, but located outside the regular bureaucracy. (At the time of most of my interviews, the Science Council did not have its own staff, as it does now.) With respect to the internal machinery of the government, thirteen preferred to retain only the Privy Council Committee and the Advisory Panel, and the remainder had no opinion. When they were asked whether a science policy was possible, all the officials gave generally pessimistic views. At best they felt that 20. The overall sense of dissatisfaction with the Science Secretariat that the Department of Energy, Mines and Resources seems to have in the wake of the QEII is perhaps best exemplified in its somewhat curious proposal to the Senate Committee on Science Policy that an "Office of Scientific Affairs" be created. This office would "maintain statistics" about funds allotted to departments, agencies, and outside sectors. The proposal is curious because it suggests an agency that is a kind of passive data-gatherer and bears a considerable similarity to the Mackenzie conception of the Science Secretariat and because it is totally silent on how the present secretariat would fit in. See Department of Energy, Mines and Resources, Brief to The Senate of Canada Special Committee on Science Policy, Appendix 14, Senate of Canada, Committee on Science Policy, no. 16 (1969): 2384. 21. See M. Wojaechowski, "Harp Fiasco," Science Forum 3, no. 1 (February 1970) : 12-16.

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•

Canada might be able to generate very broad priority preferences from the Science Council. When asked whether either the Science Council or the Science Secretariat could, or should, become involved in helping to set priorities within these major broad "preferences," or goals, the department and agency officials gave an overwhelmingly negative response. One broad tendency to be derived from these general reactions is that the departments and agencies tended to view the Science Council with a much greater sense of legitimacy than they were prepared to view the secretariat. Their view that the Science Council was a more legitimate structure (assuming some form of science policy machinery was either necessary or inevitable) was seemingly a reflection of several factors. First, the Science Council's duties as a long-term adviser for general goals seemed a more plausible task than the secretariat's. Secondly, the council impinged less directly on their day-to-day existence and was designed, moreover, to be an open and not a confidential or secretive structure. The third and perhaps most important factor was that some departments and agencies had direct representation on the Science Council. This was in contrast to the Science Secretariat where representation was not possible.22 The Science Council's "statutory" and actual composition is, itself, a reflection of the strength of the government scientists in securing appointments to the council. While the statute provided for the twentyfive members to be chosen from among persons having a specialized interest in science or technology, the government presence is felt by the fact that six of the individuals happen to be heads of government agencies.2s In addition, the statute provided for four "associate members" to be chosen "from among officers or employees" of the government of Canada. When read together the provisions for membership appear to imply that governmental representation would be acknowledged under the associate member status, although as "individuals" government scientists are not precluded from appointment. The fact that six of the other twenty-five were government scientists attests to their power. It also demonstrates why the Science Council was viewed as a more legitimate advisory structure by the agencies. The scientists in the Science Secretariat were not viewed primarily as potential "scientist overlords." They were suspect and illegitimate 22. It should be noted that at least one department has "offered" to second one of its science officers to the secretariat. 23. For the council's membership as of October, 1968, see Senate of Canada, Committee on Science Policy, no. 8 (1968) : 1005.

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more because they had partly altered the internal scientist-bureaucratic "political" system, the system by which power, influence, and decisions flow. And while the "politics" of the scientist decision-making network are not openly discussed as politics, it is at the heart of the agencies' concern about the Science Secretariat and Science Council roles, especially the former's role. There was also concern about the confidentiality and secretiveness of the secretariat, located as it is in the mysterious inner sanctuary of the Privy Council Office. Some of the lack of respect for the plausibility of the secretariat's role was derived also from the very nature of science itself. "Science is complex." "Information about science is exploding into print." "How can a small secretariat really cope with these complexities?" These are the realities the agencies saw as they experienced the coming of the secretariat. When the complexity of the bureaucratic political system is added to these views, the Science Secretariat, as an operative structure, seemed even less plausible and legitimate.

Science Policy Machinery and the Treasury Board To relate our discussion of the place of the Science Secretariat and Science Council in the Canadian bureaucracy to our earlier discussion of the role of the National Research Council in chapter 1, it is useful to make some brief comments about their relationship, and the relationship of the departments and agencies, to the Treasury Board. Most of the general departmental and agencies' views toward the Treasury Board and its staff were closely related to the views expressed about the Science Secretariat. Indeed, it was the developing relationship between the Treasury Board and its use of the secretariat that was at the very heart of the changing nature of the decision-making system. The Treasury Board's requests for opinions from the secretariat, while still intermittent, have become increasingly more frequent. And they have often centred on fairly major and costly programs. While the Treasury Board (both the political and staff side) has always had an aura of suspicion and mystery about its power, its new found "expertise" in matters relating to science (most of it attributable to its use of the secretariat) came as somewhat of a surprise to the agencies and departments. Although the Glassco Commission had initially recommended that the secretariat report to the President of Treasury Board, and hence provide a science input into its deliberations, this location for the secretariat was stoutly resisted by the departments and agencies. The

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Treasury Board was suspect enough without adding a further — and equally suspicious — structure to its organization. The Mackenzie report clearly steered away from this relationship and, as will be discussed later, the Science Secretariat itself initially did not see its role as being a budgetary adviser to the Treasury Board. The Treasury Board staff, however, fairly quickly saw the Science Secretariat as an agency that would provide some form of independent judgement by which it could more intelligently apportion resources to satisfy the clamouring demands of departments and agencies. The organization, in fact, is seen increasingly as a valuable asset to the Treasury Board, a view probably best exemplified by the attempt, in the spring and summer of 1968, to have it transferred to the Treasury Board.24 This attempt was not successful, and although we shall discuss this later in the context of the broader political environment in chapter 6, the point to be made here is that the departments and agencies tended to view the Secretariat—Treasury Board relationship through the same set of dark glasses. The departments' and agencies' view of the Treasury Board and the Treasury Board's complementary view of the government's science "policies" were also heavily conditioned by the broader role envisaged for the Treasury Board by the Glassco Commission, and by the subsequent development of a "planning, programming and budgeting" (PPB) philosophy of management. In line with the Glassco Commission's view that the Treasury Board ought to become the "general manager" of the public service and its programs, the Treasury Board was reorganized into three branches, one of which was the Program Branch. The branch was held to be responsible for "the continuing examination and appraisal of departmental and agency programs and expenditure proposals as to purpose, scope, scale, cost, timing and effect in relation to the policies and priorities established by the govemment."25 Within the branch, five program divisions were established, including one dealing with "economic measures and scientific research." Of the six senior officers in that division, only one (an engineer) had a technical background. This was a reflection of the Treasury Board's philosophy about programs generally, including science programs: "The officers of the Program Branch who deal with departmental 24. Confidential interviews. 25. The Secretary of the Treasury Board, Brief to The Special Committee on Science Policy of The Senate of Canada, Appendix 27, Senate of Canada, Committee on Science Policy, no. 26 (1969) : 3270.

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expenditure programs are not selected on the basis of expert knowledge in particular program areas, but rather on the basis of administrative and executive training and experience and their general ability and judgements."28 The background of the personnel is congruent with the Treasury Board's views about science policy. Speaking before the Senate Committee, S. S. Reisman, secretary to the Treasury Board, bluntly observed that "in the eyes of the Board, science is not regarded as a thing in itself but rather as a means to an end. In general, particular scientific projects are not examined on their own merits but rather as components of programs which have defined objectives."27 The relationship of science to programs, a relationship critical to the concept of program budgeting, stands at a philosophical level, in contradiction to much of the previous rationale of organizing science. This was especially true for agencies such as NRC, but even the so-called mission-oriented agencies and departments could not be said to be specifically program-based. The suitability of organizing science on a program basis is a topic with very broad consequences, both for the making of science policies and for the attitudes of scientists toward "organizing" science (see Chapter 6). The purpose in introducing the matter at this stage is, primarily, to point out the fact that this major government-wide philosophical discussion about management and planning helped condition the mutual views of the departments and agencies on the one hand, and the Treasury Board on the other.28 In general then, the bureaucracy's view of the new science policy machinery was characterized by a mixture of suspicion and uncertainty. This was caused by a number of factors including the changes the new machinery imposed on the pre-existing rules of the game, and the differences of viewpoint about the desirability and the plausibility of organizing science in a complex governmental environment. While there is now an awareness that the central science machinery is here to stay, the relationship remains, uncertain and strained. One concluding comment about this chapter's survey should be made. Compared to chapter 1, which also described the interagency adjustments when the NRC was inserted into the Canadian federal bureaucracy, this chapter deals with a much shorter time span. To the 26. Ibid., p. 3271. 27. Ibid., pp. 3 695-96. 28. For an account of the "program" budgeting philosophy see Government of Canada, Planning Programming Budgeting Guide (July 1968), rpt. in Senate of Canada, Committee on Science Policy, no. 26 (1969) : 3739-94.

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extent that the magnitude of adjustment and tension between the agencies and the secretariat seems greater here than in the similar situation with the NRC, the shorter time perspective may be a large explanatory factor. Problems viewed from the more immediate time perspective of six years will inevitably bulk larger than when viewed from the relative calm of twenty or thirty years' hindsight. In spite of this, however, the short-run relationships between the Science Secretariat and the Science Council and the regular departments and agencies in a bureaucratic environment are highly relevant if we are to understand the way science policies are made, or not made, and if we are to analyse the role of scientists in the process.

3 Science Secretariat and Science Council: Structure and Personnel

The structure and organization of the Science Secretariat and Science Council can be most appropriately described by distinguishing between the "preseparation" and "postseparation" periods. The preseparation period refers to the 1964-66 period when the secretariat existed alone, and to the 1966-68 interval, when the two structures were linked by the secretariat serving as the Science Council's staff support. The postseparation period refers to the contemporary period, beginning in the fall of 1968, when the Science Council became a crown corporation and hence a separate structure with its own staff. The Preseparation Period One point about the initial organizational environment in which the Science Secretariat found itself deserves great emphasis. The scientists sensed the strangeness and novelty of their collective presence in the Privy Council Office, for the secretariat was one of the first specialized "staff" structures introduced into the Privy Council Office. The Privy Council Office had been, for the most part until that time, a very small record-keeping, secretarial, and coordinative office.' It had been composed almost entirely of generalist civil servants, and the coming of the scientists marked a transformation in that it not only increased the 1. For brief accounts of the evolution and nature of the Privy Council Office see W. E. O. Halliday, "The Privy Council Office and Cabinet Secretariat," in J. E. Hodgetts and D. C. Corbett, eds., Canadian Public Administration (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1965), pp. 108-19, and A. D. P. Heeney, "Mackenzie King and the Cabinet Secretariat," Canadian Public Administration 10, no. 3 (September 1967) : 366-75.

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size of the Privy Council Office in terms of senior-level manpower, but also added a group of scientists who were, for the most part, unaccustomed to the secretiveness and confidential nature of their new duties and to the political environment in which they were placed. It is clear, also, that the secretariat experienced as much difficulty with the vagueness of its role as the departments did in trying to anticipate the secretariat's role. The one goal that was clear, however, was that of "data-gathering," and much of its early activity was centred on this function. The choice of the information to be gathered was determined in a number of ways. The commissioning of a special study on upper atmosphere and space research arose out of the Churchill Rocket Range case. Other discipline-based "inventory studies" on such fields as physics, chemistry, and psychology appear to have been based, partly, on the pattern of studies followed by the Americans. But, more broadly, they were based on the assumption that if one was to develop a science policy, one ought to proceed in a scientific way by getting the facts first about major fields of science. The early studies were interesting in an organizational sense because of the way they were carried out. The upper atmosphere and space study was assigned to a group of the most knowledgeable men in the field, whereas the chemistry and physics "inventories" were contracted out to professional associations, the Chemical Institute of Canada and the Canadian Association of Physicists, respectively.2 While the latter approach was more "democratic" in that it appeared to consult the interests as interests, the secretariat quickly developed a preference for getting the top men. The "interest group" approach was slow, cumbersome, and often unreliable in terms of deadlines. The approach to information-gathering via the "top men" route is characteristic of the way information is gathered in many policy spheres, but it may be especially prevalent in the science policy sphere. While colleague relationships are undoubtedly cherished among scientists, the colleaguebased network is often highly limited to the most prominent few men in each field. If data-gathering was quickly perceived as an organizational activity, two other roles, those of adviser to the Privy Council Office and support arm for the Science Council, were developed with less clarity. By 1966 the Science Secretariat found itself having to respond more and more to requests for information and advice from the Prime 2. An account of the secretariat's early activities was summarized by secretariat officials before the Senate Committee. See Senate of Canada, Committee on Science Policy, no. 7 (1968) : 129-34, and no. 22 (1969) : 3357-63.

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Minister, the cabinet, and such cabinet committees as the Treasury Board. This was reflected initially in the secretariat's involvement in such issues as the Churchill Rocket Range, the NRC Wind Tunnel, and the drafting of the Science Council legislation. Somewhat unexpectedly the Science Secretariat came to take on a fairly heavy advisory role with respect to international science. As a consequence, it developed a relationship with the Department of External Affairs and represented Canada on such international bodies as the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Science Policy Committee.3 By the time of the creation of the Science Council, in July, 1966, several special inventory and sector studies begun by the secretariat had been completed. Some of the staff work for the studies, however, continued to be the responsibility of the secretariat. With the completion of the earlier studies and the launching of new ones, by far the greater part of the organization's manpower and time was devoted to the work of the Science Council. Its work load was increased further because, by 1967, the Science Council's own recommendations were being fed into the government. The government, in turn, handed them to the secretariat for evaluation and, in some cases, to assist implementation. The secretariat was thus placed in the somewhat uncomfortable position of attempting to be an evaluator and adviser on the very policy matters and options in which its members had already participated. The secretariat came to have duties relating, therefore, to the "planning functions" of the Privy Council Office. The most significant example of this role centred on the creation of a Task Force on Satellite Communications.4 The government, following its receipt of the secretariat's Special Study on Upper Atmosphere and Space Research, and of the Science Council's endorsement of the recommendations of that 3. Senate of Canada, Committee on Science Policy, no. 22 (1969): 3358. 4. The satellite communications and space agency proposals are a further "big science" decision which could have been the subject of a very detailed case study. They are introduced briefly to illustrate further the role of the secretariat. For more accounts of the issues in this case, see Science Secretariat, Special Study no. 1, Upper Atmosphere and Space Programs in Canada (Ottawa: Queen's Printer, 1967); Science Council of Canada, Report no. 1, A Space Program for Canada (Ottawa: Queen's Printer, July 1967); C. M. Drury, White Paper on a Domestic Satellite Communications System for Canada (Ottawa: Queen's Printer, 1968); House of Commons, Debates, vol. 7, 1969, 7491-7512; House of Commons, Standing Committee on Broadcasting, Films and Assistance to the Arts, Minutes of Proceedings and Evidence, nos. 29-40 (1969); and Senate of Canada, Committee on Science Policy, no. 7 (1968): 145-46.

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study, directed the secretariat to create a Task Force. The Task Force presented a report that subsequently became the basis for a government White Paper. In 1969 a Department of Communications was created to which the project group from the original Task Force has been transferred. Another matter within the terms of reference of the Task Force was the creation of a space agency, recommended by the Science Council. The space agency question was not resolved, primarily because the creation of a space agency involved taking significant space research components out of four powerful agencies -- NRC, DRB, EMR, Department of Transport, and now, also, the Department of Communications — none of which was inclined to give up its jurisdiction. Three points about the Science Secretariat and Science Council organizational format could be noted in connection with the Task Force. First, it involved the secretariat in not just scientific and technological matters, but in organizational and institutional forms and structures as well. This was the kind of intensely political role which was not really expected. It went decidedly beyond the passive datagatherer role, and beyond the also fairly passive role of being adviser to the cabinet or to the Department of External Affairs. A second point, arising out of the Task Force case, was the need for a task force in the first place. Both the Privy Council Committee on Scientific and Industrial Research and the Technical Advisory Panel were left dormant. New ad hoc machinery was created. This continuing inability to get "implementative" machinery operational became a favourite talking point for the Chairman of the Science Council, especially when the Task Force method failed to result in the creation of a space agency.° The preseparation status of the Science Secretariat, as an organization, was extremely uncertain and confused, due partly to its own failures and partly to the government's failures. Its goals were vague. In short, no one, politician or scientist, knew what it was that science secretariats should do. Instead of perceiving its roles, it merely "collected" them. To the early role of data-gatherer were added the activities relating to the Privy Council and the Science Council, and the nature of the totality of these activities was such as to be far beyond the secretariat's resources, both financial and manpower. When the Science Council of Canada met for the first time in July, 1966, it was advised of the Science Secretariat's previously commissioned studies on upper atmosphere and space programs, physics, psychology, and agriculture. The Science Council subsequently 5. Senate of Canada, Committee on Science Policy, no. 3 (1968) : 54.

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launched other studies dealing with engineering research, water resources, and transportation. In organizing itself for these studies, the Science Council delegated authority to two groups, ad hoc Science Council Committees and Special Study Groups.° All Science Council members were only part-time participants (attending meetings every two months), but most had additional duties on the Council Committees. The committees supervised a particular area, a function that included the responsibility for creating special study groups and for defining the terms of reference of such groups. The Council Committees received the reports of the study groups and were responsible then for submitting a policy recommendation to the full Science Council. Each chairman of a committee was normally, but not always, a Science Council member, and membership was composed of both Science Council members and others from the general scientific community who had a specialized knowledge in the field to be studied. The special study groups are composed of scientists who are retained under contract or by secondment for the duration of the study by the Science Secretariat. The Science Secretariat also appointed one of its staff members as the project officer for each study group. The task of the study group was to conduct an investigation according to the terms of reference set out by the appropriate Council Committee and to submit a report to that committee. Like the Science Secretariat, the Science Council became most clearly aware of the need to gather data on the state of science and research in Canada. A good proportion of its preseparation life was spent in this "getting ready to get ready" activity. The Science Council, however, was propelled into the political reality of its role at a point in its life when it would have preferred to confine itself to the "inventory" stage. It was at its second meeting, in October, 1966, that the council reluctantly acceded to the request of the Minister of Mines and Technical Surveys and agreed to review the Intense Neutron Generator (ING) project.? As pointed out earlier, the council was reluctant to comment on single projects, especially when it had little conception of the alternative competing priorities that might be turned up in its inventory studies. As a result, the Science Council found itself in a position not unlike those of the early Privy Council Committee on Scientific and Industrial Research and the Technical Advisory Panel. It had to make a judgement about a project in isolation. 6. See Senate of Canada, Committee on Science Policy, no. 8 (1969) : 1006-11, for a summary of the early activity from which this account is drawn. 7. Ibid., p. 1013. See Chapter 4.

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While ING might have been recommended by the council in any event, the tendency to approve it (albeit, cautiously) was undoubtedly greatly enhanced by the fact that it did appear as a single item. It was presented enthusiastically and competently, and it was clearly a project that was "good for science." As a council of scientists and engineers, it is doubtful that it could have refused approval. It is clear that several council members were highly concerned about launching the new "science policy era" in a pattern which smacked of the old procedures. In fairness to the council, of course, it probably had no choice in that, had it refused, it would also have been criticized. The timing of the ING case also alerted the organization to a further reality, namely, that politicians need advice frequently before all the evidence is in, or can be gathered. The question of the Science Council's duty to advise on general science policy was not formally discussed until June, 1967. It was, however, discussed at the staff level (of the secretariat) and was certainly on the minds of the council members. Although its first substantive comments did not appear until the publication of the council's Report no. 4, Towards a National Science Policy for Canada, some inkling of its general thoughts was transmitted in its first two annual reports, published in June, 1967, and June, 1968. The First Annual Report observed somewhat the same inadequate pattern of expenditure that the Glassco report had traced. Canada ranked seventh out of eight developed countries in percentage of gross national product devoted to research and development, and our proportion of research carried out in the industrial sector was the lowest. After observing these patterns the council went on to urge, in general terms, that the government would have to expect to provide increasing rates of expenditure on research in general and on industrial research in particular. It also foresaw the need for several major progrAms "aimed at the application of science and technology to pressing social and economic problems." It also suggested that "before any new scientific activity or any major expansion of an existing activity is begun, consideration must be given to how it should be organised and where and by whom it should be carried out."8 These were themes which were soon to be stressed even more emphatically in the council's Report no. 4. The Second Annual Report, in June, 1968, had no major policy statements, undoubtedly in anticipation of Report no. 4, soon to be published. It did urge the government again to establish a space agency, but it was not very vocal or 8. Science Council of Canada, First Annual Report (1966-67): 17. (Emphasis added.)

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forceful in this recommendation. The council's statement constituted a gentle nudge rather than a critical call for action.9 The Postseparation Period The need to separate the Science Secretariat from the Science Council had been apparent from the point of view of both parties. Some of the reasons have been cited earlier and will be only summarized here. The Science Secretariat found itself the object of increasing demands for services from within the Privy Council and from the Science Council. It claimed it was spending two-thirds of its time on Science Council work. The Science Council, on the other hand, found it difficult to get staff and to schedule studies from a staff agency not ostensibly under its control. This, therefore, was a practical administrative problem. Related to this was the problem of confidential information. The secretariat was a part of the Privy Council Office, while the Science Council had a basic mission of acting as a catalyst for a public debate. As the Prime Minister's press release, announcing the separation, put it: "The change would give the Council greater flexibility in tackling major problems lying ahead and would help the Council to achieve free and open discussion of all its work with the scientific community and the public at large."10 But the crux of the problem was even better expressed six months before the separation was announced, when the Senate Committee was extremely critical of the secretariat's ambivalent role as both the "preparer" of studies for the Science Council and then the evaluator of Science Council recommendations for the govermnent. Senator Wallace McCutcheon asked: "Is not the Secretariat in a rather ambiguous position? You are preparing and supervising studies to go to the Science Council which, by and large, will be published, and the Science Council will be making recommendations based on those, and they will be matters of public knowledge and quite easily matters of political debate. At the same time you are acting as the advisers to the politician and providing him with recommendations and studies which may or may not be consistent with what you are providing to the Science Council. I think you could find yourself in a very ambiguous situation." Dr. J. R. Weir, the director of the Science 9. Science Council of Canada, Second Annual Report (1967-68) : 6. This is one example of the council's lack of political aggressiveness. Its role appears to call for considerable public prodding, rather than only gentle nudges. 10.Quoted in Science Council of Canada, Third Annual Report (1968-69): 4.

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Secretariat, responded without hesitation, "I agree with you, sir, very much."11 The separation of the two structures became a fact on November 1, 1968, and the council was confirmed as a crown corporation on April 1, 1969, by virtue of the 1969 Government Organization Act. The postseparation period, therefore, is of less than two years' duration, at time of writing. While organizational trends are difficult to establish in such a short period of time, it is important to comment briefly on what has happened, organizationally, since the separation. The Science Secretariat seems to have devoted much of its postseparation attention to the problems of structuring its relationship to the Privy Council Office and to the cabinet. This culminated in the announcement on May 16, 1969, of the appointment of Dr. R. J. Uffen as "Chief Science Adviser to the Cabinet."12 This was a new title, the need for which is, itself, a reflection of some of the difficulties which the Science Secretariat has as the cabinet's science advisory staff. Dr. Uffen also became the director of the Science Secretariat. It is difficult to see the de facto difference between the new combination of titles and the old simple one of "Director." If the Director of the Science Secretariat has not always been the "chief" science adviser to the cabinet, one might ask, what has he been? The answer seems to have been that his actual status and power were not perceived to be those of a chief adviser. This has been especially so from the departmental and agency point of view. The recent change is presumably designed to communicate the enhanced status of the director's role to any of the previous doubters. We will return to this point when we discuss the personnel of the Science Secretariat. The press release accompanying the appointment of Dr. Uffen indicated that a key part of the chief science adviser's duties would be to re-energize the Privy Council Committee on Scientific and Industrial Research (the latter being converted into an operational Cabinet Committee). As a practical matter, therefore, Dr. Uffen would be reporting on most aspects of his work to the Honourable C. M. Drury, in the latter's capacity as chairman of the Cabinet Committee. He would, however, also continue to report, when necessary, to the cabinet and Prime Minister through the Privy Council Office headed by the secretary to the cabinet. As noted earlier, this seems to recognize, on a de facto basis, what had long been true; namely, that the 11.Senate of Canada, Committee on Science Policy, no. 4 (1968): 138-39. 12.Office of the Prime Minister, press release, May 16, 1969. See also Robert J. Uffen, "Recent Changes in Government Organization for Science Policy," Science Forum 2, no. 5 (October 1969) : 3-5.

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director's role as confidential adviser to the Prime Minister (on the American model) was primarily an arm's-length relationship. In short, the recent changes in the postseparation period appear to be an attempt to consolidate a realistic posture for the secretariat so that it might concentrate on its role as day-to-day adviser to the cabinet. The changes in structure and the lightened load seem also to imply a more active role for the secretariat. One of the frequent questions asked of the members of the secretariat before the Senate Committee was whether they were advisers only "when asked." The prevailing tendency was to reply that, yes, they were advisers "when asked," although there was never an explicit disavowal of a positive active advisory role.18 It is undoubtedly true that a combination of the secretariat's conception of its role and the load which was imposed upon it by the cabinet and the Science Council tended to make a passive role inevitable. Yet, the logic of science policy-making ultimately implies an active and aggressive agency. The secretariat, to date, has had neither the inclination nor the necessary time and status to gear itself for an active role. The postseparation evolution of the Science Council has had one obvious organizational manifestation. It has hired its own staff and appointed an Executive Director, Dr. Patrick D. McTaggart-Cowan. The separation of the council from the secretariat followed by less than a month the publication of the Science Council's Report no. 4. This was the council's first attempt to articulate the broad outlines of a science policy for Canada. The report will be discussed in detail in chapter 7, but the point to be made at this stage is that it constitutes the basic pattern of work to which the council and its staff have since been committed. In addition to tidying up the first round of inventory and area studies started in the preseparation period, the council was committed in the report to establish task forces which would, in turn, present recommendations to the council to enable it to help implement four of the "major programs" it identified in Report no. 4: transportation, urban development, computer applications, and scientific and technical aid to developing countries. In addition, other gaps in the inventory and area studies were identified and studies were launched. The period is also marked by the council's internal considerations of the limits of its role in helping to advise on the content within each 13. Senate of Canada, Committee on Science Policy, no. 22 (1969) : 3362 and 3369.

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of the major programs. Basically, as an organization, it had to decide at a philosophical and practical level how far it, as a middle- or longterm advisory body, could go into the myriad budgetary, location, and priority issues that existed within each major program. In other words, at what point could the council practically and politically influence decisions? This will form one of the key issues to be examined in chapter 7; however, the background of the personnel and composition of the Science Secretariat and Science Council must now be analysed, for without such an analysis our discussion of the two organizations remains but a descriptive skeleton devoid of real substance. It was C. J. Mackenzie himself who said that, for science policy, organization charts and structure were not important; it was people who counted. Directors of the Science Secretariat The analysis of the role of the director must begin by recalling the earlier description, outlined in chapter 2, of Dr. C. J. Mackenzie's initial conception of the "right man" for the job. Such a person would have to have scientific prestige, organizational status, and experience in all three sectors of the scientific community, the governmental, industrial, and academic. A man with these qualities and characteristics would ideally head the secretariat and be the adviser to the Prime Minister. The secretariat has had three directors in its brief six-year history, and it seems worthwhile to attempt to relate each man to the above characteristics, even though, theoretically, it was likely impossible that anyone could meet them. The role of the secretariat's first director, Dr. Frank Forward, was mentioned in chapter 2. He was an engineer and consultant whose career was primarily in the university and industrial sectors. Dr. Forward was a known critic of NRC's role. Despite a distinguished career, he was not a prestigious "scientist," especially in the eyes of the governmental scientific establishment in general and the NRC in particular. C. J. Mackenzie was right in perceiving that the position of director itself had no inherent prestige. The crux of my analysis in chapter 2 was that, not only did it suffer from an absence of prestige, it was even perceived to be an "illegitimate" position. It is also doubtful that Forward met the requirements of having experience in all three sectors of the scientific community. He clearly had exposure to all three, but his inadequacy of experience and status in the governmental science establishment made him not a "persona non grata" but, rather, a novice in the Privy Council and "mandarin" political system of the Canadian bureaucracy. Quite apart from all his good qualities,

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he was inexperienced in the one skill and status factor that stood as a condition precedent to the others. It was the one part of the "job description" that Dr. C. 7. Mackenzie probably knew was implicitly necessary, but which was not explicitly stated. The gap between Dr. Forward's expected performance and his actual performance was widened further by the inaccurate image of the director's role conveyed to him at a time when the Pearson advisers themselves had little conception of the role. The image of an eminence grise kind of relationship with the Prime Minister was quickly shattered. To compensate for the lack of expected influence and access, the director and the secretariat began to expand the secretariat and to gather data. The first director of the Science Secretariat probably possessed a suitable range of characteristics to be a director, but not the first one, for whom the criteria of prestige, status, and experience were more highly emphasized than at probably any stage in the organization's life. Much of the difficulty of the Science Secretariat can be attributed to an inadequate "fit" between job and man, and Dr. Forward's directorship suffered, not so much as from the qualities of the director as from this flaw inherent in the system. With the advantage of hindsight it seems clear that few scientists, if any, or nonscientists, could possess all the ideal characteristics. Dr. J. R. Weir had been the deputy director of the Science Secretariat since 1965 and was appointed to succeed Dr. Forward in July, 1967. He assumed his duties precisely at the point when the secretariat was beginning to feel the brunt of the work load imposed upon it by the Science Council and the cabinet. Dr. Weir's tenure as director can best be described as a consolidating operation. He possessed a less aggressive disposition than did Dr. Forward, a characteristic that assisted him greatly in the consolidation and even fence-mending work that was needed. It is doubtful that Weir approached the qualities of having prestige and status to the degree necessary for either the scientific establishment or the senior levels of the bureaucracy. He was identified with the Glassco report, and his previous career was spent to a great degree in the university sector, in the area of agricultural research. While he was highly respected within his own agricultural research community, he was not that well known to the rest of his "constituency," including the government sector. It is not unimportant to note also that agricultural research was not a prestige or growth area of science, and to those who measure the internal pecking order of the disciplines of the scientific community, this detail was significant. One factor which assisted Dr. Weir's consolidating role was his

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two-year experience as deputy director, a period of time which allowed him to become more accustomed to the Privy Council bureaucratic sector, although he never found it a comfortable environment. While he adapted to this environment well enough, he was by no means at home in the wider political arena, especially when he had to face the Senate Committee. More than anyone else, he was aware of the secretariat's ambivalent role, and it is not surprising that he had trouble explaining it to the Senators.14 The decisions to appoint Dr. R. J. Uffen as the third director and to give him the title of Chief Science Adviser to the Cabinet were both indicative of the need to invest the secretariat with a different kind of scientist-adviser and with an enhanced organizational status in the bureaucratic-scientific pecking order. Dr. Uffen's tenure as the head of the secretariat is too recent to make any substantive comments, but his background and the views that both senior civil servants and politicians hold of him suggest a higher degree of congruence with Dr. C. J. Mackenzie's job qualifications, or at least the first two qualifications of scientific prestige and organizational status. Dr. Uffen had been appointed to the new position after serving for three years on the Defence Research Board, the last two as chairman. He carried with him, therefore, an agency perspective, and on that point alone he becomes a much more legitimate person for the post from the point of view of the agencies and departments in the government. Also, in relative terms, he came much closer, in a prestige sense, to being a "scientists' scientist," and although not so highly regarded in this respect as E. W. R. Steacie, he clearly represents something closer to the norm than the first two directors. His professional background was in engineering physics and geophysics, and prior to coming to the Defence Research Board in 1966 he had, over a thirteen-year period, helped develop and eventually headed the University of Western Ontario's Department of Geophysics. He had also been principal of the University College of Arts and Sciences for four years. Significant, too, is the fact that Uffen is only forty-six years old and does not represent someone who might be interested in his posting as a prestige office by which he could "round off his career," as C. J. Mackenzie had put it. Uffen is very much at the mid-career stage, much more so than his two predecessors. He is an aggressive man and has moved up quickly in his career.

14. See especially, Senate of Canada, Committee on Science Policy, no. 7 (1968).

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This brief commentary on the careers and qualifications of the secretariat's first three directors and their degree of compatibility with Dr. C. I. Mackenzie's list of characteristics is hopefully of use to us, not because of what it says about the individuals but because of what it may say about the secretariat as an organization. Dr. Mackenzie was right in stressing the problem of prestige and status in both an organizational and personal sense. This was doubly true for an organization whose role was viewed as being both vague and illegitimate at the same time. Presumably the role of director and now the role of chief science adviser must strike a balance between an active and a passive posture. There must be a sufficient degree of organizational legitimacy, status, and power without creating the infamous scientist "overlord." It is clear that the Canadian experience with the Science Secretariat has given little evidence to cause us to be worried about overlords. The Science Secretariat and its directors have suffered from too little rather than too much power, and they have obviously had little access to the Prime Minister. The Staff of the Science Secretariat The professional staff of the Science Secretariat presents some interesting characteristics, particularly when their previous aggregate career patterns are observed. The staff grew from a handful in 1965 to twenty-seven by March, 1968, and then levelled off at ten as of April, 1969. Collectively the staff, in 1969, presented a composite average career breakdown of about eight years spent in the government sector, two years in industry, and seven years in the university sector. Of the ten, five had spent the most recent part of their careers in government, three in industry, and two in the university sector.16 Two factors emerge out of this aggregate portrait. The careers are generally more mixed, in terms of sector, than were the career patterns of the scientists in senior positions in the bureaucracy. They have a much more frequent incidence of exposure to the university and industrial perspective. They, therefore, continued the pattern in the balance of sectoral representation which, we had noted in the introduction, was a characteristic of the Glassco Commission study group. The fact that the group had generally less experience in government,

15. The data are drawn from biographical sketches supplied by the Science Secretariat.

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however, probably helps confirm the departments' and agencies' view of the secretariat as being collectively quite inexperienced. The pattern of mixed careers was a reflection also of the secretariat's own staffing philosophy. It was decided at the outset that the secretariat would operate on a rotational and term basis of appointment so that "new blood" was continuously infused into the organization and no "old blood" would ever stay so long that it would clog the organization's arteries. This philosophy fitted in with the expectations of the secretariat members, most of whom appear to view their stay with the secretariat as a short-term proposition with a view to moving on to other interesting career work. The philosophy of staffing and the career perceptions which accompanied that philosophy are quite congruent with many contemporary trends in organization theory, especially those dealing with how to make bureaucracies more "innovative."18 It is also a philosophy which undoubtedly is long overdue in Canada, where the degree of career interlinkage among the three sectors of scientific employment appears to be much less than in the United States.17 It is arguable that the overall lack of communication among scientists between sectors in Canada is partly caused by the greater relative confinement of career patterns within sectors. If a rotating staffing principle can be viewed as a beneficial result of the Science Secretariat (and the Science Council), it is possible to see where it may have harmful consequences with respect to the power and authority of the Science Secretariat and its ability to influence science policy. In 1969 the secretariat staff, collectively, had only 2.4 years' experience in the secretariat. Three members had 4 years' experience, two had 3 years', one had 2 years', and four had 1 year's. If experience in dealing with the departments and agencies, and in learning to deal with politicians, is as critical as it appears to be, it is possible that an excessive degree of rotation and an excessively short career span within the secretariat will leave it with less power and authority than it needs to cope with its role in science policy-making. There is a relationship in bureaucracies between permanence and power, and it may be, in the long run, necessary to insure that the 16.See, for example, Victor Thompson, Bureaucracy and Innovation (University, Alabama: University of Alabama Press, 1969). 17.There are no conclusive data to fully substantiate this view. My limited interview group in chapter 2 had careers primarily in the public bureaucracy. When members of the Senate Committee visited Washington, one of their more striking impressions was the difference in career interchange and interlinkage, in Canada and the U.S. respectively. Dr. Solandt of the Science Council expressed a similar view. See Senate of Canada, Committee on Science Policy, no. 8 (1969) : 953.

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secretariat's internal career span be extended (perhaps to as long as eight years) so that it might compete more meaningfully with the departments and agencies. Chairman of the Science Council The first and only chairman of the Science Council is Dr. O. M. Solandt, and his career perspectives and philosophy form a major, if not critical, part of the philosophy of the council as an organization. Dr. Solandt's research background was in physiology, most of which he carried out during the Second World War. In the latter part of the war he also became involved in operational research. After 1945, Dr. Solandt returned to Canada and began the preliminary work which eventually resulted in the formation of the Defence Research Board (DRB) in 1947. He was chairman of DRB from 1947 to 1956 and then spent seven years as head of research and development with the Canadian National Railways. From 1963 to 1966 he was vicepresident of research and development of the de Havilland Aircraft of Canada, Limited and of Hawker Siddeley Canada Ltd. In 1966 he became the chairman of the Science Council, a position which is not a full-time appointment. The issue of Dr. Solandt's "full-time" role raised two problems. In a legal sense, Dr. Solandt is not a full-time chairman. The fact that he holds so many positions, however, makes it difficult to know whether, in the course of his industrial and university duties, he is also exercising his Science Council role. If he is, then his position is more full-time than part-time. Related to this is the recent charge of conflict of interest levelled against Dr. Solandt. One of Dr. Solandt's offices is that of vice-president of the Electric Reduction Company of Canada Ltd., a firm whose products have been charged with being a major source of air and water pollution. Phosphates such as those produced by the Electric Reduction Company became the subject of a debate about whether they should be banned. Solandt suggested publicly that those who called for the banning of phosphates were grossly oversimplifying the water pollution problem. Charges were subsequently levelled that Solandt's science policy role and his industrial interests were in conflict. The conflict of interest issue is clearly important in itself, but the raising of it is more important, for the purposes of this book, because of the way it reflects the growing political importance of science and the legitimacy of a body like the Science Council. Conflict of interest is not new in the realm of science and government, and the issue is not confined, even among Science Council members, to Dr. Solandt. Its elevation to the status

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of front-page news is, however, unprecedented in Canada.18 While this particular aspect of Solandt's career and background is important, it is more pertinent, for the purposes of this chapter, to relate his career to the overall philosophy of science policy which has been reflected in Dr. Solandt's public statements on behalf of the Science Council. His experiences at DRB and with de Havilland are particularly relevant. Both generated a firm conviction that Canadian science ought to be decentralized geographically (away from Ottawa) and "sectorally" (away from the government bureaucracy). He therefore urged that every new research and development activity be critically examined at its outset to identify the appropriate organization and sector to carry out the project. Before the Senate Committee he commented at length on this problem and cited his DRB "philosophy" and his experience at de Havilland with the wind tunnel decision: I think the classic example of this [lack of critical examination] is the big wind tunnel being built out at Uplands [in Ottawa] which should have been built in Montreal or Toronto where the aircraft industry is located, because that is essentially a tool for applied research and development in the aircraft industry. I do not think there is any good reason for putting it in Ottawa, but there was nobody to look at it critically and say, "should it be here or should it be somewhere else?" I think the failure to do this has affected the whole structure for the scientific community in Canada. We have more things in Ottawa than we should have had, from the point of view of the national interest as a whole, and here you have to balance the national interests as against scientific interest. From the point of view of scientists it is pleasant to have them all together... . When we were planning the Defence Research Board establishments after the War we definitely decided we were going to put them right across Canada, and looking back now it was a very wise decision." Solandt's philosophy of decentralization and sector identification was related not just to the industrial sector but also to the university sector. As chancellor of the University of Toronto he had been involved with the politics of the Queen Elizabeth telescope.20 Solandt's comments on this case are also worth recording: 18.David Spurgeon, "Conflict of Interest," Globe and Mail, February 5, 1970. See also House of Commons, Debates, vol. 3, 1970, pp. 3024-25. 19.Senate of Canada, Committee on Science Policy, no. 9 (1969) : 1264-65. See also D. J. Goodspeed, DRB, A History of the Defence Research Board of Canada (Ottawa: Queen's Printer, 1958). 20. Dr. Solandt's personal involvement or identification with the QEII on the University of Toronto's side may explain why the Department of Energy, Mines and Resources preferred to refer the QEII problem to the Science Secretariat rather than to the Science Council.

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When you start to recommend a thing like a big telescope which, in the field of astronomy, becomes a major expenditure in that field for many years for Canada, you have to look at the whole of the scientific community. ... something like 90 percent of the graduates in astronomy were at the University of Toronto. Here was a proposal put up — by government officials — without really thinking that they were going to disrupt the academic society in astronomy in Canada by moving the astronomy out to British Columbia... . If this had been widely discussed and if it were felt that this were a project that would have the unanimous support of the scientific community, and that the need of it was widely supported by the people and by the political leaders, then I do not think it would have become Øcelled.21 Dr. Solandt had an organizational ideology which was clearly mission-oriented. By urging that all government scientific organization be mission-oriented and engaged in applied research and development, Dr. Solandt's philosophy challenged the long-held NRC ideology against missions. He argued that much of NRC's activity was applied, but not organized into missions. He also doubted whether the two NRC divisions of Pure Physics and Pure Chemistry should have been formed within the government sector. In spite of their great contributions for the development of science in Canada, he felt they would have been better located and more effective if they had been set up in connection with one or more universities, where, in addition to producing new knowledge, the arrangement would also have produced more new students.22 In total, Solandt's philosophy was a faithful reflection of his career experiences. The connection between the Solandt philosophy and the Science Council philosophy, as revealed ultimately in its Report no. 4, is direct and conclusive. Many of the same points of emphasis and direction can be traced to Solandt's early speeches and to the first two Annual Reports of the Science Council, all of which appeared long before the final articulation of the fourth report. One final point about the role of the Science Council's first chairman remains to be made. It is my impression, derived from my interviews with scientists in all three sectors, that Solandt carried with him the image of the scientist-politician. He has clearly been the dominant figure on the Science Council and is much more at home before public bodies and politicians. The role of scientist-politician is a critically 21.Senate of Canada, Committee on Science Policy, no. 9 (1969) : 960. 22. Ibid., p. 1269.

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important one, and Solandt's leadership in this regard has been an essential cause of recent changes. Almost by definition, however, this role is suspect in the minds of many scientists. Though many support the general tenor of Solandt's organizational and scientific ideology, they are still highly suspicious of its ultimate consequences in practice, and as a result, they are highly uncertain of both Solandt's and the Science Council's role. Membership of the Science Council The membership of the Science Council itself must be seen from the point of view of two aspects, both of which affect its role as an organization: first, its aggregate characteristics and pattern of sectoral representation; and secondly, its "concept of constituency," that is, how it views its role with respect to its clientele, the scientific community. The twenty-five members and four associate members of the Science Council are drawn almost equally from the governmental, industrial, and university sectors (ten, nine, and ten members respectively). The Council Committees are composed, in total, of sixteen government members, twenty-four industrial and twenty-seven university members.23 At this aggregate level there is clearly the most pronounced reflection of the representational balance begun by the Glassco study group. In our previous discussion of Dr. Solandt's role there was an emphasis on his personal attitude toward science policy and sectoral location. It is clear that he was not alone in these views. Individual members of the council had career and sectoral experiences also comparable to Solandt's. For example, J. D. Houlding, president of RCA Victor Company, Montreal, was a member of the industrial community, and, more importantly, a member of a firm which had developed a significant research and development capability. He was particularly in tune with the philosophy of redeploying the Research and Development (R & D) work in the industrial sector in future major programs, a philosophy put into practice in the satellite communications program. Also, Dr. G. N. Patterson, the director of the Institute for Aerospace Studies at the University of Toronto, was known to hold similar views, reinforced by his involvement with the wind tunnel project.24 Another member 23. Ibid., p. 1010. 24. Had the wind tunnel been located in Toronto, it would undoubtedly have served both de Havilland and the Institute for Aerospace Studies at the University of Toronto.

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of the council, Dr. Leon Katz, the director of the Linear Accelerator Laboratory at the University of Saskatchewan, had been involved in the 1955-58 CAP project (described in chapter 4) and was a strong and insistent advocate of "national" facilities and laboratories as opposed to "government" facilities. The concept of sectoral representation was not explicitly acknowledged in the Science Council Act. As noted earlier, the twenty-five members were to be chosen from among members having a "specialized interest in science or technology." Only the four associate members were explicitly identified as coming from a particular sector, namely, the government. Sectoral identification was and is, of course, important, and has far outweighed representation by scientific discipline. The latter criterion could involve representation from the pure, applied, and engineering areas, or from the natural sciences, life sciences, and social sciences. It has not been as important, the view being that such representational factors can be accommodated in the council's committees and study groups. One argument that has developed is whether government representatives should be on the council at all, or at least in their present strength. It was argued in chapter 2 that their presence is as much a reflection of their preeminent position of power in the political system of Canadian science, even though it may be rationalized on the grounds that they are persons with merely a "specialized interest in science and technology." The impact of the presence of the government members (all of whom are heads of federal agencies) has been assessed in two ways, both of which involve essentially the same problem. When asked whether the presence of government agency heads frustrates and limits the university and industrial representatives in their freedom to be critics, especially when they may be dependent upon government grants, both the Chairman and Deputy Chairman of the Science Council suggested that it did, especially for the university representatives: "I would say that in general the people from the universities find themselves in a very difficult position in dealing with government officials, because they on the one hand would like to be critical of what the government is doing in many cases, but on the other hand, recognize that most of their support comes from the government and ... it is usually the same people who are involved."25 Dr. Solandt went on to stress that this was more of a problem for 25. Senate of Canada, Committee on Science Policy, no. 9 (1969) : 955 and 988. See Luther J. Carter, "Canada: Science Advisers to Propose Priorities," Science 153 (September 2, 1966): 1085.

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grant-giving bodies than for the Science Council. Other council members have indicated, however, that while the ambivalence is undoubtedly more real in the grant-giving bodies, it does have an impact on Science Council proceedings. It does not, however, appear to have had a sufficiently strong impact to date, especially when one reads the Science Council's Report no. 4, which is really quite critical of the past degree of government dominance. Speaking before the Senate Committee at an earlier date, Professor Arthur Porter expressed the view that the council as a whole was composed of too many "environmental" persons and did not have the right balance of "antienvironmental persons." He related his concept not only to the problem of "sectoral" representation but also to the criteria of "disciplines" and even "generations" of the scientific community: I believe — and this is my fourth point — that the formulation of science policy and its implementation at the present time appears to be what I would call overly environmental. I apologize, sir, if I am rather too McLuhan-ish in my idiom. What I mean in this respect is that it is too predictable. This is a fruit, of course, of the scientific establishment and there is, of course, a scientific establishment in all countries. Perhaps one reason for this — although I do not think it is by any means the main reason, but it is symptomatic of what I am talking about — is the fact that the constitution of the Science Council is very science- and engineering-oriented, while the constitution of the Canada Council is more interdisciplinary. Perhaps if one had the opportunity of bringing social scientists and the humanities into the deliberations of the Science Council you would get some of this imaginative and rather different sort of thing. I think that the Science Council of Canada, in spite of the fact that it has not been running very long, in spite of the fact that I am a tremendous admirer of most of its members, particularly the Chairman, Dr. Solandt, apart from perhaps bringing in a more interdisciplinary flavour, is not adequately dynamic and it is a little too large, with perhaps too much official representation. Maybe one or two Senators and/or M.P.s might be on a committee of about twelve, which perhaps should be the total membership. In addition to the senior advisory committee, however, we would have advisory committees for special areas, similar to those in the United States.26 On the whole, it is my view that the less government representation the better. There is ample opportunity for the government sector to

26. Senate of Canada, Committee on Science Policy, no. 2 (1968) : 114-15.

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have its views known via the internal science policy machinery. In fact, if the government sector knew it had to rely on the internal communication channels such as the Science Secretariat and the Technical Advisory Panel, it may help to energize that internal machinery in its intended direction. There is, moreover, little danger that a Science Council would become so "antienvironmental," without government representation, simply because most "scientist administrators" (for that is what most Science Council members are) would have sufficient roots in the industrial and academic scientific sectors to be committed to only a limited range of new policy options. The presence of government members may not have had a harmful impact to date, but that is primarily because the political crunch has not really come in the area of decision-making affecting particular projects within major fields.27 It is at that point, when the Science Council must act as a more vocal critic and prodder of government, that the presence of government members will exercise an unnecessary constraint on the council's other members. The question of the place of the social sciences in the Science Council, and in science policy generally, has also been raised. Both Dr. Solandt and Senator Lamontagne have urged the representation of the social sciences on the Science Council but without success. The lack of success appears to be attributable to mutual unwillingness on the part of most of the present council members and also on the part of the social sciences to associate with one another on the same advisory body. It should be stressed, moreover, that the social sciences were at a state of political underdevelopment, in many respects more serious than that of the natural sciences. When confronted with such broad and fundamental questions as where, when, and how they ought to be associated with the natural sciences, the Canadian social science community had scarcely any notion of how to respond; they had no obvious collective structure by which they could develop their policies. When asked how the Science Council could advise on science policy without the presence of social scientists, Dr. Solandt summed up the state of the relationship, a relationship that reflects the wide gap 27. Clearly the ING and QEII projects are two cases where government sector projects were cancelled, and this might be taken to indicate that the presence of government members, in the Science Council at least, has not been overwhelming. It is to be remembered that the council supported ING and was also reluctant to take any official initiatives regarding the QEII. I am, therefore, persuaded that the real test of the meaning of the presence of government sector representatives is yet to be made.

98 CHAPTER THREE in communication and between the different sectors and disciplines of the Canadian scientific community: The simple answer to your question is that I only know of three people who firmly share the view that the Science Council cannot deal with these things without social scientists on it. I think the three I am talking about are here at the table. Let me go further back. I mentioned before that when the Council Act was originally being written it specified that it would deal with the natural sciences and engineering. I was not appointed Chairman at the time, but saw the draft of the Act and had this removed. I was unable to get any mention of social science put in, but the Act just says "science," so, by the Act, we are permitted to deal with social science problems. There has been strong resistance by almost everyone consulted to putting social scientists on the Council and I feel quite strongly that one of our really important problems in science in Canada today is to get an effective body for formulating national science policy in the social sciences, as well as in the natural sciences and engineering. We, in the Science Council, have so far merely said that we recognize the importance of social sciences. We want to reach out as far as we can toward them to join hands and make sure there is no gap between the two, but we certainly do not have the membership either on the Council itself or the staff to do an effective job of dealing with social science problems.28 One of the early confrontations between the social sciences and the Science Council occurred when, following Solandt's claim that "science" for the Science Council included the social sciences, the council launched the Macdonald Committee study on the support of research in Canadian universities. After pressure from the social sciences in general and their patron, the Canada Council, in particular, the study became a joint project, cosponsored by both the Science Council and the Canada Council. The issue also led to the Honourable C. M. Drury publicly disclaiming SoIandt's interpretation of the Science Council Act. The second major aspect of the council's membership is their collective concept of how they relate to their "constituency." While the statute explicitly labelled the members as persons with an interest in science and technology and, while sectoral representation has been implicitly a key fact, how do the members go about consulting their constituents? If the ultimate role of the Science Council is that it must somehow aggregate or communicate the consensus of the scientific 28. Senate of Canada, Committee on Science Policy, no. 9 (1969): 954.

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community, how do they do it? Or do the Science Council members have this kind of a concept of constituency? My view is that they do not. If there is a constituency, it is a constituency of "top men." Most council members I interviewed have neither the time nor the inclination to be anything approaching a grass roots "M.P." for science. And while the Council Committees have probably involved more scientists in a more significant way than at any previous time in Canada's history, since the early committee "democracy" of the first years of the NRC, the council still is a very confined network of communication. Even among fairly senior levels of the university sector, the role of the Science Council is scarcely perceived or even noted. It is in this sense that the scientists' concept of political consultation does not admit the need for, nor the legitimacy of, what, in modem political science would be called interest aggregation or consensusbuilding. The philosophy of consultation among top men as individuals, cloaked in the guise of colleague-based committees, was good enough in an era when the science-government relationships were largely individualistic. Now the making of science policies seems to require more techniques of communicating interests and sectors in an aggregate sense. This problem is evident in the case study of the ING project discussed in chapter 4. It was a "big science" project, and the Science Council's present philosophy is also oriented to future "big science" missions. If it hopes to be successful in launching these programs, it will have to develop a more relevant and workable concept of its constituency role.29 Staff of the Science Council To complete our analysis of the personnel and composition of the Science Council, it is helpful to make some brief observations about the staff it has begun to assemble. The professional staff of sixteen has an aggregate career pattern which reflects, even more strongly, the patterns described earlier for the Science Secretariat staff. This is 29. A consultant's report on the Science Council's "public relations" with its wider constituency supports the degree to which the council is relatively unknown. Recommendations for a full-time chairman are also a reflection of the recognition of the council's needs in this regard. See Senate of Canada, Committee on Science Policy, no. 9 (1969) : 953. The argument presented of the need to develop a constituency role is not intended to suggest that the Science Council can be or should be the only or major structure with meaningful constituency contacts. The constituency role is also related to the place of professional associations in the politics of science.

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partly due to the fact that seven staff members are generally younger and this, in itself, may expose the council to approaches and patterns of communication which might help resolve the problem of constituency. They have had, on the average, less experience in government (7 years) and in universities (3.6 years) and more experience in industry (3 years) than has had the Science Secretariat staff. The Science Council is also heavily committed to the philosophy of rotating personnel and obtaining personnel on short-term secondments from their respective sectors. Many of the comments made earlier about the Science Secretariat staff seem to be even more relevant with respect to the staff of the Science Council. Their location at an arm's-length distance from the government, their relative governmental inexperience, the rotation principle which makes most of the council staff into a group of relative "transients" seem to mean that they will always be accorded less status by the senior scientists in the Canadian bureaucracy. The making of science policies and the relationships between bodies like the Science Secretariat and Science Council and the rest of the Canadian bureaucracy seem to depend very much on the immediate structural aspects and personnel. The bureaucratic and organizational relationships are critical, and it is in the bureaucratic arena that much of the politics of science has been played out in the past few years.

4 Politics of "Big Science": The ING Affair

The universities of Canada and the federal government have been indirectly related in the field of scientific research for over fifty years. The relationship has been "indirect" in that grants were not made to the universities as such, but were made by the National Research Council which received applications from the individual scientists and acted on them. The research supported by this procedure was "little science," that is, research carried out in the traditional academic pattern, "supervised by a professor, assisted by graduate students and a very small number of technicians."' The relationship between Canadian universities and the federal government in this traditional sphere has been analysed in part in chapter 1.2 The object of this chapter is to further explore the problems in the relationships between governments, universities, and the Canadian scientific community as a result of the emergence of "big science." Some of these problems appeared in particularly dramatic form in the course of the recent proposal of Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL) to construct an Intense Neutron Generator (ING), and the subsequent refusal of the Government of Canada to accept the recommendation. The ING project would have provided for research in nuclear physics and high energy physics, the areas "par excellence" of big science. The ING affair further illustrated the mutual distrust and conflict 1.W. K. H. Panofsky,'Big Science and Graduate Education," in H. Orlans, ed., Science Policy and the University (Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 1968), p. 189. 2. See John B. Macdonald et al., The Role of the Federal Government in Support of Research in Canadian Universities, Special Study no. 7 (Ottawa: Queen's Printer, 1969).

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between academic scientists and governmental scientific bodies in matters of policy-making about research. It also revealed the inadequacy of the internal government of Canadian universities for dealing with the questions raised by large-scale scientific research, as well as the very rudimentary capacity of the Canadian scientific community to act in a concerted manner. The ING affair showed more clearly than ever before the changing balance of power between the academic and governmental sectors of the Canadian scientific community. As noted earlier, the relations between the academic scientists and the governmental scientific bodies had been individualistic, that is, individual scientists dealing with granting bodies, and they had been conducted in a way which scarcely involved the universities. Scientists applied to granting bodies and, if applications were granted, they then conducted their research on university premises with the concurrence, but very little more, of their university authorities. Within universities, in the era of little science, scientists acted on their own. The situation created by the ING proposal was one with which the established structure of relations between individual scientists and fund-granting governmental bodies could not deal. Corporate and concerted responses by scientists were called for to deal with the new opportunities. Relations between universities and governments and the relations among scientists within particular universities and among the universities assumed a new importance. In the first period, the individual university scientist in Canada was very much dependent on his governmental patron. The academic scientific community was called forth by the initiative of the government scientific bodies. The individual academic scientist, face to face with the powerful machinery of government and lacking the support of any group of scientists in Canadian industry, had neither the bargaining power nor the prestige to force the government scientific bodies to meet his conditions. Big science and the growing competition for scarce resources among scientists cultivating the different disciplines made corporate action on the part of scientists more important. Big science in Canada, as elsewhere, has emerged gradually. Some universities were forced into big science when certain departments became larger in an attempt to become "competitive" in certain fields with other universities or laboratories outside Canada. Most big science facilities, however, were built by the governmental scientists as a part of the federal government's establishment at or near Ottawa. The federal government came to manage and otherwise concern itself with wind tunnels, atomic energy installations, telescopes, and other paraphernalia of big science. Thus, while governments and universities

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in Canada have not been totally inexperienced in handling aspects of big science within their respective domains, they have not dealt with this phenomenon jointly. Because of the large scale of expenditure and the extent of the interaction of government and universities, the ING project and nuclear and high energy physics in general are unique in Canadian history.

The Intense Neutron Generator Proposal Nuclear physics has become differentiated into nuclear physics, intermediate energy physics, and high energy or elementary particle physics. These fields are classified according to energy regions, that is, the energy to which the particles are accelerated. High energy or elementary particle physics is greater than 1 GeV (1 billion electron volts), intermediate energy physics between 1 GeV and 100 MeV, and nuclear physics below 100 MeV.8 In the past two decades higher and higher energies have been utilized, and elementary particle physics has come to be identified with the continuously changing upper limits of the energy regions. Nuclear physics, meanwhile, has remained within its original boundaries. The higher energy equipment is extremely costly and, in the United States in particular, the sharing of facilities by several universities and laboratories has become common.4 Nuclear physics, on the other hand, has continued to be carried out within single universities or laboratories. Virtually all of Canada's research in nuclear physics has been in the nuclear physics energy range. Only in the past five years has research in the recently attained ranges of elementary particle physics been conducted at Canadian universities. The ING project was to have helped develop Canadian skill in areas of intermediate energy physics. In addition the proposed project would, it was suggested, benefit research in nuclear chemistry, materials science, and solid state physics.8 3. Science Secretariat, Physics in Canada: Survey and Outlook, Special Study no. 2 (Ottawa: Queen's Printer, May 1967), p. 270. 4. See David Z. Robinson, "Resource Allocation in High Energy Physics," in H. Orlans, ed., Science Policy and the University, pp. 165-88; Daniel S. Greenberg, The Politics of Pure Science (New York: New American Library, 1967); and B. R. Kennan, "High Energy Administration: Big Science Model for the Future," Public Administration Review 28, no. 3 (May June 1968): 250-5S. 5. For accounts of the technical and organizational aspects of ING see AECL Staff, "The Intense Neutron Generator" (mimeo), May 31, 1967; Science Secretariat, Special Study no. 4, The Proposal for an Intense Neutron Generator (Ottawa: Queen's Printer, December 1967); and AECL, The AECL Study for an Intense Neutron Generator, Recommendations and Costs (FSD/ ING-67 ).

104 CHAPTER FOUR The ING, it was claimed, was "an original design for an advanced research instrument for the production of subatomic particles, especially neutrons and mesons."e It was not "the product of a sudden inspiration," but arose out of a study at the AECL laboratories at Chalk River, which had been carried out to determine "how best the research and development capabilities of the Chalk River Nuclear Laboratories and Atomic Energy of Canada Limited could be employed, to serve Canada in the future," and to maintain in Canada a "pioneering role in scientific exploration and technological progress. "7 The study group at Chalk River selected seven possible research fields, each of which was related to AECL's basic mission, the production of electrical power. The seven fields were nuclear fission, fast neutron reactors, magneto-hydrodynamics, long-distance transmission of energy, fuel cells, thermionic and thermo-electric energy conversion, and an intense neutron generator (ING). The AECL study group concluded that ING alone met the list of criteria it had hoped to meet: It offered an opportunity for Canada to enter, at a cost within the nation's means, a field judged to be as important as those in which other countries were spending tens and hundreds of millions of dollars. It was an instrument so unique that there was no immediate prospect of duplication or competition. It could be built in Canada by Canadian industry. It would stimulate acquisition by industry of experience and expertise of value, both commercially and, more broadly, to national development. It would contribute significantly to higher education through job opportunities, research collaboration with universities and its attraction of scholars from abroad.8 The ING project would have been the "biggest science" ever undertaken in Canada, and numerous institutions and groups became involved in the making of a decision about it. They included departments within particular universities (physics and engineering departments), universities, and departments and agencies within the federal government, (AECL, the Atomic Energy Control Board, and the NRC.) The decision aroused the concern of politicians, scientists, engineers, and university administrators. The estimated cost of ING was $150 million for construction and about $21 million a year to 6.L. G. Elliot, W. B. Lewis, and A. G. Ward, "ING: A Vehicle to New Frontiers," Science Forum 1, no. 1 (February 1968): 3. 7. AECL Staff, "The Intense Neutron Generator," p. 1.

8.Ibid., pp. 1-2. Many of the interviewees questioned just how "unique" the ING would be. All agreed it would be interesting and even exciting, but its claim to uniqueness was not universally endorsed.

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operate after construction. The magnitude of these projected expenditures was very great, and this in itself raised political complications. The costs, which greatly exceeded previous Canadian research expenditures, were justified by AECL study group's reference to Canada's projected expenditures on total research and development for 1973, when ING would be operational. If the total of these expenditures on research and development by that date were increased to 3 percent of gross national product — the commonly accepted scale of American expenditures on research and development — then ING would be manageable and would not interfere with other fields of science and research.9 The AECL study group also declared that the ING was not designed for nuclear physics alone. It would contribute significantly to "materials science." The ING project was also to be used to produce radio isotopes for which there would be a lucrative world-wide market. It was clearly to be a versatile and imaginative project which could contribute to several fields of science and industry.10 Situation before ING: The High Energy Project Three aspects of the evolution of machinery for the support of nuclear physics in Canada deserve attention: the 1955-58 proposal of the Canadian Association of Physicists (CAP) to build a high energy accelerator; the development of the government's grant-giving structure for nuclear research; and the changing balance between AECL's Chalk River nuclear scientists and their counterparts in the universities. By the mid-1950s many physicists had expressed a desire for Canadian participation in the "exciting field of high energy physics."11 These views developed informally in both the pure physics division of the NRC and in the universities (especially the University of British Columbia), and they crystallized at a meeting of the CAP in June, 1955. The council of the CAP held a discussion about the possibility of a BeV accelerator being built in Canada as a national high energy 9. Elliot, Lewis, and Ward, "ING: A Vehicle to New Frontiers," pp. 4-7. 10.The potential economic benefits of ING became the subject of a considerable debate. See Globe and Mail, May 7, 1968, p. B10. The failure of ING to receive government approval has been attributed to the fact that, though its proponents claimed it would benefit many scientific fields and interests, the spokesmen for these fields and interests were not fully convinced. 11. R. H. Hay, "An Historical Note: The High Energy Project," Physics in Canada, 15 (special issue, 1959): 2. The account of the CAP project is based on this issue of Physics in Canada and on interviews. In addition, see Physics in Canada 13, no. 3 (Autumn 1957) : 22-31, and 15, no. 2 (1959) : 1-3.

106 CHAPTER FOUR laboratory. It was realized that a BeV accelerator would be too expensive for any single university and that "the only answer that made sense seemed to be the construction and operation of a high energy particle accelerator as a national cooperative effort."12 As a preliminary step, therefore, the council of the CAP appointed two physicists to communicate with the chairmen of the university physics departments in Canada to obtain their views. Receiving a favourable response, the council appointed a larger committee to raise money for a study of feasibility, to recruit a technical panel to conduct the study, and to arrange a symposium on high energy physics for the CAP Congress in 1956. After the CAP obtained a grant for a study of feasibility from the NRC, a three-man technical panel was recruited and worked on the project in the summer of 1956. Following extensive travel and study, the group gave their report to the university physics departments and to a special review committee of the CAP. The latter concurred in most of the panel's suggestions. As a result, the following motion was proposed and passed unanimously at the 1957 general meeting of the CAP: That the Executive of CAP be authorized to present a brief through appropriate channels to the Government of Canada, recommending that a high energy project be set up in the form of a new laboratory centred around a high energy accelerator, and located on or near the campus of one of the Canadian universities. It is envisaged that the research facilities will be actively used by physicists in the various universities and that the ultimate form of organization should include a policy-making body consisting principally of scientists drawn largely from the Canadian universities. The brief shall contain the recommendation that the major research facility of the laboratory be a proton accelerator having an energy of not less than ten billion electron volts and a beam intensity as high as is technically feasible according to the state of the art at the time the design has to be frozen.13 The project would cost about $20 million spread over a construction period of five years and $4,000,000 per year to operate. The arguments in favour of the project were based on the importance of the field itself, Canada's preparedness to enter it, and the beneficial effect it would have in improving the scientific manpower resources in Canada.l4 Such issues as whether the CAP should or could help the 12.Hay, "An Historical Note," p. 2. 13.Ibid., p. 3. 14.Physics in Canada 13, no. 3 (Autumn 1957): 27. In comparison with the later ING project, which boasted a potential industrial payoff, the CAP proposal almost exclusively emphasized the benefits to Canadian science.

POLITICS OF BIG SCIENCE 107

project by preparing a "favourable climate of public opinion" and whether the "official reactions of universities had been obtained" were raised in the discussion which followed. The editorial board of Physics in Canada subsequently asked the committee on the high energy project a number of questions: were there "enough qualified physicists in Canada to staff such a project without dangerously depleting universities and government laboratories?"; would not "such a huge project mainly benefit the university adjacent to which it is located, and attract an undue proportion of graduate students to that university at the expense of others?"; and would it be sufficiently unique to permit work to be done in Canada which could not be done elsewhere? More pointedly, questions were asked as to whether "the scientific returns from such an expensive project [would] be as great as they would be if a comparable sum of money were spent to promote research in a variety of fields in the various universities across Canada."15 These inquiries were apparently satisfactorily answered and, as a result, the committee was reconstituted to prepare a brief for the federal government. The first draft was submitted "for criticism and comment" to six senior government scientists. Following the receipt of their comments, a presentation of the brief was made to the Advisory Panel on Scientific and Industrial Research (composed primarily of the same group of government scientists with whom they had already informally communicated). The Advisory Panel suggested to the CAP Committee that they resolve the issues of site (the first brief had discussed four sites) and the matter of management and organization of the project including possible appointees for the post of director. The problem of site and organization thus became the object of further study. The prime sites were narrowed to Kingston and Vancouver and finally a site near Kingston, "in reasonably close proximity to Queen's University," was recommended in the CAP brief presented to the federal government in September, 1958. With respect to the organization of the laboratory, the brief stated that "the local university near which the Laboratory will be built should not participate in any special way in its administration which is intended to be completely separate." It went on to assert, moreover, that "it should not be a government laboratory such as a Division of the National Research Council or a branch of Atomic Energy of Canada Limited." The brief proposed that a crown corporation be created under the 15. Ibid., pp. 27-31.

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provisions of the National Research Council Act, the majority shares of which would be held by NRC in trust for Her Majesty, "while other shares would be purchased by universities and other institutions in order to qualify their representatives as directors of the company."16 The `other institutions" might include such incorporated professional or learned societies as the CAP, the Royal Society of Canada, and the Association Canadienne-Frangaise pour l'Avancement des Sciences (ACFAS). The Diefenbaker government rejected the CAP brief in March, 1959, in a communication directed to the president of CAP and signed by the Honourable Gordon Churchill, minister of Trade and Commerce. He explained that the government had approached "a considerable number of people both in government and in universities ... for opinions." Financial constraints and the government's "obligations to support other branches of science and universities in general" were cited.17 An editorial in Physics in Canada expressed some of the frustrations and even voiced suspicions about why three years of careful deliberation, consultation, and preparation had come to naught. The fact remained that the project failed to generate sufficient support. It failed in part because, although the CAP committees had consulted the university physics departments throughout Canada, they had not sufficiently conferred with the governing authorities of the universities. Some university authorities had been lukewarm, and some were opposed to the choice of the Kingston site; their representations reached the Diefenbaker cabinet, and those from the University of British Columbia were especially strong. In addition, there was at best only half-hearted support and at worst, direct opposition among senior government scientists. The opposition centred on grave doubts that the "right man" could be secured to manage the Iaboratory and on their awareness of the opposition of some powerful universities (UBC and the University of Toronto, especially). Because the laboratory would have gone ahead of the heretofore predominant government laboratories in terms of sophisticated equipment, some government scientists seem to have opposed it. The response to the CAP proposal in the government science sector

16. A High Energy Laboratory for Canada, a brief submitted to the Government of Canada by the Canadian Association of Physicists, September, 1958, rpt. in Physics in Canada, 15 (special issue, 1959) : 14-15. 17.See letter to Dr. B. W. Currie, CAP president, from Hon. Gordon Churchill, March 3, 1959, published in Physics in Canada 15, no. 2 (1959) : 2.

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can only be described fairly if we examine the evolution of the government's policies for the support of university nuclear physics. The first major arrangements for nuclear physics research in Canada were developed and installed at the Chalk River laboratories of what is now AECL (table 2), the secret joint United Kingdom-Canadian atomic energy project. After the war some of the scientists at Chalk River returned to the universities. It was realized, by these returning scientists and by both the late Sir John Cockroft (the first director of the Chalk River plant) and Dr. C. J. Mackenzie (president of the NRC and chairman of the Atomic Energy Control Board), that accelerator facilities would have to be provided for the universities to assist research and the training of graduate students. As a result, grants were made by the Atomic Energy Control Board in the late 1940s to provide low energy accelerators at the universities of McGill, British Columbia, Saskatchewan, and at Queen's University. These facilities involved expenditures on single projects many times greater than the normal grants to individual scientists that the NRC had been making. By the mid-1950s, however (including the time of the previously described CAP project), Canada's physicists in the university community were anxious to move to the higher energy thresholds: "those of us who were associated with the low energy accelerators were by 1955 beginning to realize that our machines were becoming obsolete and that with expanding knowledge it would become increasingly difficult to devise interesting experiments and to attract graduate students."18 At the end of the 1950s, following the disappointing rejection of the CAP project and the development, at Chalk River, of the powerful NRU reactor, a second group of requests for newer facilities, often of a magnitude of expenditure ten times the earlier low energy facilities, were made by Canadian physicists. This resulted in the eventual operation in the early 1960s of facilities at McMaster University, and at the universities of Montreal, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Toronto.1° There was little coordination or coherence of policy in the support of research in nuclear physics. Both the NRC and the Atomic Energy Control Board (AECB) were besieged by many requests for facilities, 18.Statement by Dr. B. W. Sargent in Physics in Canada 13, no. 3 (Autumn 1957): 22. 19.For accounts of the evolution of support for nuclear physics in the universities, see Science Secretariat, Physics in Canada: Survey and Outlook, pp. 229-33, and "Brief to the Special Committee on Science Policy of the Senate of Canada," submitted by the Atomic Energy Control Board, printed in Senate of Canada, Committee on Science Policy, no. 9 (1968): 1044-47.

Table 2. Major Nuclear Physics Research Facilities INSTITUTION

FACILITY

DATE OPERATIONAL

Chalk River Nuclear Laboratories, AECL, Ontario

Nuclear Reactor ZEEP

1945

Chalk River Nuclear Laboratories, AECL, Ontario

Nuclear Reactor NRX

1947

McGill University

Cyclotron (100 MeV protons)

1949

University of British Columbia

Van de Graaff (3 MeV)

1951

Queen's University

Synchroton (70 MeV electrons) 1950-66 (no longer used)

University of Saskatchewan

Betatron (22 MeV electrons) (no longer used)

1952-65

Chalk River Nuclear Laboratories, AECL, Ontario

Van de Graaff (3 MeV) (no longer used)

1952-61

Princess Margaret Hospital and University of Toronto

Van de Graaff (3 MeV) (to be moved to McMaster), Betatron (22 MeV electrons) (no longer used for nuclear physics)

1957-68

Chalk River Nuclear Laboratories, AECL, Ontario

Nuclear Reactor NRU

1957

Universite de Montreal

Cockcroft-Walton (500 kv)

1957-67

Chalk River Nuclear Laboratories, AECL, Ontario

Tandem (6 MeV) (now at the Universite de Montreal)

1959-66

McMaster University

Nuclear Reactor

1959

Chalk River Nuclear Laboratories, AECL, Ontario

Large Beta-Ray Spectograph

1958

University of Alberta

Van de Graaff (5.5 MeV)

1962

Universite Laval

Van de Graaff (5.5 MeV)

1964

University of Manitoba

Cyclotron (40 MeV protons)

1965

1957-65

POLITICS OF BIG SCIENCE 111 Table 2 (continued) INSTITUTION

FACILITY

DATE OPERATIONAL

University of Saskatchewan

Linac 150 MeV electrons)

1966

University of Toronto

Linac (35 MeV electrons)

1967

Chalk River Nuclear Laboratories, AECL, Ontario

Tandem (10 MeV)

1967

Queen's University

Van de Graaff (3 MeV)

1967

University of Ottawa

Dynamitron (3 MeV)

1967

Universite de Montreal

Tandem (6 MeV) Dynamitron (4 Mev)

1967

McMaster University

Tandem (7.5 MeV) Van de Graaff (3 MeV) (to be moved from Toronto)

1968 1968

souRce: Science Secretariat, Physics in Canada: Survey and Outlook, Special Study no. 2 (Ottawa: Queen's Printer, May 1967), pp. 232-33.

including some from the newly created universities in Canada. Nuclear physics had become a symbol of scientific status and every selfrespecting university thought it had to have one of the big machines. By late 1964 and early 1965 both the universities which already had facilities and the government agencies that dispensed the funds were becoming uneasy. During this period some informal discussions took place among the universities with a view to rationalizing this process. Simultaneously, other groups in Canadian society began to interest themselves in the development of government science policy. The Inception of ING It was against this background that the ING project was first disclosed. Although the study at Chalk River which eventually produced the ING proposal began in 1963, the universities did not become formally involved until 1965. Some knowledge that something big was afoot did circulate among the universities, but it was not until the spring of 1965, when AECL held a symposium on ING to which it invited interested members of Canadian university staffs, that the universities

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were officially informed. Many physicists in the universities expressed considerable annoyance that a government agency would introduce, without what was felt at that time to be adequate notice and openness, a massive multimillion dollar project just as the universities were making some modest attempts to save or rationalize public funds. The next step was the creation of a National Research Council Special Committee to study the support of research in nuclear physics. The committee was under the chairmanship of Dr. H. E. Duckworth of the University of Manitoba and included representatives or observers from AECL, the Atomic Energy Control Board, and the Science Secretariat. In addition, the committee had a representative from each of four regions (west coast, prairie provinces, southwest Ontario, and the Quebec-Montreal-Ottawa area). In a real sense this committee marked the first occasion where an attempt was made to survey past developments with a view to developing a policy for the support of research in nuclear physics. The committee looked into a number of problems including the concern being expressed about future university involvement with the ING project and Chalk River, but it made three recommendations in particular to NRC. It strongly suggested that several newer universities with aspirations in nuclear physics (Calgary, Memorial, Regina, Trent, and Windsor) should not be encouraged. It also recommended that future projects in nuclear physics should be joint projects among several universities. Noting that the operating grants for major installations in nuclear physics were provided by the Atomic Energy Control Board and the remainder by the NRC, the committee commented upon the possible past inconsistencies in evaluating these requests and recommended that NRC create something like a joint AECB-NRC grants selection committee for nuclear physics.2° We shall return to some of the issues raised in this report. The important point to be noted at this stage is that the ING project came to be debated among scientific circles in nuclear physics just as the general relationships between university nuclear research and government were being examined. Both the CAP proposal and the change in the structure and policy of government toward university nuclear research must be seen in the context of changes in the balance of power and status between the governmental science sector generally and the universities. Power in 20. The report of the Duckworth Committee is apparently "officially" an unpublished document, although its contents have been circulated informally among physicists. My account is based on confidential interviews.

POLITICS OF BIG SCIENCE 113

the Canadian scientific community had clearly been centred among governmental scientists. The ING project must be seen and understood partly in the context of a shift in the balance of power between governmental nuclear physics and the universities. Chalk River and the Universities The Chalk River Nuclear Laboratories (CRNL), created under conditions of wartime secrecy, were built in a relatively remote area. The establishment became increasingly isolated from the community of nuclear physicists which was beginning to emerge at the universities in the late 1950s.21 The growth of research at Canadian universities after World War II was slower than at Chalk River, "partly because of the part-time nature of such research at universities, and partly because of more complex funding problems."22 The construction and use of the NRX and NRC reactors at Chalk River, moreover, "had established a world-wide reputation for both pure and applied nuclear physics."23 The equipment and facilities at Chalk River were far superior to anything in the universities — indeed, the obsolete equipment was given to some universities — so that, until the mid-1950s, it continued to have a comparative advantage in attracting the best research physicists. A few of Chalk River's physicists had returned to the universities as soon as the war had ended; by the end of the 1950s, however, the universities were able to compete more effectively for the services of scientists for, as noted above, the universities were themselves acquiring good equipment and facilities. And not only this, but the increased attractiveness of university research in comparison to Chalk River's was evident, due partially to the fact that Chalk River's own operations, in the early 1960s, appeared relatively more concerned with the commercial and nuclear power aspects of atomic energy than with basic research. As a consequence Chalk River lost several of its best research workers not only to Canadian universities, but also to some of the new accelerators in the United States.24 21. For the early history of Chalk River, see W. Eggleston, Canada's Nuclear Story (Toronto: Clarke Irwin, 1965). 22. Science Secretariat, Physics in Canada: Survey and Outlook, p. 231. 23. Ibid., p. 230. 24. Confidential interviews. By 1968, "some 60 former AECL staff members .. [were] now occupying university positions in Canada ... many of these [as] department heads." See AECL, "Submission to the Senate of Canada Special Committee on Science Policy," October 1968, in Senate of Canada, Committee on Science Policy, no. 7 (1968): 740.

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The scientists at Chalk River were aware of this gradual transformation, especially that part of it which affected their research interests. During the last half of the 1950s, as the commercial and power operations of Chalk River were consolidated, the research physicists and other scientists became concerned about the place of their research programs in the future scheme of things, not only within AECL, but internationally in nuclear and higher energy physics as a whole. Chalk River, as a research laboratory, was reaching the end of an era, and the scientists became interested in problems which were not accommodated there. It was during the development of these new interests in the early 1960s that the ING project emerged. While the scientists at Chalk River and AECL were quite aware of the changes within their own organizations, they seemed less conscious of those in the university sector of nuclear physics. Meanwhile, the mood expressed both in the CAP proposal of 1958 that a new high energy facility be a cooperative, national, nongovernmental laboratory and in the academic scientists' growing concern about national policies for nuclear research was made more acute by the appearance of the ING project. ING and the Universities

Because ING was designed to contribute to several disciplines and sectors, the strategy of gaining approval for the project would be difficult. The Chalk River staff in general, and the project's chief promoter, Dr. W. B. Lewis (scientific vice-president of AECL), were aware of the difficulties of timing and consultation. They saw that they were in a somewhat awkward position. On the one hand, the AECL did not want to publicize ING too openly, lest it be charged with trying to promote the project and to influence the government's decision in its own interest. On the other hand, it allowed Dr. Lewis to present papers to specialized audiences to fulfill its obligation to inform Canadian scientists and engineers of the ING project. Like the federal government dealing with the provinces, AECL had to determine whom to consult, when to consult, and how to consult them. Following the 1965 symposium at which AECL revealed the ING project, an ING Study Advisory Committee was created by AECL to provide representation of the interested members of university departments and faculties throughout Canada. As a subsequent Science Council committee study noted: "This body was intended to provide lines of communication between those working on ING and the interested university departments and faculties and also to provide

POLITICS OF BIG SCIENCE 115

advice to CRNL in various areas in which the Committee members had expert knowledge. The Committee met seven times between November 1965 and February 1967 and the information exchanged between the CRNL staff and the Committee was of great interest to both groups. '26 While the Advisory Committee meetings were undoubtedly of "great interest," a very strong feeling developed among many academic participants that there was relatively little serious consultation, especially about the "politically" significant things, such as the location, accessibility, and organization of the project. Many academic scientists claimed it was impossible to get scientists on the staff of the AECL to talk about these matters at the advisory meetings. At no point were the university authorities asked for, nor did they volunteer, formal approval of ING. In spite of AECL's best intentions, an impression developed among academic scientists that this was to be another government laboratory to be built at Chalk River. Nonetheless, the academic views made sufficient impact in the Advisory Committee at least to be acknowledged. This is evident from some of the late 1966 and early 1967 AECL publications about ING. A July 1967 report commented: The concept of an intense neutron generator originated as an appropriate extension of the sequence of the NRX, NRU reactors. It soon became apparent that the proposed machine would be a major research facility with which university scientists could make outstanding advances in science. Consequently, if the full potentialities of the machine are to be realized there must be good participation of university scientists at all stages of progress. This wider field of application suggests an organization separate from AECL, probably an institute, and has brought into question the original assumption that the location would be in the Chalk River area.2$ Many of the academic physicists and engineers suspected that AECL regarded ING primarily as a government facility and less as one which would be available to physicists throughout the country. While some consensus was gradually forming among the academic physicists about the need to organize the Intense Neutron Generator project as a national institute, perhaps on the model of the Conseil europeen pour la recherche nucleaire (CERN) or the Brookhaven Iaboratories in the United States, neither the problems of organization nor the problem of site had been resolved, or had even begun to be 25.Science Secretariat, Special Study no. 4, Proposal for an ING, p. 4. 26. AECL, ING Status Report July 1967, p. 13.

116 CHAPTER FOUR

resolved, when Atomic Energy of Canada Limited made its first formal proposal to the federal government in August, 1966. This proposal was made to the Privy Council Committee on Scientific and Industrial Research and to other representatives at the official level on August 25, 1966.27 Following this presentation, in September, 1966, the Honourable Jean-Luc Pepin, minister of Mines and Technical Surveys (Energy, Mines and Resources) asked the Science Council of Canada to consider the ING proposal and to make recommendations to him as to whether or not the project should be approved by the government. The Science Council agreed to do so and created a committee in October, 1966 to review the project and submit a report to the full council. The committee presented its conclusions and recommendations to the Science Council in March, 1967. The council's subsequent report to the minister, on March 31, 1967, included some minor modifications, but essentially endorsed the committee's suggestions. Some deans of engineering faculties in the universities became concerned in 1967 when the Science Council endorsed ING; they said that a project of its magnitude "should be examined in relation to other projects of very large scope which may have equal value and significance for Canada."28 Engineering schools were only recently developing an interest in research programs, and there was some concern that a project as costly as ING would absorb funds which might otherwise be available for research in the engineering faculties.29 The organized and open opposition of the deans, under the auspices of the Committee of Deans of Engineering,30 was viewed by many of the academic nuclear physicists (and indeed by some deans of engineering who publicly disassociated themselves from the campaign

27. Science Secretariat, Special Study no. 4, Proposal for an ING, p. 4. 28. Letter to the editor, Globe and Mail, signed by eighteen members of the Committee of Deans of Engineering, Globe and Mail, August 28, 1968. For other accounts of the deans' position see David Spurgeon. "The Generator That is Producing Intense Reactions," Globe and Mail, July 20, 1967, and J. Gordon Parr, "ING: The Wrong Thing in the Wrong Place at the Wrong Time," Science Forum 1, no. 2 (February 1968): 8-10. The published material is augmented by my own confidential interviews with some of the deans. 29. The Engineering Institute of Canada had proposed the creation of a separate Engineering Research Council. See Engineering Institute of Canada, A Canadian Policy for Research and Development (Montreal: Engineering Institute of Canada, March 1967). 30. The Committee of Deans of Engineering arose out of meetings of the Engineering Institute of Canada but, before ING, had confined itself to problems which the deans had in common in their respective faculties.

POLITICS OF BIG SCIENCE 117

against ING31 ) as being basically negative and illegitimate. After all, the deans had no alternative projects to propose! Even though there had been some deans of engineering on the original ING Advisory Committee, one of the Ieaders of the committee felt that the deans of engineering had not been adequately informed "until recently" of the ING project. "It was less than a year ago that most of us heard about it. When we expressed our concern ... we were said to have shown not only indifference but hostility toward the proposed ING."32 It was clear that the project had not pleased all the Canadian academics who would be affected by it, least of all those who were capable of concerted action. ING, Science Council, and Politicians

The views of the academic scientists and the deans were not confined to exchanges between themselves and AECL. They were also communicated to politicians in the federal cabinet. The referring of the ING project to the Science Council occurred when the Science Council had scarcely begun its survey of the science policy problems of Canada. Many members of the council were reluctant to look at a single project in isolation and without reference to possible competing schemes.83 The council, however, did agree and submitted its recommendations to the minister in March, 1967. It recommended approval in principle, subject to the availability of federal government funds, and confirmation, through further studies, of the feasibility of the project. With respect to the problems of Iocation and organization, the Science Council appeared to concur in its committee's view that Chalk River would not necessarily be the best location, given the desired criterion of "convenience to a major airport and within commuting distance of one or more major universities, industrial areas and bicultural amenities."34 In the organizational aspect, the council urged that in the long run there should be a national institute for nuclear

31.Those disassociated from the position of the committee of deans were D. R. Booth, J. H. Brown, R. M. Hardy, and J. Ruptash. See letter to editor, Globe and Mail, August 28, 1968. 32.Spurgeon, "The Generator ... Producing Intense Reactions." 33.This reluctance was clearly revealed in my interviews with members of the Science Council. See also the views of Dr. R. Gaudry, Senate of Canada, Committee on Science Policy, no. 8 (1968) : 959. 34.Science Council of Canada, Report no. 2, The Proposal for an Intense Neutron Generator (Ottawa: Queen's Printer, December 1967).

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research, but pending its establishment, there should be a board which would represent the universities and industry under the chairmanship of the managing director of the project. The board would be responsible to the board of AECL through the president. In September, 1968, following the change in the leadership of the Liberal government and the subsequent general election, the Trudeau government announced the cancellation of the ING project in an official release. In view of the very high cost of ING (it would have been by far the largest and most expensive single scientific project ever funded by the federal government), its relationship on the priority scale to the very many other demands on the national treasury, and the necessity the government faced to curtail expenditures, it has been decided that the funds required for the intense neutron generator cannot be provided at this time. In accordance with the government decision, AECL will phase out its ING studies and experiments, including those under contract with universities, industry and consultants.S6 The decision to discontinue work on ING was taken by the full cabinet.88 It is likely that the government's stated reasons tell us a great deal about why the project was cancelled. It is equally likely that a contributing factor was the ill will toward the project generated by the failure to more openly and fully enlist academic scientists and official representatives of the universities from the earliest stage of discussion and planning of the project. Immediate Consequences of the ING Cancellation Some $4.5 million had been spent on ING through contracts with universities and industry." The withdrawal of the contracts will not do any great damage to the universities, since the original ING contract funds were viewed as a windfall that would not have continued in any case. Furthermore, none of the university physics and other departments, whose research and graduate studies priorities might have been altered had ING been built, had reorganized the programs of training 35. Office of the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources, press release, September 20, 1968, pp. 1-2. 36.This was revealed in the testimony of Treasury Board officials before the Senate Committee. See Senate of Canada, Committee on Science Policy, no. 26 (1969). 37.Senate of Canada, Committee on Science Policy, no. 7 (1968): 686.

POLITICS OF BIG SCIENCE 119

and research in anticipation of ING, and hence its cancellation did not affect the departments. Professor K. G. McNeill of the University of Toronto has suggested that the decision against ING, "coupled with the similar decision about the Queen Elizabeth II telescope, has raised questions in people's minds about the future of `big science' in Canada and indeed about the policy of the Government on scientific matters as a whole."38 While it is likely that the Science Council and the government's reputation as a patron of science have suffered a considerable loss of prestige, the government has not in fact refused to support large-scale projects. Indeed, while ING was being cancelled, for example, another proposal in the intermediate energy physics area, called the Tri-Universities Meson Facility (TRIUMF), was approved by the Atomic Energy Control Board. The TRIUMF particle accelerator is to be in the 500 MeV energy range; as a result, it will be much more powerful than any existing facility in Canada. The expected cost is $19 million to build and $4 million a year to operate. It is to be located at the University of British Columbia, and is a joint project of Victoria and Simon Fraser Universities.89 Later, the University of Alberta became associated, making it a four-university project. In addition to testifying to the government's willingness to act favourably on large-scale projects, the TRIUMF project is significant because it is one of Canada's first interuniversity research projects.

Universities, Government, and Future "Big Science" Many scientists, in the universities and in the government, now state that the rejection of the ING proposal has forced them to begin to think more about their relationships with one another. Government scientists seem now to have concluded that if in future they wish to initiate a major "big science" project, they will have to associate nongovernmental scientists with their discussions at a much earlier stage than they have previously done. The Science Council's 1968 report on Canada's major scientific goals urged this cooperation forcefully on the governmental sector.4° 38. K. G. McNeill, "Life without ING," University of Toronto Graduate (December 1968) : 39. 39. See Science Secretariat, Physics in Canada: Survey and Outlook, pp. 258-62, and Senate of Canada, Committee on Science Policy, no. 9 (1968): 1044-45. 40. Science Council of Canada, Towards a National Science Policy for Canada (Ottawa: Queen's Printer, 1968), pp. 23-24.

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When these new practices develop, the universities of Canada are likely to change their behaviour. One of the more striking features of the debates regarding the CAP proposal in 1955-58 and the LNG proposal was the absence of persons who were empowered to speak for their university and for the universities of Canada. It is doubtful whether any single university, or the universities collectively, had any machinery to coordinate plans or resolve internal conflicts of an interdepartmental nature and to represent their interests in the discussion. The universities of Canada have had no science policies and have lacked the institutional arrangements to arrive at such policies. Such changes in university government, however, would still be inadequate to deal with projects such as ING and the CAP proposal, which were viewed initially or ultimately as "national laboratories" involving the universities of several provinces. The Science Council could not be utilized as a direct link between the universities and the federal government because, although it includes academics in its membership, they represent neither their own universities nor any association of Canadian universities. They are members in their individual capacities. The Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada (AUCC), representative of all universities, would probably not be acceptable as a spokesman, since many members of the academic profession in Canada regard it as representative only of university administrations. A more recent suggestion proposed by a group of academics urged the creation of some intermediary body through which "the relations between the Canadian universities — both individually and collectively — and the Canadian federal goverment may be formalized and enhanced."4' The suggested Canadian Universities Research and Cultural Foundation would be a form of government corporation which would "consist of an executive committee and a council on which would sit representatives of all the universities, of the federal government and other persons to be co-opted by them. The majority, or at least half of the members of the Council should be university representatives: the university representatives to be nominated by the appropriate supreme academic governing body of each institution; the executive body of the foundation shall be nominated from and by the members of the Council — the membership of the executive shall reflect the proportional membership of the Council." Through the 41. J. Ruptash, K. Z. Paltiel, and P. J. King, "Recommended Senate [of Carleton University] Brief to Committee on the Relations between Universities and Governments" (mimeo), p. 3. A similar structure is suggested by the Science Secretariat, Physics in Canada: Survey and Outlook, p. 72.

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foundation, it was proposed that the support (both capital and operating funds) from the federal level "may be formulated and channelled to provide appropriate (and much needed) support of areas of research, culture and advanced education which fall within the competence of the federal government."42 While the proponents of the creation of this foundation do not specifically refer to the problems of "big science," such a foundation or a similar structure might, together with the Science Council, provide a framework in which a consensus among academic, governmental, and industrial scientists and the institutions with which they are associated might develop. The proposal, however, deals with the initial decision-making and advisory channels in science policy. The day-to-day management and control of big science would still remain to be dealt with. The CAP and ING proposals were attempts to create in Canada a national laboratory, before Canadians had any relevant experience with the less complex political and administrative problems of managing a regional laboratory that involved only a few universities. The United States has moved through a similar sequence. It first acquired experience in managing regional big science laboratories in which regional clusters of universities participated. The first genuinely national scientific laboratory in the United States is the Atomic Energy Commission's $300 million 200 BeV accelerator now under construction near Chicago. It will be operated by the Universities Research Association Inc., a consortium of forty-six universities organized under the auspices of the United States Atomic Energy Commission and the National Academy of Sciences.43 The rejection of the ING project and the earlier CAP proposal and the approval of the TRIUMF project might turn out to be very wise decisions from the point of view of Canada's management of such national enterprises in the future. As a regional laboratory the TRIUMF project might serve as a source of experience. If the universities cannot manage this more modest regional facility, the federal government would be justified in preferring to direct very large facilities themselves.44 42. Science Secretariat, Physics in Canada: Survey and Outlook, pp. 72-73. 43. Keenan, "High Energy Administration," p. 250. 44. Several recommendations for regional multiuniversity laboratories have been made, and the Duckworth Committee in 1966 recommended them. See also a discussion of this issue including a possible unit in southwestern Ontario in Science Secretariat, Physics in Canada: Survey and Outlook, pp. 72 and 379-84.

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The underlying theme of this chapter has been the absence of consensus within the Canadian scientific community. It is true, of course, that the rational allocation of resources is not guaranteed simply by improving the consensus-building structures. An agreed decision can be just as irrational as an imposed one. The ING affair represents the first significant occasion where Canadian scientists became involved in a process of group politics, in contrast with the previously prevailing structure of a governmental body dealing with one academic scientist at a time. The entire affair, moreover, took place at a time when Canadian science was under unprecedented critical scrutiny by politicians. The cost to Canadian university science programs of not possessing professional institutions in which consensus in matters of science policy can be formed is not to be measured in the loss of the ING project, which might well have been rejected by the Government of Canada on reasonable grounds, even if Canadian scientists had presented an unbroken front. Future big science projects, however, whatever their scientific and technological merits, might well meet a similar fate unless the relations between academic and government scientists and the relations among scientists in different disciplines improve.

5 The Political System of the Scientific Community

Within any identifiable group in society, the nature of its internal political system is determined by two key elements, its positional and allocative policies. Its positional policies are those policies which establish the authority structures of the group. Allocative policies are those policies which confer direct benefits—material or symbolic—upon individuals and groups. In simplistic terms the political system of a group determines who gets what, where, when, and how.1 The Canadian scientific community, estimated in 1963 to include more than thirteen thousand scientists and engineers, is found in the governmental, university, and industrial sectors of Canadian society, and hence, the precise identification of its boundaries is impossible to determine. The previous four chapters, however, have revealed certain characteristics of both the positional and allocative elements of the political system of the Canadian scientific community. This chapter will attempt to integrate the analysis of the past four chapters and relate it to the changing characteristics of the scientific community, particularly as it is reflected in the role of scientific professional associations. With respect to the structural elements of the Canadian scientific community, several characteristics have been presented. Until the mid1960s the authority structures resided in the federal science bureaucracy in general, and in the NRC in particular. The leadership of the 1. For a good analysis of the allocative and structural policies as they apply to the field of health research in Canada, see Peter Aucoin, "Health Research Policy-Making in Canada: The Policy-Advisory Role of the Medical Research Council" (paper prepared for the annual meeting of the Canadian Political Science Association, June 3, 1970, Winnipeg, Manitoba).

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NRC had secured a considerable degree of independence for the scientific community from the political sector. While the leadership had to be aware of the overall political goal of both economic and industrial development, the very diffuseness of the goal, combined with the deference paid to science by politicians, meant that the leadership of NRC had ample room to serve the goals of science and the scientific community. The overall structure was also legitimized by an elaborate system of colleague-based committees. The legitimacy of these structures was challenged by the creation of the Science Secretariat and Science Council. The new advisory and coordinative bodies were supported initially by only a few scientists. For the most part they were the creation of politicians. The presence of the Science Secretariat and Science Council, however, has allowed other opposition within the scientific community to surface. This opposition has come from individuals, groups, and sectors of the scientific community whose needs had not been adequately met by the policies and decisions of the existing authorities. The allocative policies were primarily characterized by a system of "little science" grants to individual scientists. For university and industrial scientists this system of grants involved decisions by granting committees. For scientists within the federal government and within the NRC, it involved decisions in the normal budgetary processes. The basic pattern of incremental little science allocations was broken only by periodic allocations for some "big science" installations. The change in the allocative policies was effected by a number of factors, most of which are based on the transformation of society from an industrial to a scientific one. Sanford A. Lakoff has distinguished industrial and scientific societies as follows: Industrialization is a process of transition from a primarily agrarian economic system to one in which the mode of production, both in agriculture and manufacture, calls for the replacement of manual labour by mechanical power wherever possible.... Scientific society ... makes its appearance when a mature industrial society is able to devote a substantial share of its resources to costly projects in science and technology which bear on the entire spectrum of social concerns, including industrial productivity, while extending to all others as well. For industrial society the key problem is scarcity. As soon as the basic problems of scarcity are resolved, a society becomes a scientific society and seeks to solve other constraints "both physical and moral." In

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Lakoff's words, "the rationale of scientific society is much more openended, diffuse and indeterminate."2 This is not to argue that Canadian society has become a full-fledged "scientific society." It clearly has not. The relevance of the change to the Canadian situation is, however, that Canada has begun to feel the multitudinous demands of the scientific society without ever having fully applied its scientific resources to the goal of industrial development. For Canada, therefore, the demands and the allocative options are that much more complex, open-ended, and indeterminate. And the problem is not made easier by our proximity to the one nation that comes closest to being a scientific society, the United States of America. The more open-ended allocative options are the result of pressure by both politicians and by the development of new disciplines and areas of scientific work (for example, space research and technology) within the scientific community. Allocative policies are also altered by the increasing incidence of big science, a development which raises both the stakes and the visibility of allocative decisions among politicians and among scientific sectors, disciplines, and groups. It also greatly complicates political relationships in the scientific community by shifting the emphasis from individual scientists to groups of scientists. Nothing in this analysis is intended to advance the argument that Canadian scientists have had no politically relevant group life whatever. Its group life, however, has not, until recently, significantly affected the internal political system of the Canadian scientific community. Before we can assess the changes that seem to be taking place in this regard, it is important to look at the role of scientific professional associations in the context of two major topics: the goals and internal structure of professional associations and the attempt to create a general scientific association in Canada.

Goals and Internal Structures of Professional Associations

A brief survey of the declared objectives of several professional associations and of the relative priority which each attaches to its list of

2. Sanford A. Lakoff, "Scientific Society: Notes Toward a Paradigm," in Paul J. Pittard, ed., Science and Policy Issues (Itasca, Illinois: F. E. Peacock, 1969), pp. 56-58.

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objectives, reveals a fairly predictable conclusion.8 They are organizations which clearly give precedence to such internal matters as the determination of professional qualification standards, the publication and communication of research information, and the preservation of the groups' professional standing in the broader scientific community. Of the six associations cited in Appendix C, only the Chemical Institute of Canada and the Agricultural Institute of Canada include provisions which overtly anticipate a relationship with governments or legislative bodies, per se. One can, of course, imply an intended relationship for other provisions. For example, the basic goal to preserve and develop the particular scientific discipline of the association implies a desire to compete for government funds, but usually the associations reflect the predictable aspirations of being essentially apolitical bodies. Generally speaking, until very recently, the intended goals and objectives have corresponded to the actual behaviour of the associations. My interviews with Canadian scientists (all of whom were members of at least one professional association and several of whom were former presidents of associations) clearly indicated the low importance which they attached to association activities. While membership was valued as a professional necessity, association activities and meetings per se were viewed only as socially useful contacts. Few considered their association as a "lobby" for science generally or for their particular branch of science. Most of the scientists interviewed were overwhelmingly opposed to the idea that associations should take stands on general political issues, and did not foresee any movement in their associations toward this type of overt political role. There is some evidence, however, to suggest that the late 1960s are witnessing a shift in political goals, in spite of what the associations' terms of reference may say. In an interview in 1968 with the Globe 3. Regrettably, very little has been written about scientists' professional associations in Canada. The present survey is drawn from interviews and correspondence and from the following documents: Canadian Aeronautics and Space Institute, By-Laws and Regulations (Toronto: January 1968); Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, Astronomy in Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1968); Canadian Association of Physicists, "The Objects of CAP" (mimeo); Canadian Council of Professional Engineers, Letters Patent Incorporating the Canadian Council of Professional Engineers (Ottawa, January 14, 1965); L. M. Nadeau, "What is CCPE?," The Canadian Professional Engineer 3, no. 4 (1967), pp. 2-3; Chemical Institute of Canada, Charter and By-Laws (Ottawa, I967); Agricultural Institute of Canada, Membership Directory (Ottawa, 1966); and the Engineering Institute of Canada, By-Laws (Montreal, 1967). See Appendix C for a summary of association goals.

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and Mail's science writer, David Spurgeon, three presidents of profesional associations commented upon the developing view that scientists could not longer remain politically aloof.4 Dr. Howard Petch, then president of the Canadian Association of Physicists, observed that discussions of public issues had been increasing in the CAP but that he would not like to see CAP members "get into debate on questions like the Vietnam War." The issues should be related to Canadian science and particularly to physics. Significantly enough the stated objectives of the CAP are among the most apolitical and yet the CAP, as an association, was one of the first professional associations to organize on a collective basis to obtain government support for a major science project (the 1955 proposal for a high energy accelerator). This was not conceived as "interest group" behaviour, however; collective behaviour was prompted more by the size of the expenditure involved. Somewhat paradoxically, physicists, whose pure research values would tend to make them the most apolitical of scientists, were among the first to have to develop some form of group political role, not because they are inclined to perform such a role, but rather because the size and cost of their equipment propels them into big science and hence into the political environment on which they must depend for support. Dr. Ira Puddington, president of the Chemical Institute of Canada, also observed a tendency in the CIC to discuss public isues. As to any future political role, Dr. Puddington commented that this was fine provided that opinions expressed be "considered and informed."5 Dr. Gordon Butler, president of the Federation of Biological Societies, also counselled for the need for informed criticism by scientists, but expressed concern about the danger of public misunderstanding if scientists spoke out on matters on which they are not expert. He observed that "I wouldn't be in favour of any scientific publication I had anything to do with, speaking out as, for example, the Bulletin of The Atomic Scientists."e Perhaps a more meaningful illustration of the scientific community's

4. David Spurgeon, "Should Scientists Speak Out in Public?," Globe and Mail, January 25, 1968. More recently, the newly elected president of the CAP, Dr. M. P. Bachynski, stressed that the CAP's socioscientific functions were of first priority. Reported in Globe and Mail, June 27, 1969. The CAP and other associations were also urged by Senator Allister Grosart, a member of the Lamontagne Committee, to form a lobby so that politicians would be aware of their views. Reported in Globe and Mail, June 26, 1969. 5. Quoted in Spurgeon, "Should Scientists Speak Out?" 6. Quoted in Spurgeon, "Should Scientists Speak Out?"

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increased concern about its political and social responsibility is the activity of individual scientists such as Dr. Donald Chant and the organization of Pollution Probe. Significantly this activity is carried out primarily outside the realm of professional associations, and represents individual involvement in league with other citizen, student, and grass-root forms of political expression. Some associations like the Council of Biological Societies have taken up the ecological issue, but their impact and political efficacy seem to be far below that of groups like Pollution Probe in which scientists behave as individual political participants. In earlier chapters, specific instances of "group" behaviour by scientists and their professional associations were cited. The Engineering Institute of Canada submitted a brief to the Pearson government in 1967 which expressed concern about the relative place and emphasis given to the support of engineering and industrial research in Canada. This brief marked one of the earliest open manifestations of dissatisfaction by one scientific discipline over the way the total research and development budget had been historically allocated. It commented at length on the "pure" research bias of the NRC and called for the establishment of a separate engineering research council to support industrial growth, "if this objective cannot be implemented within the existing organization of the National Research Council."7 With respect to the developments in 1964 and 1966 which led to the creation of the Science Secretariat and Science Council, it is clear that the debate took place largely outside the professional associations. The government asked for and received endorsements of support from several of the associations at the time of the 1966 Science Council legislation, but the proposals for science policy machinery were by no means initiated by the associations.8 There was little inclination to urge the creation of machinery which would coordinate or "organize" science. If scientists themselves have generally tended to conceive of their professional associations as apolitical structures, this view has been historically reinforced by government politicians and officials. They have regarded the scientists' professional associations in a somewhat similar light. As president of NRC, Dr. E. W. R. Steacie frequently discouraged the associations from playing a political role and stressed

7. Engineering Institute of Canada, A Canadian Policy For Research and Development (Montreal: Engineering Institute of Canada, March 1967), p. 5. 8. House of Commons, Debates, vol. 4, 1966, p. 4348.

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the dangers of such a role for science and scientists.° Those politicians who have had contact with the scientific community tend to communicate with that community not through groups in professional associations but through particular prestigious scientists.10 When it came to establishing the basis of membership on the Science Council, for example, the members were selected for their personal eminence and interest in science. If any group constituencies were identified, it was the governmental, academic, and industrial representation that assumed the greatest importance, rather than scientific disciplines or professional associations. In a recent essay, Dr. Lynn Trainor, a physicist, commented favourably on the degree of democratization in Canada's professional associations: "For the most part, the scientific associations in Canada are democratically organized and not particularly addicted to the elitism so characteristic of scientific societies in the U.S. and Europe. (Only the Royal Society lacks contact with and support from the grass roots of the scientific community.) In this sense, the Canadian situation is unique and more in keeping with the spirit of the times."11 In a formal sense this generalization may be true, but it is extremely premature. The associations may be uniquely democratic, but democratic about what? Although they have spent much of their time fulfilling the functions of the "social system" of science in Canada — securing professional standards and communicating research — they have had very little to do in the allocative processes because decisions in this area, for the most part, take place outside the association. The ultimate test of the degree of internal democratization will come when the associations deal with and attempt to influence the more politically loaded allocative and structural processes. Implicit in this analysis is the view that scientists cannot be understood politically in the context of normal interest group theory. This 9. See E. W. R. Steacie, "Address to the Canadian Association of Physicists," in J. D. Babbitt, ed., Science in Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1965), p. 63, and "Science and the National Academy," Proceedings of the Royal Society of Canada 49, no. 3 (June 1955): 49-56. 10.Professional associations, of course, are used to help legitimize or endorse programs or projects. Dr. Van Steenberg's strategy in the QEII project is a recent example. In the early months of the Science Secretariat's existence, it called on organizations like the CAP to carry out an inventory study on physics. It has since had less enthusiasm for contracting to professional groups, because of their cumbersome processes of consultation, and would far rather have a small group of scientists eminent in the field contract for the projects. 11.Lynn Trainor, "The Voice of Science on Parliament Hill," Canadian Forum (October 1969): 151.

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view has been endorsed by several authors who stress that scientists enjoy special political status because of their knowledge and expertise.12 Much of the reasoning behind this view tends to be based on the strength of a behavioural tendency ascribed to scientists, the tendency to view politics as illegitimate and the tendency, therefore, to disavow politics. As Robert C. Wood has stated: "the influence of this group apparently does not come about by conscious adaptation to the political world, that is, by learning the skills of other elite groups, but by continuing its own sharply differentiated behaviour pattern. The group is an apolitical elite, triumphing in the political arena to the extent to which it disavows political objectives and refuses to behave according to conventional political practice."13 The Canadian scientific community's behaviour strongly lends support to this observation. Our case studies suggest, however, that, increasingly, scientists in professional associations and in government may be less "triumphant" unless some of the political skills of bargaining and consultation are more openly recognized and valued. As noted in this and earlier chapters, much of Canada's previous science has been in the area of socalled little science where scientists applied individually or in a very small group for research funds. Increasingly, the pattern of relationships between scientists and their political benefactors will be less one of the single scientists facing a research granting committee composed of colleagues and peers, and more and more, particularly in major program areas, one of a multiplicity of interests and individuals — scientists and nonscientist interests. These relationships will require developing skills of an essentially political nature. Programs verging on the magnitude of big science will be increasingly viewed as a group benefit or output, much like other nonscience governmental outputs. In commenting on the reasons why British scientific professional associations have not been "interest groups" in the normal sense, Norman Vig cited two other structural causes, both of which deserve some comment as to their applicability to the Canadian scene. Vig argued that the "dispersion of scientific programs among numerous decentralized agencies without any one `sponsoring department' or executive Ministry in control has not been conducive to organized representation of scientific interests." In the British case there was no 12.See Norman J. Vig, Science and Technology in British Politics (London: Pergamon Press, 1968), pp. 125-239 for the most recent and compact synthesis of the limited literature on scientists and interest group theory. 13.Robert C. Wood, "Scientists and Politics: The Rise of an Apolitical Elite," in Robert Gilpin and Christopher Wright, eds., Scientists and National PolicyMaking (New York: Columbia University Press, 1964), p. 44.

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obvious point of entry or concentration of authority: "In scientific affairs there is little concentration on either side; as advisers and judges the scientists do not speak as representative delegates but as independent experts."14 While the general scientific community in Canada lacks a concentration of authority, this characteristic does not apply to the governmental community, whose authority has not been as dispersed as the United Kingdom's has been. In Canada, the NRC has been the central authority in terms of status, prestige, and power, from the point of view of both scientists in the university community and the senior ministers in successive governments. When this greater governmental concentration of authority is juxtaposed against the even greater organizational dispersion of Canadian scientists' professional associations, it helps explain not only why professional associations have been politically irrelevant, but also why the balance of power in Canadian science has been heavily weighed in favour of the government science sector.15 The fact is that, in Canada, the government scientific community developed first, especially under NRC's leadership. In a real sense the NRC helped create some of the professional associations. The early advisory committees created by the NRC were often the first gatherings of scientists from each discipline. For example, in May, 1919, under the support of a meeting of the NRC's Associate Committee of Chemists, the chemists formed the Canadian Institute of Chemistry.'° At meetings of the Associate Committee on Physics and Engineering Physics in 1920 and 1921, consideration was given to the formation of a Canadian branch of the Institute of Physics in Great Britain.'? This process of the government itself sponsoring formation of what later developed as an interest group was a common one in other areas also. Government agencies prefer a constituency to deal with — and perhaps to strengthen them in competing with their brother bureaucracies. The second "structural" cause of the political ineffectiveness of the professional associations is the nature of their internal organization and cohesion, both as individual organizations and in terms of interorganizational cohesion in the scientific community as a whole. "The basic form of scientific professional organisation is vertical, dividing 14. Vig, Science and Technology in British Politics, p. 128. 15. The main exception to this evidence is in the field of biomedical research. 16. NRC, Annual Report (1920) : 45. 17. NRC, Annual Report (1921) : 44.

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one discipline from another. This traditional structure has far-reaching consequences for the scientists' ability to act in public affairs. Effective pressure groups require `horizontal' coordinating agencies and peak organizations capable of representing and committing the membership at large on broad policy issues. Scientists have little of either."18 Professional associations in the Canadian scientific community tend to be of two types, those with "professional" self-regulative roles (based on the model of the legal and medical professions) and those with little or no regulative roles, and hence assuming the characteristics of a scientific "society." Both types have difficulty generating political cohesion. The "society" type, such as the Canadian Association of Physicists or the Chemical Institute of Canada, is structured primarily to fulfil its roles relating to the social system of its scientific membership. The political effectiveness of the more "professional" type of association, such as the Engineering Institute of Canada, is affected significantly by the presence of federalism. While the support of scientific research has clearly been concentrated at the federal level of government, the responsibility for licensing professions is a provincial one. For those scientific associations with self-regulative roles, such as in the engineering and agricultural professions, their national associations, the Engineering Institute of Canada, the Canadian Council of Professional Engineers, and the Agricultural Institute of Canada, have become very decentralized structures with the bases of "power" resting with the provincial sections. The political concern of such bodies has been directed, provincially, to the general issues of professional regulation. For example, much of the Agricultural Institute's energies in the 1945-60 period was concentrated on obtaining legislation in the provinces that would secure the legal recognition of the profession. Related issues were also the preoccupation of the engineering profession in the 1920s and 1930s. An illustration of the greater decentralization of organizational structure and the lack of cohesion in professional associations was probably most clearly demonstrated in the ING case study. The main spokesman for the engineering community was not the Engineering Institute of Canada nor the Canadian Council of Professional Engineers, but the Committee of Deans of Engineering. The deans of engineering were more easily mobilized and motivated toward political roles, partly because their smaller numbers represented a more cohesive group and partly because the deans, as heads of university 18. Vig, Science and Technology in British Politics, p. 130.

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departments, had an independent power base. They possessed a much stronger combination of the needed political assets. They spoke with the authority of several "hierarchical" heads. They were also much more intimately related to the real political system of the Canadian scientific community, the system which centred on the allocation of research and development funds.

The Attempt to Create a General Scientific Association A further, and in the long run, more intriguing cause of the political ineffectiveness of professional associations is Canada's lack, until recently, of a general multidisciplinary society for the advancement of science. While both American and British writers feel that their respective scientific communities have no single institutional base, it is clear that the United States and Britain come much closer to such a state of affairs than Canada, primarily because they have in existence general societies for the advancement of science which at least aspire toward giving all scientists, and all laymen interested in science and its consequences, some forum for communicating with one another.'9 In this context, it is important to assess the role of the Royal Society of Canada and to relate it to the interesting paradox which emerges when one views its role in comparison with the Association Canadienne-Française pour l'Avancement des Sciences (ACFAS), a general association for French-Canadian scientists. At the time of the incorporation of the Royal Society of Canada in 1883, and even until the early 1920s, there were virtually no Canadian professional associations and no Canadian research journals in which the results of research could be published. The annual meetings of the Royal Society and the society's transactions were extremely important means available to scientists for discussion and publication. Initiated primarily by the then governor-general of Canada, the Royal Society of Canada was given an annual grant from Parliament (which was later included in the estimates of the NRC). The structure of the society is itself a reflection of Canadian science. Originally, it was organized in four sections, French literature and allied subjects, English literature and allied subjects, mathematical, physical, and chemical sciences, and geological and biological sciences; however, there are now three sections, French and English "humanities and 19. See ibid., pp. 25-27, for a discussion of the British Association for the Advancement of Science and the Royal Society.

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social sciences" sections, and a "sciences" section. Membership to the society is by election by existing members. Initially a numerical limit of twenty for each section was set, but this was later changed. No absolute numerical limit exists but, until 1970, no more than six could be elected annually to each section.20 In 1970, after a lengthy debate, a modest increase in the permissible annual intake was authorized. One characteristic of the Royal Society was clear. As the first general organization for science in Canada, it did not consider itelf as an ordinary interest group. The remarks of its first president, Sir William Dawson, a naturalist and geologist, were reinforced and repeated throughout the early history of the Royal Society: It would be a mistake ... to suppose that this Society should include all our literary and scientific men, or even all those of some local standing. It must consist of selected and respected men who have themselves done original work of at least Canadian celebrity. Beyond this it would have no resting place short of that of a great popular assemblage whose members should be characterized by more receptivity than by productiveness. In this sense it must be exclusive in its membership but inclusive in that it offers its benefits to all. 21 Several addresses in the meetings of the Royal Society reflect the sense of ambivalence about the relationship of science to government, even in the very early years. The society itself seemed to become a haven where one could protest this unfortunate marriage: "Research" has become a blessed word on the lips even of the profane, and may move great audiences of the uninitiated if pronounced with tone and unction. Far be it from me to alienate worthy allies from university or laboratory but these must remain the homes and hearths of the incorruptible pursuit of knowledge for its own sake and the Royal Society is the rallying place whither its crusaders and stewards forgather for mutual enlightenment and comfort.... We have to go as supplicants to governments or to the rich for help to carry on our researches, and we try to make our appeal persuasive on the strength of the cash values of the results.22

20.See The Royal Society of Canada 1882-1957 (Ottawa: Royal Society of Canada, 1958), and OECD, Reviews of National Science Policy Canada (Paris: OECD, 1969), pp. 340-42. 21. Quoted in essay by Dr. L. T. Burpee, in Fifty Years Retrospect (Ottawa: Royal Society of Canada, 1933), anniversary volume 1882-1932, p. 4. 22. Falconer, "The Intellectual Life of Canada as Reflected in Its Royal Society," in Fifty Years Retrospect, p. 20.

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On the other hand a former president of the Royal Society claimed in 1932 that "to a greater or lesser degree" the Biological Board, the Geographical Board, the National Research Council, and the Astrophysical Observatory owed their foundation to the Royal Society.23 It it difficult to substantiate this claim, but the important point is that the society was prepared to accept some political credit for it. Some of the difficulty in determining its real impact is found when we examine the linkage established between the Royal Society and the NRC. It becomes less significant, relatively speaking, toward the end of the 1960s after more than fifty other scientific societies and associations had emerged, but in the 1916-35 period this linkage was important, particularly because the Royal Society was the main source of scientific communication and publication until the NRC created its own research journals.24 During this time an average of one half the members of the NRC were also Fellows of the Royal Society of Canada.25 There existed, therefore, a very close and compact personal network of colleague relationships which made the two structures almost indistinguishable. Indeed, the society occupied office space in the NRC building! What is clear, however, is that the Royal Society acted as a forum, especially in the early years, where the basic norms and spirit of science could be vented, if not to the outside world, then at least among scientists. The Royal Society of Canada, therefore, was basically an elitist body in terms of both its organizational structure and its attitudes. In its early history it served as one of the main means of communication among the small group of scientists, and between the sciences and humanities in Canada. With the growth of other journals for communicating research results, the society came to be viewed more and more as an anachronism in the 1960s. While the scientific section always retained a lingering aspiration to have somewhat the same status that its British counterpart had in the United Kingdom, it was never able to serve as a general adviser to governments. From the mid-1950s until the present day, the Royal Society of Canada has discussed how it might change its role. In his 1955 presidential address to the society, Dr. E. W. R. Steacie made some interesting observations about the place of national academies such as the Royal Society:

23. Burpee, in Fifty Years Retrospect, p. 2. 24. See NRC, Annual Report (1922) : 22 and 32, and (1924) : 20. 25. See NRC membership lists, NRC, Annual Reports, 1918 to 1935 inclusive.

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Today, the importance of science is recognized and a steadily increasing number of scientists are employed by governments. As a result, the national academies have to a considerable extent lost their position as authoritative government advisory bodies... . It seems to me that no national academy which maintains its independence can regard itself as a government adviser by divine right. Dr. Steacie then went on to observe several "dangerous" trends in the changed relationship between science and society. Arising out of what he felt was a tendency to confuse science with technology, there had been a "decline" of scientific societies: At first sight this decline is by no means apparent. Societies are increasing in number and their membership is expanding — beyond all bounds, in one case to over seventy thousand. However, the increasing industrialization has brought about a very great change in the type of membership. The majority of the members are apt to have no real interest in the advance of science. The societies tend to be professional bodies, and the meetings more and more to resemble the normal type of convention. The welfare of science itself, rather than that of scientists, seems therefore to be in the process of being handed back to bodies of the national academy type.28 This view of the role of the Royal Society as the ultimate upholder of "the freedom of science, of the university and of the scientist"27 seems to reiterate, in a different way but with the same effect, the conception of the Royal Society of Canada described earlier. Implicit in this is the view that the "minority" few who retain the pure values of science ought to constitute the basic membership. Mass societies which have expanded "beyond all bounds" cannot do this. Although this rationale for the Royal Society tended to prevail, some contrary views began to appear in the 1960s. Some members of the society viewed its moribund state (and especially that of the scientific section) as being caused by the fact that it was heavily influenced by NRC-based scientists. This charge was made more relevant when an attempt by some members to have the Glassco Commission recommendations debated was "discouraged." Subsequently, while the Liberal government was considering the establishment of the Science Council, the Royal Society approached the

26. E. W. R. Steacie, "Science and the National Academy," Proceedings of the Royal Society of Canada 49, no. 3 (June 1955): 53-54. 27.1bid., p. 55. The continued strength of these views within the Royal Society's scientific section was revealed in the opposition raised at the society's 1969 meeting to the Science Council's proposals to organize Canadian science on the basis of major missions. Reported in Globe and Mail, June 5, 1969.

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government with the suggestion that it become the general advisory body for science policy matters. The government did not take this offer very seriously, having in mind the general inactivity of the society during most of its previous history. Following this somewhat abortive attempt at reappraisal, the society undertook a more thorough review of its role. In February, 1968, it met to consider a proposal to divide into separate academies for the humanities and the sciences, which together would then constitute the Royal Society. The proposal was based on a concern for the representativeness of the society, especially among younger scientists, and among the applied sciences and engineering.28 It was rejected, but steps were taken instead to double the number of executive meetings, add more applied scientists and engineers, and strengthen the secretariat by adding a full-time executive officer. To date, this latest effort appears to have borne little fruit. The frustrations of mobilizing the organization were among the principal reasons for the resignation of the newly appointed executive officer, one year after his appointment.29 While the founding of the Royal Society was the major attempt at bringing the sciences together in English Canada, the presence of the Association Canadienne-Francaise pour l'Avancement des Sciences in French Canada served as a contrasting model, even though it was scarcely known to English-Canadian scientists. I shall comment on it briefly from the point of view of the interesting paradox it presents regarding the relations between science, government, and society in English-speaking and French-speaking Canada. ACFAS was founded in 1923, "pour regrouper les energies jusqu'å lå isolees des societes scientifiques canadiennes-francaises."30 Its objectives were to "stimulate the development, in French Canada, of the mathematical, natural, physical and moral sciences, as well as that of all sciences in general. .. ."31 By 1970, the ACFAS had thirty member societies, sixty corporate members, and individual membership of about one thousand. Its activities have corresponded in many ways with individual professional societies, as, for example, in the presentation of papers and publication of research information. It has also launched speaking tours and programs to interest high school students in scientific careers. 28. The inadequate representation of the engineering and applied sciences is indicated in OECD, Reviews of National Science Policy Canada, pp. 340-41. 29. See David Spurgeon, "The Best Brains Do Falter," Globe Magazine, April 29, 1969. 30. See Jean-Louis Meunier, "How ACFAS Was Born and How It Grew," Science Forum 3, no. 2 (April 1970): 24. 31. Ibid., p. 2.

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In the political arena the ACFAS has attempted, for more than thirty years, to persuade the Quebec provincial government to create a research council modelled on NRC to support research in Quebec. The goal was almost reached in 1965 when the Liberal government of Jean Lesage promised such a council in the Throne Speech, but the calling of an election, in which the Liberals were defeated, prevented its creation.82 When the Royal Society of Canada and the ACFAS are compared at this very broad level, a paradox seems to emerge. A generally more egalitarian, open, and general scientific society emerged in Quebec and French Canada in an overall social milieu which has been historically characterized as a traditional society (at least in comparison with English Canada). The Quebec educational system until the 1960s paid scant attention to the sciences or technology.38 In English Canada, an elitist Royal Society emerged in a society which, when compared historically to French Canada, has been much more egalitarian. Part of the explanation seems, logically, to flow from the attitudes of governments toward science. French-Canadian scientists may have banded together precisely because they had to struggle to obtain public financial support and status. There were, moreover, fewer scientists. Little support was forthcoming from the Quebec government, and even NRC's grants were weighted against French-Canadian scientists, primarily because NRC granted funds to scientists on merit, and Quebec's educational system did not encourage the production of any scientists. The common cause of all scientists as a group was thus more important and pressing to French-Canadian scientists. In English Canada, scientists, especially the best ones, were finding more support; in addition there were expanding employment opportunities in the federal science bureaucracy.S4 32. See ACFAS, "Memoire Pr6sent6 å la Commission Royale d'Enquete sur 1'Enseignement," Montreal, juin, 1962, p. 16. 33. See John Porter, The Vertical Mosaic (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1965), pp. 169-72. 34. Porter's analysis of the Royal Society of Canada, Section III, based on 1961 data, indicated that only 10 percent were French Canadians. [The Vertical Mosaic, p. 508.1 While the data are not available, it is highly likely that a similar or even smaller percentage of French-Canadian scientists historically have been awarded grants from NRC, or have secured positions in the federal bureaucracy. It is only recently that French-Canadian grievances against federal policies have been openly espoused. See Philippe Garigue, "Le recherche au Quebec et le probleme constitutionnel," Science Forum 1, no. 2 (April 1968) : 18-21, and John B. Macdonald et al., The Role of the Federal Government in Support of Research in Canadian Universities, Special Study no. 7 (Ottawa: Queen's Printer, 1969).

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The attempt to relate broad cultural-societal concepts or differences in governmental structures to the different forms of scientific society is, at this point, highly speculative. The brief discussion has been intended primarily to make the observation and to offer a preliminary and partial explanation as to why these characteristics may have occurred. Returning to the broad issue of the historic absence of a general scientific society in Canada, as a whole, the important point is that this deficiency presented further evidence that Canada had a communications gap not only among scientists but also between scientists and the broader political and societal sectors. This gap, in my view, is wider and more serious than that of other industrial societies with which we normally like to compare ourselves. More recently, in recognition of the gap in communications and of the demands being made by politicians, a new general association called the Association of the Scientific, Technological and Engineering Community of Canada (SCITEC) has been created. It owes its origins, in part, to the direct challenge of Senators Maurice Lamontagne and Allister Grosart of the Senate of Canada Special Committee on Science Policy. They urged that science develop a single voice. Responding to this challenge, Dr. Norman Grace, president of the Chemical Institute of Canada, and Dr. Morel Bachynski of the Canadian Association of Physicists proposed a national meeting of scientific societies. In the summer of 1969, about one hundred and fifteen delegates representing fifty-six scientific and professional associations met in Ottawa. A steering committee was created and, after several months of negotiations, the founding meeting of SCITEC was held in January, 1970. Membership in SCITEC is established through three channels: adhering professional societies, individuals joining through a participating society, and individuals of the general public. While the concept of membership is clearly open and general, the twenty-nine-man council elected by the January 1970 SCITEC Conference reflects the importance of the major professional societies. The objective of SCITEC is to "marshal the scientific, engineering and technological community to provide leadership, to communicate, cooperate and work within itself, with government and the public in the national interest in those areas in which can make a competent contribution." The public relations officer of SCITEC refers to the organization as being ultimately a "parliament of science." Within this broad statement of objectives and the label of "parliament of science" rests both the dilemma and the aspiration of the SCITEC promoters. The scientific community clearly had to respond in some way to the changes that were developing, but there are many diverging

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rationales present within a body as diffuse as SCITEC. Many scientists are responding genuinely to the arguments put forward regarding the social responsibilities of science. On the other hand, others candidly admit that SCITEC will help protect the scientific community from the Science Council. While a good number of scientists were dissatisfied with the old "political system" headed by NRC, they viewed the Science Council, in terms of both its structure and its uncertain impact on the future nature of allocative decisions, with even more scepticism. For them, SCITEC was needed to re-establish some semblance of legitimacy in the authority structure of the scientific community and perhaps also to offer some assurances about the future allocations. Another factor which will undoubtedly affect the future political efficacy of both SCITEC and scientists' professional associations is the importance of sectoral, as opposed to discipline-based, divisions within the scientific community. The first four chapters have revealed the importance of the industrial, governmental, and university sectors as the key "group" constituencies. Professional associations will usually have all three sectors within their membership. This fact will either offer a great opportunity for consensus-building activity or it will generate great controversy within these associations. In the short run, the net result of the changes in the political system of the Canadian scientific community is a tremendous sense of ambivalence about both structures and future science policies. While politicians move in a mission-oriented direction, the energies of the scientific community, both within SCITEC and outside it, are likely to be devoted to developing some means of achieving consensus. Professional associations still remain on the periphery of the political system of science, but they are likely to gain some influence as the system shifts from the individualist to the more collectivist era.

6 Science and Politicians

The Ministerial Arena

In the latter half of the 1960s, scientists and politicians in Canada have paid more attention to their relationships with each other than at any other time in Canada's history. The most obvious manifestation of this mutual interest was the creation of the Science Council itself. However, an analysis of the politician as he operates in three arenas, the ministerial arena, the parliamentary arena, and the arena of political parties and public opinion will help to further delineate the relationships between scientists and politicians. The most immediate political arena — and one which is the most directly connected to the earlier discussion of scientists in the federal bureaucracy — is the ministerial arena. At the outset, it should be noted that the brief observations made about politicians in chapter 2 stresses the problem of preventing ministerial "interference" in matters of science, especially with respect to NRC in the early years and before World War II. Later, in the 1950s, the relationship of ministers to science tended to be one of deference, a relationship encouraged by the Honourable C. D. Howe. The difficulty in the contemporary period has been one of insuring that ministers individually, and the cabinet, as a collectivity, are better able to "intervene" in the sense of setting social priorities which science will presumably serve. The distinction in this degree of emphasis will hopefully be more evident after we have observed the scientistministerial relationship at somewhat closer quarters from the point of view of four major perspectives or problems within the governmental environment.

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Attitudes of Chairmen of the Privy Council Committee

During the 1960s two politicians have held the position of chairman of the Privy Council Committee on Scientific and Industrial Research, the Honourable Gordon Churchill in the Diefenbaker government and the Honourable C. M. Drury in the Pearson and Trudeau governments. Both men, in a sense, are representative of the transformation in attitudes that have taken place in this decade. Churchill's stewardship was complicated by the fact that the 1958 to 1963 period was characterized by several bouts of fiscal austerity. In addition, Churchill was preoccupied with the internal Conservative party factionalism of the early 1960s, a factionalism centred on the leadership of Prime Minister Diefenbaker.1 While he was responsible for the creation of a special parliamentary committee on research in 1960 and 1961, he did not express any great interest in, or concern about, the work of the Privy Council Committee. His few House of Commons utterances about science tended to reflect a great respect and admiration for Canadian scientists generally, and for NRC and Atomic Energy of Canada Limited in particular.2 It is to be noted — with some emphasis — that his tenure as chairman coincided roughly with the last years of Dr. E. W. R. Steacie's presidency of the NRC, a man to whom politicians and scientists alike paid the greatest deference. We have already commented upon Dr. Steacie's deeply held views about the independence of science and of the NRC, and these views were a reality which Mr. Churchill had little inclination to challenge. If Churchill's approach as chairman can be seen as fitting the classic 1950s relationship of "deference" to science, then the Honourable C. M. Drury's approach reflects many of the ambivalences of the new scientist-political order. For most of Drury's tenure as chairman, he was also minister of Industry and minister of Defence Production. When he moved to the portfolio of president of the Treasury Board in 1968, he took his duties as chairman of the Privy Council Committee with him. Both these portfolios, coupled with the somewhat independent events which followed the Glassco recommendations about science policy, affected his views of science and science policy. Two factors, in particular, are important.

1.See Peter C. Newman, Renegade in Power: The Diefenbaker Years (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1963), pp. 356-58. 2. House of Commons, Debates, vol. 4, 1960, pp. 3913-18, and vol. 2,1960-61, 2110-13.

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First, the basic mission of the new Department of Industry brought him into some inevitable conflict with NRC, especially regarding his views of the efficacy of Canada's past performance in supporting industrial research. While NRC had begun to step up its industrial research incentive program in the early 1960s, its subsequent increased emphasis on industrial research is, to a considerable degree, a reflection not only of the competitive "presence" of the Department of Industry, but also of a not inconsiderable political pressure by Drury himself.3 A second factor that has influenced Drury's approach is derived from his present portfolio as president of the Treasury Board. The Treasury Board has launched a system of planning, programming, and budgeting (PPB) whose overall logic requires a system of decisionmaking which stresses integration of all government activities into appropriate program goals, the goals presumably determined at the top political level.' Science, in such a system of decision-making, becomes primarily a means or an activity, designed to contribute to the realization of other goals. When related to the level of science policy as a concept, or to science policy machinery as a structure, Drury's views logically negate the concept of a Minister of Science or a Minister of Science Policy: "Within Government itself I do not see any new structures being established to implement science policy. . In fact, I do not see how science policy can be considered as an entity, and to set up any special structure would run counter to our recently instituted system of planning, programming and budgeting."5 Drury proposed, therefore, that what was necessary to implement science policies was an integration of the Science Secretariat as the basic "handmaiden" to a re-energized Privy Council Committee on Scientific and Industrial Research. In addition to his personal preferences for giving a greater priority to industrial research and to see science as a means (a view now greatly reinforced by his responsibility for the PPB system), Drury 3. The 1963-68 period has witnessed a considerable jurisdictional struggle over who would assume the main responsibility for the government's industrial research incentive program, the Department of Industry or the NRC. The Department of Industry's case was carried not only by Drury but, more importantly, by senior officials such as Mr. S. Reisman and Mr. John Orr. In 1968 Reisman became secretary to the Treasury Board, and in 1969 Orr left the Department of Industry. The latter has been interpreted by some of my interviewees as indicating that NRC has assumed this responsibility. 4. Treasury Board, Planning, Programming, Budgeting Guide (Ottawa: Queen's Printer, 1968). 5. Quoted in Globe and Mail, March 3, 1969.

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is interesting because he is one of the first politicians in Canada who seems to perceive his responsibility for science policy as a potential asset to his political career. This, in itself, is a partial reflection of the relatively greater importance of science as a politically relevant topic.6 Prime Ministers and Science The attitudes of prime ministers toward science and scientists assume a considerable importance in the contemporary period because, apart from the prime minister's place as "first among equals" in the cabinet, the present dual science policy machinery in Canada, the Science Secretariat and Science Council, was designed to report to the government via the prime minister and the Privy Council Office. The logic of the situation implies the need for a workable relationship between the scientist-advisers and the prime minister. There are few public statements that record the attitudes of the three prime ministers of the 1960s, Diefenbaker, Pearson, and Trudeau, toward science. The brief sketch of their attitudes which follows must be viewed as the most preliminary of assessments. Prime Minister John Diefenbaker's perception of "science policy" and scientists can perhaps be best illustrated by his rejection, in the early 1960s, of an informal recommendation from at least one member of the Glassco study group, that he appoint a science adviser, somewhat parallel to the U.S. president's science adviser.? Diefenbaker's rejection of the suggestion probably reflects, in part, the low priority he gave to science and, more importantly, his conception of the nature of cabinet government and his apparent objection to surrounding prime ministers with bureaucratic advisers — scientists or otherwise. His views about bringing "staff support," or about the aggrandizement of the office of the prime minister were revealed in the early Pearson years when Diefenbaker objected to the role of Tom Kent as Pearson's 6. This analysis is based, in part, on my interviews with the Hon. C. M. Drury, and on his public statements. See House of Commons, Debates, vol. 9, 1964, p. 9972; vol. 3, 1966, pp. 2848-50; and vol. 4, 1966, pp. 4346-48; Senate of Canada, Proceedings of the Special Committee on Science Policy, Phase 1 (Ottawa: Queen's Printer, 1968), p. 250; David Spurgeon, "The Gloomy Picture Painted by Canada's Scientists," Globe and Mail, September 28, 1968; "Address by The Honorable C. M. Drury to the Annual Winter Conference of the Canadian Institute on Public Affairs," Toronto, March 1, 1969; and "Address by the Honorable C. M. Drury to 1968 Tripartite Chemical Engineering Conference on Coordination of Industrial Research in Canada," Montreal, September 23, 1968. 7. Confidential interviews.

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general policy adviser. To these essentially "constitutional" arguments Diefenbaker brought with him a predilection for being a political "loner," who admitted only a small circle of loyal political advisers as opposed to expert bureaucratic advisers.8 Prime Minister Diefenbaker was the key figure in the 1959 decision to cancel the ARROW, the Canadian-developed supersonic interceptor. This $300 million research and development project, begun in 1953, had mobilized the largest group of scientists and engineers of any single project in Canadian history (almost two thousand were members of the A. V. Roe Company team). A massive industrial and scientific lobby attempted to save the project, but without success. Diefenbaker based his decision on the obsolescence of the manned bomber threat and on the mushrooming costs of the development of the project. The reasons for the cancellation were in many ways similar to those of the LNG case, a project that had excited and challenged the scientific community and one that involved considerable risk for the politicians. The cancellation led to a substantial loss of our top scientists and engineers, many of them emigrating to work with the new American space programs.8 Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson's views of science policy tended to be characterized by a genuine, but superficial, belief that science had to be given greater structural recognition in the inner circles of decision-making. Pearson's ultimate agreement to create a Science Secretariat and a Science Council seems to have been a product of internal advice. It was a combination of the Glassco report recommendations, which were being studied as his government took office, and the influence of Tom Kent, rather than any indigenous initiative developed by Pearson and the Liberals in their Opposition days, that prompted the decision to create the Science Secretariat. While C. J. Mackenzie's 1964 report was officially requested by Prime Minister Pearson, Dr. Mackenzie had little contact with him. The first Director of the Science Secretariat rarely had personal meetings with Pearson, their principal means of communication being written memoranda. The frequent speeches by the Chairman of the Science Council urging the need for a minister responsible for science also indicate the lack of ready access to the Prime Minister. The attitude of Pearson, to both

8. See Newman, Renegade in Power, passim. See also House of Commons, Debates, vol. 13, 1964-65, pp. 1435 and 1488. 9. See Newman, Renegade in Power, pp. 347-50. See also House of Commons, Debates, vol. 2, 1959, pp. 1221-24,1270,1281-92, and vol. 5, 1959, pp. 568186.

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the place of science and the need for advisers, seems to have been one of general sympathy and benevolent encouragement, without much of a disposition to use the machinery itself.1° Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau's views about science and scientists seemed initially to be heavily influenced by the approach he has taken with respect to the organization of the Cabinet, the Privy Council, and the Prime Minister's Office, and with respect to his objections to the growing power of the civil service in policy-making. Trudeau has gone further than any previous prime minister in the "presidentialization" of the Prime Minister's Office and the Privy Council Office, that is, "presidentialization" in the sense of building up a cadre of advisers. At this preliminary philosophical level, therefore, he seems more amenable to the needs, in spite of the cabinet constitutional system of government, to structure and utilize this inflow of advice to his personal office." His view of the excessive power of the regular civil service is reflected in his reorganization of the cabinet and its committees. The reorganization is intended to give politicians the time and the wherewithal to make the important decisions about government priorities, a role which Trudeau felt fell too often, by default, on the civil servants. His restructuring of four major functional committees (External Policy and Defence, Economic Policy and Programs, Communications and Works and Urban Affairs, and Social Policy), and four coordinating committees (Priorities and Planning, House Business, Treasury Board, and Federal-Provincial Relations) has potentially wide-reaching consequences on the nature of decision-making generally, including decision-making on science policy matters. Science-related policies are to be even more directly connected to the new cabinet structure because the Privy Council Committee on Scientific and Industrial Research has been changed to a formal cabinet committee. While this policy will be discussed further in chapter 8, the important point to be noted at this stage is that Trudeau's aspirations are to have decisions about science, or any other matter, run the gamut of what is hoped to be a more sophisticated process of evaluation, controlled by politicians. 10. The impression of Prime Minister Pearson s views are drawn from confidential interviews. See also "Address by the Prime Minister, Inaugural Meeting of the Science Council of Canada," Ottawa, July 5, 1966, in Science Council of Canada, First Annual Report (1966-67): 28-32. 11. See Norman Campbell, "PM to Clear the Air on Superpower Fear," Ottawa Citizen, May 22, 1969; Denis Smith, "President and Parliament" (Paper presented to Progressive Conservative Policy Conference, October 1969); and F. Schindeler and C. Michael Lanphier, "Social Science Research and Participatory Democracy in Canada," Canadian Public Administration 12, no. 4, (Winter 1969), pp. 481-98.

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The earliest impact of this system on science policy-making was the cancellation of the ING and QEII projects in the late summer of 1968. The reaction of some members of the scientific community was that they believed science was being made the scapegoat in the government's drive to cut expenditures and balance the federal budget 12 One of the few public statements which Prime Minister Trudeau has made on science policy and the nature of decision-making was made in response to the ING and QEII cancellations. It is worthwhile to quote that lengthy statement in its entirety, because it is the first occasion where a prime minister has given an explicit comment on scientists and on the nature of decision-making in this area: A top priority for public investment must be scientific and industrial research. In the past, the percentage of our national wealth which we have spent in this vital field has been very low in comparison to other industrialized countries. In the '60's, total Federal expenditures on scientific activities has been increasing at a healthy rate. In the past four years, for example, it has doubled to about $600 million annually. In the estimates for 1968-69 Federal Government support of scientific activities in universities has been raised from about $75 million to over $100 million. The Government will continue to expand and improve its performance in this area. But even with this area we must be increasingly selective in the projects we support. Many scientists and engineers believe that we have not achieved a satisfactory balance in the distribution of our scientific effort between basic and applied science, that is between the generation of new knowledge and the practical application of existing information. At present only 37% of our overall science effort is invested in development, much lower than the comparable figure for the United States. Similarly, the distribution of scientific activity between Government departments and private industry appears to be out of line with our principal international competitors. Only 42% is performed by industry, the lowest proportion amongst the nine leading European and North American countries. Our incentive and development in Canadian industry are one method of correcting these imbalances. Considerations of this nature weighed heavily in our recent decision not to proceed with the building of an Intense Neutron Generator. The Government considered a number of studies by individuals and groups both within and outside the Government. We found that there was considerable controversy within the scientific and industrial community

12. See David Spurgeon, "The Gloomy Picture Painted by Canada's Scientists," Globe and Mail, September 28, 1968; "Science Not Government's Budgetary Scapegoat," (author unnamed), Ottawa Citizen, October 30, 1968; and M. W. Johns, "The Growing Crisis in Canadian Science and How to Avert It." Science Forum 1, no. 6 (December 1968): 3-6.

148 CHAPTER SIX about the priority which should be accorded this project in relation to other programs in the same field, about its potential value to Canadian industry, and about its long-run effects on Canadian scientific activity in general. It was estimated that it would cost about $155 million to build and between $15 and $20 million a year to operate, although experience shows that the final cost of such projects usually greatly exceeds the initial estimates. After carefully weighing these opinions and estimates we decided that in view of the overall demands on the national treasury, we could not allocate the required funds under present conditions. I want to refer to one other controversial issue in the scientific field, the decision not to build the telescope on Mount Kobau. In the case of the Intense Neutron Generator we decided against a project which had not yet been started; the telescope project was already under way. Perhaps the most painful experience for a Government is to admit that it has been wrong. Obviously, members of the Government cannot claim to be experts in astronomy. On such matters we must rely, to a great extent, on the opinions of professional scientists. Initially, the Government received a strong recommendation to support this project and it decided to accept the recommendation. Subsequent studies by other qualified scientists showed that costs of construction and operation would be far higher than originally estimated, and that the use of the telescope would be severely restricted by unfavourable viewing conditions. In the light of these later studies, and of the present policy of restraint, we had no reasonable alternative but to reverse our earlier decision. We must consider the whole experience as a hard lesson in the necessity for extensive and expensive studies and consultation such as were undertaken for the Intense Neutron Generator before any commitment is made to such projects.13 Prime Minister Trudeau's more recent statements about science and policy-making structures seem to be expressing a concern about the consequences of science itself. This is undoubtedly a reflection of the world-wide concern about the consequences of science and technology on the environment, but it also reflects a prime minister who is attempting to conceptualize the interaction of scientific technology with society and politics in a cybernetic model of policy-making. At the Harrison Hot Springs conference of the Liberal party Trudeau placed the problems of the 1970s in the context of such issues as genetic engineering and the revolution in communication satellites. He observed that "philosophy has barely had time to come to terms with science and 13. Office of the Prime Minister, press release, "Notes for the Prime Minister's Speech to the Canadian Chamber of Commerce," Calgary, October 2, 1968, excerpted in Science Forum 1, no. 6 (December 1968): 8.

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prepare it for integration into our culture." He went on to reiterate his view that governmental structures would have to develop more scientific and rational approaches if they hoped to be able to "alter the future" in tune with social goals. In the Prime Minister's words, "We ... are aware that the many techniques of cybernetics, by transforming the control function and the manipulation of information will transform our whole society. With this knowledge we are wide awake, alert, capable of action; no longer are we blind, inert pawns of fate."14 With the exception of Trudeau's recent speeches, it is clear that the attitudes of the prime ministers toward scientists and the making of science policies seem to be affected more by their constitutional and personal philosophies about the kinds of structures and machinery that ought to surround political "chief executives" in a cabinet system than by their views of science per se. General Relationships between Scientists and Ministers The general inactivity of the ministerial-level Privy Council Committee on Scientific and Industrial Research, to which the Glassco report alluded, gives a preliminary indication that, in the pre-1964 period, those ministers with science missions tended to ignore the overall consequences of their science programs for the government as a whole. On those occasions where they did meet, the ministers were subject to much the same system of trade-offs which was described earlier with respect to the Technical Advisory Panel. Proposals came up from within each department to its minister. The minister normally approved and, if the project was important enough to be considered by the Privy Council Committee, it would be raised before the committee as an isolated single project. The other ministers were under somewhat the same pressure to approve the project as were the departmental officials on the technical panel, based on the logic that, on another day, they might be proposing projects for which they would seek support. On the more frequent occasions when science expenditures were merely processed through Treasury Board, the minister was, in many respects, merely a transmitter and defender of budget proposals determined by his scientist-advisers. He was in no position to make any real judgements about particular proposals. The relative powerlessness 14. Office of the Prime Minister, press release, "Notes for Remarks by the Prime Minister at the Harrison Liberal Conference," Harrison Hot Springs, British Columbia, November 21, 1969, p. 7.

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and dependence which the individual minister experienced tended to carry on in the post—Science Secretariat days, a fact revealed by three of the former ministers in the Pearson government who were members of the Senate Committee on Science Policy. Senator Harry Hays, a former minister of the heavily science-based Department of Agriculture, reflected this view when commenting about his experience in attempting to cancel three programs which he thought were not of much value any more: "I happened to be the minister at the time and I looked at these programs. I was concerned about them for many years. I thought: `Why should we do this?' We finally got the buffalo one wrapped up. It is now tucked away, but we can continue it later if necessary. The study of the grass feeding of animals is still going on and so is the breeding study. No doubt the person in charge looked at the politician and said to himself: `Well, he will get defeated, and I can go on with it in any event.' "15 While Trudeau's statement reveals the ultimate dependence of politicians on scientific experts, it also stresses the need for obtaining several opinions in a kind of adversary procedure. Whatever defects can be attributed to the early experimentation with science policy machinery in the contemporary period, this method has brought with it an atmosphere that appears to give the minister some manoeuvrability — perhaps, even some choice — with respect to decisions about science. This wider sense of options is especially noticeable with respect to new "big science" programs. It is less clear that the nature of the decision-making environment has been appreciably changed with respect to the other existing and well-entrenched programs. This is the area that has bedevilled the Senate Committee's proceedings and the role of the central science policy machinery. One senses a modest improvement in the feeling of competence which at least some ministers have toward science programs. With respect to major programs, at least, they are no longer quite as much the captives of an incremental budget process, the major options of which were determined by scientist-advisers in the departments.

15. Senate of Canada, Committee on Science Policy, no. 7 (1968) : 148. For views of Senator Robichaud (formerly Minister of Fisheries in the Pearson Government), see Senate of Canada, Committee on Science Policy, no. 17 (1969) : 2534-72 passim. These views were confirmed more emphatically in confidential interviews, especially with Senator Maurice Lamontagne, and with members of the Senate Committee staff, who have had an opportunity to discuss these issues at length with the three former ministers over the past eighteen months.

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Because scientist-advisers in the bureaucracy must obtain the politician's approval of a project, their attitudes toward the politician's ability to comprehend the full significance of science programs are important. The response to my questions as to how they convinced their ministers of the values of a particular proposal showed that some scientists believed the ministers capable of a general understanding of science projects; others thought the ministers were not educable since they were oriented toward the nonscientific "other culture." These two points of view influence the scientist's method of presenting proposals. Tactically, the former type prefers to have a "seminarstyle" method of persuasion which attempts to explain, in a general way, what the meaning and impact of the program will be, both in its scientific and practical consequences. The latter type prefers to use only those arguments which will appeal to the politician's expected concern for practicality and to other politically salient values. (In terms of two of our case studies, it may be argued that the ING proponents adopted a seminar-style and the QEII proponents appealed to more basic political motives.) Perhaps the one common denominator which both tactical groups tended to cite was the need for imparting a kind of contagious enthusiasm for the project to the politician. Tactics, of course, are not entirely determined by generally expressed attitudes toward the "educability" of the politician. Factors such as the cost and magnitude of the proposed project are obviously important for they increase the value, from a political point of view, both for the minister and his advisers. Often, many small, continuous programs already in existence involve no ministerial, scientist-adviser tactics whatever. If the contemporary concepts of science policy in Canada continue to stress program evaluation and selective choice of "major programs," it is highly likely that the scientist-adviser will have to become accustomed to a mixture of a seminar and adversary procedure, whether he thinks the minister and politician is educable or not. Problem of Ministerial Access: Minister of Science Policy Debate We return here to the general problem alluded to briefly in our earlier discussion of the attitudes of prime ministers, namely, the accessibility of the central science policy advisory structure to the Prime Minister. It seems increasingly clear, in retrospect, that the concept of advisory machinery suggested for Canada was implicitly modelled on the American system of a presidential science adviser, without any real awareness of the consequences of the problems imposed by the Canadian cabinet system of government.

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Evidently the first Director of the Science Secretariat assumed his post on the general expectation that he would have ready access to the Prime Minister, somewhat as the U.S. presidential science advisers had with Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy.16 It soon became apparent that such a relationship would not be established. We have already attributed part of the reason to the attitude of Prime Minister Pearson. A further compelling factor in the failure of this relationship to develop is due simply to the fact that the Prime Minister's daily schedule is taken up, to a considerable degree, with parliamentary matters, a factor with which the U.S. President is less directly involved. The Science Secretariat, moreover, was structured so that even though it reported to the Prime Minister, it did so through the Privy Council bureaucratic hierarchy, that is, through the Secretary to the cabinet. The Science Council of Canada was also to report to the Prime Minister. And, while the Chairman of the Science Council has some access to the Prime Minister, the general tenor of many of Dr. Solandt's comments suggests that there is not sufficient communication. Commenting on the reason why the Science Council originally was designed to report to the Prime Minister, Dr. Solandt remarked, in April, 1968, that "this was a good arrangement in every way, except that the Prime Minister does seem to have other preoccupations! This was something we had not quite envisaged."17 His remarks, at that stage, indicated "disappointment" at the way in which things had gone, but that, generally, the present system was "not working badly." By the end of 1968, the Chairman of the Science Council was engaged in a more open advocacy of the need for a full-time Minister of Science Policy, a minister whose voice could he heard in cabinet and who could help bridge the gap between the stage when recommendations are made and the stage when they require implementation. This need reflected a greater sense of dissatisfaction with the present degree of access.18 The dilemma of where to obtain an appropriate point of access was most sharply illustrated when Prime Minister Trudeau declared that 16. For analysis of the science advisers' relationships with successive U.S. presidents, see Michael D. Reagan, Science and the Federal Patron (New York: Oxford University Press, 1969); Phillip M. Boffey, "The Hornig Years: Did LBJ Neglect His Science Adviser?," Science 63 (January 31, 1969): 453-58; Walter Sullivan, "DuBridge for the Vital World of Science," New York Times, December 8, 1968, p. 3E; and Robert N. Kreidler, "The President's Science Advisers and National Science Policy," in Robert Gilpin and Christopher Wright, eds., Scientists and National Policy-Making (New York: Columbia University Press, 1964), pp. 113-43. 17. Senate of Canada, Committee on Science Policy, no. 12 (1968) : 251. 18. For the evolution of Dr. Solandt's statements, see Senate of Canada, Committee on Science Policy, no. 3 (1968): passim; no. 8; no. 11, passim; and no. 39 (1969) : 4826-29.

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the President of the Treasury Board, C. M. Drury, in his capacity as chairman of the Privy Council Committee on Scientific and Industrial Research, was the minister responsible for science policy, in spite of the fact that the advisory machinery continued to report ostensibly to the Prime Minister. The fact that the Prime Minister's relationship with the Director of the Science Secretariat was now a decidedly arm's-length one was revealed in an official announcement from the Prime Minister's Office. The Prime Minister explained that the Chief Science Adviser [who would be Director of the Science Secretariat] to the Cabinet would, in most aspects of his work, report direct to the Chairman of the Privy Council Committee on Scientific and Industrial Research, the Honorable C. M. Drury, who is responsible in general for the science policy of the Government. On matters relating to questions coming before the Cabinet itself, in connection with which scientific considerations are relevant, the Chief Science Adviser will work as part of the Privy Council Office and through the Secretary to the Cabinet. The Chief Science Adviser to the Cabinet will, therefore, be the Government's senior adviser on all scientific matters.19 As a result of the increasing awareness of some of the realities of the cabinet system and of the Prime Minister's role in it, much of the contemporary debate about advisory machinery has centred on whether a Minister of Science Policy (a Minister with a policy coordinative role but with no operational laboratories) or a Department of Science (with a coordinative role and operational science responsibilities) should be created. It is argued that the degree and reliability of access for scientific advice on matters of science policy are inadequate, and that neither the Prime Minister nor the President of the Treasury Board has the time to deal with these matters adequately. If a Minister of Science Policy or a Department of Science were created, there would be someone in the cabinet on a full-time basis who could provide a continuous input of advice on the problems of coordinating the government's myriad science programs. Interviews with senior scientists in the federal bureaucracy strongly revealed their opposition to either a Department of Science or a Minister of Science Policy. This view arose partly because of the somewhat 19. Office of the Prime Minister, press release, May 16, 1969. The statement accompanied the appointment of Dr. R. J. Uffen as the third director of the Science Secretariat, succeeding Dr. Weir. The newly added title of Chief Science Adviser appears to have been introduced to indicate a higher status and prestige to a role which presumably was in doubt under the earlier single title of "Director" of the Science Secretariat. See Chapter 3 for a further discussion of this role.

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historic aversion to political interference and to department-like bureaucratic structures, but more importantly, in the contemporary period, it appears to derive from the fairly simple logic that one cannot abstract science or research and concentrate it under a single roof. Some politicians, such as C. M. Drury, adhere to this view. The politician, however, may also be attracted by the politicial payoff that can be achieved by the relatively simple step of creating a Minister of Science Policy. There is a disarming simplicity to this alternative in that it can help convince doubting critics that the government is taking some measures to improve its science policy.

The Parliamentary Arena

Parliamentary attitudes had changed from a pre-1935 concern over such isues as Canada's primary resource industries and the avoidance of duplication to a post—World War H sense of awe and deference to the achievements and overwhelming reality of science. This uncritical faith in science and in Canada's scientific performance continued to prevail in the early 1960s. A Parliamentary Special Committee on Research was appointed by the Conservative government in 1960 and 1961, and its report reflects the general satisfaction of the committee members. With respect to NRC, the committee felt that "from the evidence thus far heard that the policies of the Council are sound and that it is efficiently operated. The Committee commends the structure of the advisory committees established by the Council; these provide a method of coordination of university, industrial and Government research, but at the same time avoid the dangers of over-organization and of tampering with academic freedom."20 The first expressions of concern about the efficacy of the then existing science policy machinery appeared in the 1960-61 session, when two government backbenchers commented on the need for "some national authority," or even a "Minister of Science."21 One of the first critical comments came from Mr. Douglas Fisher, a New Democratic Party Opposition spokesman, during a 1964 supply debate on the Department of Defence Production (whose minister was the Honourable C. M. Drury) : "I would like the Minister to explain to me what the National Research Council has been doing all these years and why we have had ministers responsible for scientific research all 20. Journals of the House of Commons of Canada, no. 117 (July 5, 1960), p. 726. 21. House of Commons, Debates, vol. 8, 1960-61, pp. 8428, and vol. 2, p. 1112.

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these years if now, in the Fall of 1964, we find the minister coming forward saying we have not got a policy.... What is the justification for the NRC and all these fat reports we have had if we cannot get a statement on policy now. The only justification we have had is that each year the branch is getting a Iittle bigger and so it could not be too bad." Later, Mr. Fisher commented: "I just happen to have a different conception of the role of Government in the scientific field and all I can do ... is ... suggest that the Minister look at some of the papers prepared by the Labour Party in Britain, or that he read Mr. Wilson's speech on science. I could also suggest he read a little of C. P. Snow."22 One aggregate portrait of the evolution of parliamentary interest in science and science policies can be observed from Table 3, which reveals the number of occasions when science or research matters were raised in Parliament. Table 3. Parliament and Science Questions 1960-68 PARLIAMENTARY SESSION

1960 1960-61 1962 1962-63 1963 1964-65 *1965 1966-67 1967-68 *1968-69

NUMBER OF OCCASIONS ON DISCUSSIONS OF SCIENCE ISSUES

12

14 4 3 3 21 13 41 10 15

House of Commons, Debates, 1960 to 1968-69. *These data presented here must be qualified, in that, following 1965, matters dealing with "science" and "research" were not all indexed under the above index headings. Some science matters were indexed under particular department or agency headings and are not cross-indexed. The 1968-69 data do not include the considerably increased amount of time spent discussing estimates in the revised parliamentary committee system rather than in the House of Commons. Generally, however, the data are suitable for giving us an aggregate glance at Parliament's interest in science and research. Science matters appear to constitute something of the order of less than one-half of 1 percent of all matters raised. The proportion of the R & D federal budget to the total federal budget ranged from 2 to 4.7 percent. SOURCE:

22. House of Commons, Debates, vol. 9, 1964, pp. 9771-72.

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The 1960, 1960-61, 1965, 1967-68, and 1968-69 sessions had an average of ten to fifteen questions on science and research, a pattern fairly consistent, in strictly numerical terms, with the 1917 to 1935 period. The 1962, 1962-63, and 1963 sessions can be considered somewhat abnormal in view of the shortness of the sessions, their preoccupation with the collapse of the Diefenbaker government, and the intervention of the 1962 and 1963 elections. The higher than average figures for the 1964-65 and 1966-67 sessions are a direct reflection of the debate, during those sessions, on the Science Secretariat and Science Council respectively. Although the figures in Table 3 are helpful in some respects, they can be misleading, particularly in the latter years of the 1960s when many matters such as departmental estimates were dealt with in parliamentary committees rather than in the House of Commons. The nature of the issues raised showed, somewhat predictably, an increasing preoccupation with industrial research and with "science policies" in a general sense. However, the relative "political" importance of science per se is indicated by the fact that it has never been the subject of a want of confidence motion against the government, nor of a supply debate. Only in the 1968-69 session has science policy, per se, been discussed during the oral question period more than once; then it was raised on adjournment debate on two occasions.23 While politicians, as reflected in the parliamentary arena, have already taken a greater relative interest in "science policy" compared to the earlier 1916 to 1935 and post—World War II to 1960 periods, it still rates as a very Iow priority strategic issue. Perhaps this is given a symbolic manifestation in the decision of the government to refer the estimates of such agencies as the NRC and the Science Council to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Miscellaneous Estimates! None of these indications should really be surprising. Parliamentary interest in science and technology is more likely to be communicated indirectly through concern expressed about social and economic goals. In a sense, concern about science is expressed in relation to such issues as environmental pollution, urban environment, transportation, health, and automation. Therefore, it is inaccurate to say that Parliament has demonstrated no interest whatever in the impact of science and technology. It is fair to say that it has shown a grossly inadequate degree of interest in terms of developing and scrutinizing policies to deal with these matters. 23. House of Commons, Debates, vol. 6, 1969, pp. 5789-90 and pp. 6445-46.

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For example, when the issue of whether or not a standing committee on science and technology should be created was raised in 1964 and 1965 by David Orlikow of the NDP, it aroused little interest.24 The issue is likely to arise again, especially in the light of the work of the Senate Special Committee on Science Policy. Compared with the United Kingdom and the United States, Canada's parliamentary capacity to assess science suffers from a woeful lack of resources. The Americans have had the most elaborate system, composed of two standing and two subcommittees, and they have had ten years' experience with legislative committees. The British Select Committee on Science and Technology was created in 1966, and the British Committee on Atomic Energy has also been active. Generally speaking, neither country is happy with its machinery at the legislative level, but each has at least made some attempt to keep the working politician abreast of this complex and increasingly important area of public policy.25 The work of the Lamontagne Committee has demonstrated that appropriately staffed committees can be tough and effective critics and can, moreover, perform their role in a public forum. The Canadian discussion of science policies, until the past few years, has been primarily carried out in a closed bureaucratic environment. The appearance of the Senate Committee has also revealed some changes in the attitudes which scientists have about Parliament. Several scientists, in and out of the governmental sector, have commented to me on how they never really took appearances before previous parliamentary committees very seriously. While a considerable respect for the present Senate investigation has been generated, there is still a fundamental gap in the communication between government and academic scientists and politicians in Canada, a gap which, in my view, is considerably more serious in Canada than in the United Kingdom or the United States.

24. House of Commons, Debates, vol. 3, 1964, p. 2968, and vol. 2, 1965, p. 1458. 25. For general evaluations of the American and British experience, see Reagan, Science and the Federal Patron; Richard L. Chapman, "Congress and Science Policy," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 25, no. 3 (March 1969): 4-7; Emilio Q. Daddario, "Congress Faces Space Policies," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 23, no. 5 (May 1967): pp. 11-16; Roger Williams, "The Select Committee on Science and Technology: The First Round," Public Administration 46, no. 3 (Autumn 1968), pp. 299-313; Norman J. Vig and S. A. Walkland, "Science Policy, Science Administration and Parliamentary Reform," Parliamentary Affairs, 19: 281; and Norman J. Vig, Science and Technology in British Politics (London: Pergamon Press, 1968). See also OECD, Science and Parliament (OECD, Paris, 1965).

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Political Parties and Public Opinion Since Parliament constitutes the most important day-to-day locus of operation for political parties in Canada, it follows that the parties' general attitudes would tend to reflect their parliamentary approach. Since the three major parties also operate as parties in wider electoral and party convention environments, it would be useful to comment briefly on the overall perception of science and science policy as reflected in parliamentary caucus and in electoral and convention policy declarations.26 The Liberal party's interest in science policy is essentially a postGlassco interest. The 1960 Kingston "thinkers' conference," which formed the basis of much of the Pearson government's post-1963 legislative program, said nothing about science and technology. The government's decision to create a Science Secretariat seems to flow entirely from the Glassco recommendations. In the 1965 election, there was a Liberal promise to create the Science Council (the legislation had been postponed on the order paper when Parliament was prorogued). During the 1968 election, the party issued a more explicit statement respecting "science, technology, research and productivity": Innovation and research are major keys to Canada's economic growth. In this era of rapid technological change, our industrial development and the evolution of our society will depend increasingly on our scientific effort. The Government has developed important programs to assist industrial research and development, but much remains to be done. Canada spends Iess on research and development than many other nations, especially in the private sector. Our productivity performance needs to be strongly improved. To achieve these goals, your new Liberal Government will: Give vigorous support to science in both pure and applied forms as a basis of modern economic development. In pursuit of this objective, your new Liberal Government will give careful study and attention to the forthcoming Report of the Senate Committee on Science Policy. In its study of the Senate report, we shall give careful attention to the relationship between public and private research and to the development and retention in Canada of highly trained scientists and engineers.

26. The Social Credit and Ralliement Cr6ditiste parties are not discussed directly. The Quebec-based Cr6ditistes have twice raised the issue of the constitutionality of the Science Council of Canada and also the degree of French-speaking employment in federal science agencies. For Cr6ditiste views, see House of Commons, Debates, vol. 3, 1966, pp. 2867-70.

SCIENCE AND POLITICIANS 159 Emphasize applied research to problems of environment, human resources, housing, natural resource development, northern development, water pollution, space telecommunications, transportation, transmission of energy, and nuclear energy. By 1975, our goal is that Canadians will spend about $2 billion a year on research and development, both private and public. A greater percentage of Government funds will be directed to private, applied research.27

The statement strongly reflected the general tenor of advice that the government had been receiving by way of the Science Council. Because it was the government, the Liberal party's sources of advice were infinitely more varied. It is difficult to know what proportion of the policy can be called indigenously party-generated, and what part represents bureaucracy and "official" impetus.28 Regardless of this perhaps academic distinction, the public posture of the Liberal party, and the Trudeau government, has been fairly true to its 1968 election declaration, a fact most clearly illustrated by its subsequent cancellation of the QEII and ING projects and by its increased emphasis on industrial research. The Progressive Conservative party's public posture toward science policies has had a somewhat more checkered history. The party's policies in the pre-1967 period were subject to the personal views of Mr. Diefenbaker, whose general perceptions we have already commented upon. In the 1965 election the somewhat bizarre Conservative proposal was made that the Science Secretariat should be placed in a department of youth, rather than in the Privy Council Office. There was also a promise to offer significant increases in the size of Canadian expenditures in research and development.28 In the 1967 Montmorency Conservative "thinkers' conference" there was little discussion about science policies, directly or indirectly. Following the 1967 leadership convention, and during the 1968 general election, the Conservative party began assembling a policy advisory group headed by Dr. T. H. B. Symons, the president of Trent University. Included among these general advisory groups was one on science policy. Within the parliamentary caucus the Conservative party critics have met, as a group, with Dr. Symons and a small science 27. Liberal Federation of Canada, Liberal Candidates' Handbook, 1968. For a compact catalogue of Liberal and other party platforms, see D. Owen Carrigan, Canadian Party Platforms 1867-1968 (Toronto: Copp CIark, 1969), p. 339. 28. The Liberals do not have any parliamentary caucus group on science and technology. 29. See Globe and Mail, November 7, 1965, and Carrigan, Canadian Party Platforms, pp. 321-22.

160 CHAPTER SIX and technology advisory group invited by the caucus to consider satellite communications policy. The Conservative party posture during and since the election has stressed a somewhat pragmatic approach toward science. While the Conservatives urge a better integration of our scientific effort and the need for significantly increasing our expenditures on research and development, their spokesmen have avoided any clear-cut pronouncements about forms of science policy machinery.80 The nature of the questions posed in the House have tended to be directed to specific substantive areas such as satellite communications, atomic energy, housing, and the "brain-drain." This is in contrast to the New Democratic Party, whose emphasis has been relatively more on science policy machinery itself. The New Democratic Party first drafted an explicit statement on science policy at their Fourth Federal Convention in July of 1967. The policy statement was proposed first by a subcommittee of the convention's broader Policy Review Committee. It is useful to quote the NDP statement because it reflects the issues and approach subsequently taken by its parliamentary group: A complex industrial society such as that of Canada had been made possible only by the rapid development of scientific knowledge and technology in recent decades. Further advances, not merely in the production of goods and services, but in the quality of life in our society, depend on further scientific and technological advance. But the capacity of our citizens to develop their full potential as human beings will depend on the choices we make today in the fields of scientific research and technological development. If we allow science to be perverted to serve trivial or destructive ends we shall rob the citizens of tomorrow of their chance to enjoy the full and satisfying lives now made possible by science. The most disastrous result of the foreign ownership of a large part of our industry has been its effect on scientific research in Canada. The branch plant economy which has developed has resulted in the farming out of research to the parent foreign company. Choices as to fields of research are made elsewhere than in Canada, and Canadian research personnel follows the research projects abroad. For example, as one of the major mineral and oil producing countries in the world, Canada should lead in the several fields of geological research. Instead of which we lag far behind and students requiring firstclass graduate study must go to the United States. 30. See Progressive Conservative Party of Canada, Progressive Conservative Policy Handbook 1968 (Ottawa, 1968) in Carrigan, Canadian Party Platforms, p. 359. These views were reinforced by the Hon. Robert L. Stanfield and other party officials in my interviews with them.

SCIENCE AND POLITICIANS 161 In addition to providing high quality scientific education, we must develop research centres in which graduates can find the opportunity to use their knowledge and training. To exercise the sort of direction required to ensure that science and technology will play its part in developing the sort of society we seek, Government must take a decisive hand in promoting research and technological application of science. BE IT RESOLVED that an N.D.P. Government in Ottawa will establish a Department of Science and Technology with its own Cabinet Minister, having duties and powers as follows: 1. To establish scientific-technological research institutes in cooperation with industry and universities, to provide focal points for scientific development in fields which are of vital social concern such as pollution control, communication and transport, preventative medicine, urban and rural social studies; and to provide such institutes with the equipment and staff required to foster the highest level of scientific thought and experiment. 2. To take over the present functions of the Science Council and its Secretariat, to carry out continuous studies and reviews of research and development in all fields in Canada; and to establish by means of democratic planning, a system of priorities based on national needs. 3. To take over and expand those Federal Government functions concerned with science and technology; to study and develop ways and means of encouraging applied research and development in Canadian industry; and, in particular, by assuming a substantial share of the risk involved in the use of new technologies and the launching of new products. 4. To establish a Canadian Research and Development Corporation with power to invest in or to develop new inventions or designs and to establish such other Crown corporations as may be in the public interest to make use of these new techniques and to produce and market the new products as has been so successfully done by the Atomic Energy of Canada Limited. 5. To administer an adequate degree of Government-conducted research in institutions such as the National Research Council, and to maintain coordination and liaison with other Provincial and Federal Departments engaged in research. 6. To provide adequate grants for research in universities and industry on the basis of scientific merit and determined priorities. 7. To promote the interchange of ideas and personnel between research groups in universities, industry and Government institutions, in order to ensure that Canadian research is fully exploited for the benefit of the economy and of all Canadians.31

31. The Federal Program of the New Democratic Party, New Democratic Party, 1967, pp. 31-32. Adopted by NDP Fourth Federal Convention, Toronto, July 3-6, 1967, and by its Federal Council.

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The relationship of scientific and technological matters to such issues as "democratic planning" and "foreign ownership" of Canadian industry reflects recurrent ideological themes which the NDP has stressed in recent years. For example, NDP Member of Parliament Ed Broadbent has placed several questions on the order paper dealing with the extent to which the federal government's R & D incentive grants have gone to American or foreign-owned firms. The NDP has also been more openly critical of the Canadian bureaucratic scientific establishment, and of the "morality" of the military defence research complex in Canada.32 The NDP proposal for a Department of Science and Technology appears to be at least partly a result of some party members' awareness of the British debate in the 1959 to 1964 period, when the question of scientific and industrial modernization became an electoral issue of no small importance to the United Kingdom.83 While the NDP has taken up the issue of science and technology, it has come nowhere near its British Labour party counterparts in viewing "science" as being even remotely a "saleable" or strategic political issue, suitable for electoral or even parliamentary politics. At the 1969 NDP national convention an attempt was made to link the issue of science and technology with the issue of foreign (American) ownership of Canadian industry. In a combined form the related issues might be a more politically saleable package. The attempt failed, however. American ownership was the dominant issue. The resolution dealing with science policy passed without a word of debate. The new resolution rejected the Department of Science and Technology and adopted in its place the Minister for Science, who would have no departmental operating responsibilities. The new NDP policy also called for changes in the personnel of the Science Council, eliminating government representatives and adding economic and behavioural scientists, and for the creation of a House of Commons Standing Committee on Science Policy. The resolution also recommended expanded powers for the Canadian Patent Corporation, including the power to create new crown corporations to develop, produce, and market new products.ß4

32. See House of Commons, Debates, vol. 3, 1966, p. 2871. 33. For an account of the science and modernization issue in British politics, see Vig, Science and Technology in British Politics. 34. See New Democratic Party, Federal Council Resolutions, 1969, pp. 12-14. At the convention, held in Winnipeg, October 28-31, 1969, the council's resolution was adopted with minor changes.

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The NDP has been the most explicit and persistent critic in the House of Commons in matters of general science policy, but its caucus machinery has not given any explicit recognition to science per se.s" While there are two main spokesmen, Ed Broadbent and David Orlikow, much of the load has been carried by Orlikow, a Winnipeg pharmacist, who has demonstrated the greatest interest in pursuing science policy matters. This survey of the three major political parties' attitudes to science and science policy yields rather expected and predictable conclusions. Relative to the pre-1963 period, there is an increasing awareness of science policy as a problem, but the political machinery available to give either the extra-parliamentary, or the caucus groups in the three parties, a capacity to be meaningful critics is rudimentary. The most compelling reason for this is the uniform view that science, as a political issue, has little widespread appeal and hence, strategically, is rated as a low priority. It is also a reflection of the fact that few members of Parliament have made any effort to make science policy a political issue. One of the reasons for the low priority status is undoubtedly found in the complex ambiguities which surround public opinion about "science." In the early years, scientists in Canada felt that their occupational status was held in low regard. In the 1960s American opinion surveys illustrated the general ambivalence of attitudes toward science. Science is generally viewed as good, but the scientist has been frequently thought of as a socially introverted and hardworking recluse. Science fiction and the mass media have alternately stereotyped science and the scientist, first by the glorification of man and freedom and more recently by emphasizing the dehumanizing and debasing effects of science.36 Speculating a little further on the attitudes toward science and scientists, it is necessary to comment on the nature of public opinion in Canada. What "public opinion" are we really talking about, and does that public distinguish something that can be called Canadian science? 35. Science policy is primarily handled by an NDP catchall caucus committee on Culture, Education, Science and Technology, Research and Broadcasting. 36. For two American public opinion surveys, see Margaret Mead and Rhoda Metraux, "The Image of the Scientist among High School Students: A Pilot Study," and David C. Beardslee and Donald D. O'Dowd, "The College Student Image of the Scientist," in B. Barber and W. Hirsch, eds., The Sociology of Science (New York: The Free Press, 1962), pp. 230-46 and pp. 247-58. See also W. Hirsch, "The Image of the Scientist in Science Fiction: A Content Analysis," in Barber and Hirsch, Sociology of Science, pp. 259-68.

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It is highly likely that there are mass public attitudes about specific events and problems that have scientific and technological content. Widespread interest in space flights, cancer research, heart transplants, and even in something as complex as the American Anti-Ballistic Missile debate, reflects the existence of this "mass" public opinion about science-related issues. When one moves into the realm of science policy per se, the concept of a mass public opinion does not appear to be warranted. It is my view that the general public does not distinguish "Canadian" science from science generally. And, only recently, has the more limited public attempted to distinguish Canadian science. It follows, of course, that the very logic of a "national" science policy implies the making of decisions about what things Canadian scientists can do best. Historically, however, this notion goes against the grain of the strong "internationalist" view of Canadian science, held especially by those in command of the NRC in the 1950s and early 1960s. An interesting index of the international outlook may be found in John Porter's discussion of Canada's scientific elite. Of the fifty identified in his elite group, 42 percent were born outside Canada, and almost one-fifth came to Canada as "mature scholars."37 A further manifestation of the distinction of Canadian science is shown by looking briefly at two recent events, the creation of the new journal, Science Forum, and the convening of two recent conferences dealing broadly with the social aspects of science. Following the creation of the Science Council, several scientists and science writers became acutely embarrassed by the fact that they had to turn to an American journal, Science, to obtain any critique of the Canadian science policy machinery.38 While Canada possessed several professional scientific journals, through which scientists within particular disciplines could communicate with one another, there were no journals or periodicals by which scientists as a whole could communicate with one another or with the nonscientist. The presence of American politically oriented "science policy" journals such as Science or the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists had no counterpart in Canada.3a 37. John Porter, The Vertical Mosaic (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1965), p. 509. 38. See Globe and Mail, September 17, 1966, and Joan Hollobon, "A Forum for the Scientist," Globe and Mail, January 29, 1968. 39. A further index of underdevelopment was reflected in the Canadian newspaper media. Only three or four had full-time science writers. Of a total membership of 820 in the American National Association of Science Writers, the major professional association, only 21 were from Canada. See Science Forum 1, no. 6 (December 1968): 21.

SCIENCE AND POLITICIANS 165 In 1966 and 1967, David Spurgeon, the science writer for the Globe and Mail, and a small group of University of Toronto scientists obtained funds from the Donner Canadian Foundation, the NRC, the Canada Council, the Government of Ontario, and the Canadian Physiological Society, and published the first issue of Science Forum. The new journal's first editorial commented on why its creation became necessary. Citing the immense growth and consequences of science on the economic, social, and cultural values of all societies, it observed: Obviously these are not just scientific questions. They are social questions, questions of public policy. But because many laymen do not understand science, the social questions go begging. And because it is only recently that the relationship between public policy and advancing science and technology has been recognized, there is a gap between the two. [The new journal is] dedicated to helping to close both this gap and the cultural one between science and laymen. It is designed primarily to become a national forum in which Canadian scientists and engineers can discuss their vital issues. But because these issues are so far-reaching, it is meant also to be read by nonscientists.90 The peculiarity of the Canadian gap in communications about science is that it has been characterized not only by the "two cultures" gulf between the scientist and nonscientist but also by a gap among the scientists. It is my view that on both counts the magnitude of the Canadian gap is wider than in many other advanced countries. The creation of Science Forum is one indication of a change in attitudes. In March of 1969 two conferences were convened to deal with these general problems. The Fifteenth Winter Conference, sponsored by the Canadian Institute on Public Affairs and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, was designed to promote a discussion "between scientists and the general public" to explore how science and technology could be made the servant of national goals. The most notable public impact of the conference, as expressed in the press, was that the "public" failed to turn up. The conference turned into a discussion among scientists and government officials. The most significant result of a later University of Torontosponsored round table on the social aspects of science policy was that a proposal was made to create a national "watchdog committee" to "oversee the relationship of science and society." Both natural and social scientists and Iaymen from the general public would be members 40. Science Forum 1, no. 1 (February 1968): 2.

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of the committee.41 While both conferences demonstrated a vague groping for means of communication, they represent a very modest first step in an area of social communication which has been grossly underdeveloped in Canada. Although there is an awareness of science and science-related issues, it is not Canadian science that is perceived; it is primarily American or world-wide science that provides the greatest impact.42 This is true with respect to general public opinion and to many parts of the scientific community in Canada.43 That much of our science historically has been "pure" research (or what NRC frequently called "long-term applied"), that it has been concentrated in an Ottawabased bureaucracy and in two or three dominant universities, and that our industrial research and technology have been historically imported are key factors which help explain the peculiar Canadian science and society relationship.' 4 41. See Globe and Mail, March 31, 1969, and Senate of Canada, Committee on Science Policy, 28th Parliament, no. 39, 1969. 42. For a pessimistic view of the reality of Canada's dependence on an American technological ideology see George Grant, Empire and Technology (Toronto: House of Anansi, 1969). It is clear that the present interest by some Canadians in the problem of making science responsible to society had been influenced by the American radical movement which has questioned some of the relationships between defence research and universities. See Roger Salloch, "Cambridge: March 4, the Movement and M.I.T.," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 25, no. 5 (May 1969) : 32-36; Eugene Rabinowitch, "Scientists and Youth in Revolt," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 25, no. 4 (April 1969); John Walsh, "Confrontation at Stanford: Exit Classified Research," Science 164 (May 2, 1969): 543-47; John Walsh, "Arms and Scientists: A Long Dialogue Continues," Science 163 (March 28, 1969): 1436-38; James A. Shannon, "Science and Social Purpose," Science 163 (February 21, 1969): 769-73; Don K. Price, "Purists and Politicians," Science 163 (January 3, 1969): 25-31; David Spurgeon, "Wanted: Science in the Service of Man," Globe and Mail, June 16, 1967; Kenneth Bagnall, "Time to End the Aloofness of Scientists," Globe and Mail, March 31, 1969; and Science and Conscience, A Television Symposium (Toronto: CBC Publications, 1969). 43. For a brief but useful analysis of the Americanization of Canadian science see Lynn Trainor, "The Americanization of Canadian Science: How We Lose by Default," Science Forum 3, no. 2 (April 1970): 3-11. 44. For figures showing the degree of concentration of funds in a handful of universities, see John B. Macdonald et al., The Role of the Federal Government in Support of Research in Canadian Universities, Special Study no. 7 (Ottawa: Queen's Printer, 1969), chap. 3. For example, five universities received over 50 percent of the total funds.

7 The Nature and Meaning of Science Policy

The contemporary debate about the nature and meaning of "science policy" represents the meeting of the two institutional eras of the National Research Council and the Science Council—Science Secretariat and two philosophies of the organization of science. The two philosophies seem to turn on the issue of the degree to which science policies ought to reflect policies for science as opposed to science in policy. The great ambiguity of the science policy debate is itself a reflection of the cautious and uncertain meeting of science and politics as analysed in chapters 5 and 6. This chapter will attempt to examine the nature and meaning of science policy, not in a detailed sense, but rather in the sense in which it sheds further light on the broad relationships between science and politics in Canada. To discuss the National Research Council's approach to science policy is, in part, misleading because the term "science policy" had little currency throughout most of NRC's history. It is a term of recent vintage, originating in the 1960s, and its meaning is still highly ambiguous. There seems to be some agreement, however, that we can divide its basic dimensions into two analytical parts. It is necessary to view science policy as consisting of policies for science and science in policy. Policies for science refers broadly to the government's support for the development and management of scientific personnel and skills, and includes, therefore, aspects of "education," or at least the support of research scientists in educational institutions. Science in policy refers broadly to those policies for utilizing and organizing science and scientists as a technique, or means, for understanding and

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solving other policy problems, such as industrial competitiveness, pollution, urban problems, et cetera.' There is always a linkage between the two aspects of science policy, and it becomes more and more difficult to separate them in practice. This is especially true with respect to the expanding incidence and appearance of so-called "big science" facilities. They are facilities which are increasingly supported by public funds, with a view to helping to serve some social mission (science in policy), but which also will help develop and train more scientists (policies for science). Big science is placed in contrast to the earlier, dominant pattern of so-called "little science," this being government outputs (grants) to individual scientists of merit who have applied for funds. While both the NRC and the Science Secretariat and Science Council have involved themselves in both aspects of science policy, it is clear that the NRC era is one preeminently identified with policies for science, while the present Secretariat-Council era is stressing science in policy. This book has attempted to cover both eras, but the emphasis has been decidedly on the latter. While the emphasis will continue to be placed on the science in policy aspect, particularly as it reflects on the Science Secretariat and Science Council as organizations, the Science Council's role should be examined under both the policies for science and science in policy dimensions. Much of the discussion will centre on its Report no. 4, Towards a National Science Policy for Canada. Policies for Science

At the outset, the Science Council stresses that, while it emphasizes science in policy, it wishes also to preserve the NRC legacy. Pure or basic research, or "curiosity-directed research," and "little science" should be supported "at an expanding rate."2 Indeed, this statement suggests that the council's basic recommendation of mission-oriented major goals will generate the support and the need for what it calls "mission-oriented basic research." The science policy of the NRC was essentially that of the preliminary need to produce good scientists.

1. For similar distinctions see Norman J. Vig, Science and Technology in British Politics (London: Pergamon Press, 1968), pp. 4-5; Senate of Canada, Committee on Science Policy, no. 2 (1968): 112; and Science Council of Canada, Towards a National Science Policy for Canada (Ottawa: Queen's Printer, 1968), pp. 1-3. 2. Towards a National Science Policy for Canada, p. 5.

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This objective also became a condition precedent to the NRC's ultimate ability to support industrial research, which was its initial major goal, at least in the eyes of politicians. The Science Council, both in Report no. 4 and before the Senate Committee, was correct in its assessment that its ability to speak about science in policy was itself a tribute to the NRC's general effectiveness in developing policies for science: "The fact that we are now able to talk about the use of science for social and economic goals is a tribute to the science policy we have pursued in the past, because Canada has, particularly with the leadership of the NRC and the universities, built up a very firm base for its scientific community, and in changing the emphasis we must be very sure we do not weaken that base. The base must continue to expand and grow."$ This observation deserves emphasis in the context of this book also. The present criticisms of the NRC must be seen, not as a total criticism of a "curiosity-directed" band of scientists leading science policies astray, but as an analysis showing that the specific pattern of policies, appropriate at one time, is no longer suitable. The reason why NRC and the Science Council are in a posture of confrontation is precisely because they are a manifestation of the meeting of the two aspects of science policy. What is to be the new and appropriate balance? The aggregate consequence of previous approaches was such that Canada had been spending about 22 percent of research expenditures on basic research, 41 percent on applied research, and 37 percent on development. Compared with other countries, our basic element appears to be high and our development effort exceedingly low.4 The Science Council's report appears to urge that basic research be concentrated in the university sector and that the government sector direct its research on an applied and mission basis. However, it must be stressed that the breakdown of scientific activities as "basic," "applied," or "developmental," and the location of each of these in the university, government, and industrial sectors, respectively, is by no means as cut and dried as it sounds. The council's report recognizes this at times, stressing the lack of "distinct boundaries" and the need to consider the designation as a "spectrum of scientific activities."s There has been a fairly lengthy, and often philosophical, debate in recent years about how and why governments reach judgements about 3. Senate of Canada, Committee on Science Policy, no. 8, (1968) : 944-45. 4. Ibid., p. 946. See also, Science Council of Canada, Towards a National Science Policy, p. 21. 5. Ibid., p. 7.

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the appropriate level and magnitude of support for basic or pure research.° Generally speaking, the emphasis of this book is on the science in policy aspect, and, therefore, I will not attempt to discuss this problem in any detail; however, one or two observations should be made. First NRC's explicit rationale for supporting science (policies for science), revealed over the years in its annual reports, has never been one which stressed supporting science as "high culture." It has held much closer to what Weinberg calls "the pure science as 'overhead' view. In Weinberg's terms, the rationale is summed up as follows; Science is a continuum that goes from the most basic (such as high energy physics) to the heavily applied (such as nuclear reactor engineering). The basic parts of science support the applied parts in several important ways; first, from the basic research come the completely new breakthroughs, like the laser or nuclear fission, which rejuvenate old technology; second, basic research, when conducted in either actual or intellectual proximity to technology, establishes a tone and standard that keep technology at a high level of sophistication; and third, basic research provides a training ground for young scientists, many of whom eventually become technologists. For all these reasons I view basic research as a justified "overhead" on the entire scientific-technological enterprise, an expense which must often be borne by society as a whole since it is not always clear which part of basic research is the most relevant to which part of technology or, for that matter, to the rest of science.?

It is to be noted, however, that, while NRC used the "overhead" concept as a rationale, it did not use an "overhead" as a resource allocation formula. It would appear that the Science Council, or at least the Macdonald Committee which it helped to create, has moved further toward the idea that a percentage overhead figure be used to guide politicians toward the level of support necessary for university research (which is the sector where most basic research would be

6. For the dimensions of the debate see Edward Shils, ed., Criteria for Scientific Development: Public Policy and National Goals (Cambridge, Mass. and London: The MIT Press, 1968); Daniel S. Greenberg, The Politics of Pure Science (New York: New American Library, 1967); Alvin M. Weinberg, Reflections on Big Science (Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 1967); Alvin M. Weinberg, "Scientific Choice and the Scientific Muckrakers," Minerva 7, nos. 1-2 (Autumn—Winter, 1968-69); and OECD, Fundamental Research and the Policies of Governments (Paris: OECD, 1966). 7. Weinberg, "Scientific Choice and the Scientific Muckrakers," p. 60.

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carried out).8 Both the Macdonald Committee and the Science Council are extremely wary about using aggregate percentages as the only, or even the major, guideline, but there appears to be a growing realization that such "figures" are what the politician will ultimately use as his criterion of resource allocation. The point is raised here not to lend support to the view that this is the best way to reach decisions about the support of basic research, but rather to suggest that the politicians' desire to simplify and make the criteria more meaningful to themselves will, in the long run, make aggregate percentages very attractive. While many hold such "overhead" or "percentage of GNP" formulas to be "unscientific" ways of allocating resources for science, there is some indication that these will be one of the clearer or more simplified criteria by which the politician determines whether or not he is performing well in "science policy-making."9 One final point about the policies for science aspect of science policy needs to be mentioned. It is by no means coincidental that the two famous cancellations of 1968, the ING and QEII, were both projects that came, generally speaking, closer to the "basic" end of the spectrum of scientific activity than they did to the applied or missionoriented end. There is little doubt that the prevailing mood within the federal government is against pure science, especially big science

8. The Macdonald Committee distinguished between "oriented" and "intrinsic" basic research. The first was basic research related to the missions of government departments; the second was basic research unrelated to a mission. The committee suggested that the choice of how much intrinsic basic research to support was an "incommensurable" choice and therefore a political one. An overhead percentage would have to be established. In the U.S. the figure appeared to rest around 9 percent of the total R & D budget. John B. Macdonald et al., The Role of the Federal Government in Support of Research in Canadian Universities, Special Study no. 7 (Ottawa: Queen's Printer, 1969), p. 7. See also Senate of Canada, Committee on Science Policy, no. 43 (1969): 5677-78. 9. The Macdonald report said that "comparisons of research expenditures between Canada and other countries are dangerous and are not particularly helpful" and that "the practice of express-research and development as a fraction of GNP likewise can be misleading." Similarly, the Science Council has argued against this as a major criterion of decision-making. Its Third Annual Report, however, (and, indeed, its First Annual Report), has in fact stressed international comparisons and even extracted a figure of 2 percent of GNP from a speech by the Hon. C. M. Drury as one of its major points of reference. It is my view that percentages of GNP and other "unscientific" criteria are highly important, despite the cautions invoked against them. See Macdonald, The Role of the Federal Government, pp. 20-21; Senate of Canada, Committee on Science Policy, no. 8 (1968) : 992-94; and Science Council of Canada, Third Annual Report, 1968-69 (Ottawa: Queen's Printer, 1969), pp. 26-30.

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with a pure research emphasis. While the concept of mission-oriented major programs enunciated by the Science Council appears to be a necessary change in emphasis, it is by no means demonstrated that Canada's science policies do not need to leave room for periodic, big science basic research projects. Such projects may involve some political risk and may, in the first analysis, appear to be "squandering" large amounts of resources on a "handful" of scientists, or catering to the aggressive scientist-entrepreneurs. This is the "irrational," unpredictable, and risk-taking part of science policy decisions which Canadian politicians may have to take. During the early stages of the transformation from the NRC era to the Science Council era, there seems to be little philosophical or political room for such risks, and that may prove to be highly regrettable.

Science in Policy

Canada has always had mission-oriented science, or science applied to other social missions. Our agricultural and primary resource departments have always had significant scientific components. NRC also had (and still has) a mission to support industrial research and development capability. The Science Council's emphasis on missions and other major goals is, therefore, not without precedent in Canada, although its overall philosophy is by no means identical to the earlier experiences of mission-oriented science. The first interesting part of the Science Council's Report no. 4 was its enunciation of "national goals." After clearly indicating that the report would deal almost exclusively with science in policy, the council felt that if it was going to advocate the use of science in achieving national social and economic goals, it would have to attempt to define Canada's national goals. Dr. O. M. Solandt indicated before the Senate Committee that the council could not find any definition of "national goals" other than the definitions of economic goals defined by the Economic Council of Canada. To these the council added other noneconomic objectives and then presented the package as a framework for policy. The goals were classified into six groups and included national prosperity; physical and mental health and high life expectancy; a high and rising standard of education readily available to all; personal freedom, justice, and security for all in a united Canada; increasing availability of leisure and enhancement of the opportunities for personal development; and world peace, based

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on a fair distribution of the world's existing and potential wealth.'° Speaking before the Senate Committee, Dr. Solandt made several observations about these national goals which offer some interesting insights into the council's conception of politics and decision-making. Solandt expressed a sense of surprise that no one had criticized the council for presuming that they, a group of scientists, could state national goals. The reason it undertook to define them was that "somebody has to start."11 There is a considerable indication of political naivety in this observation, because it was clearly not the scientist who was "starting" anything. As statements, the goals could be found in any number of sources, and almost any self-respecting politician could be heard reciting them in one form or another almost daily for the past few years, at least. The political reality of such statements is not that they are not worth expressing, but simply that they are not, as statements, useful as frames of reference for policy. Dr. Solandt went on to state some of the difficulties of using these goals ("many of them are mutually conflicting" and "you cannot have them all at once"), and then made a curiously ambivalent observation: "So much for national goals. Although they are in a way incidental to our policy report, they are really the basis upon which the policy report is founded."12 This observation is true, despite its apparent internal contradiction. The statement of national goals is incidental to the report. It is difficult to find any plausible or direct connection between the "major programs" eventually recommended and the national goals from which they are supposed to have emerged. The remark that national goals "are really the basis" of the report is also true, if we consider it as an effort by a group of scientists to advise on societal decision-making in a "scientific" or rational way. The Science Council appears to be saying that it will approach its task in a way in which politicians "surprisingly" have never attempted. This is not to argue that the council's effort and aspirations are not commendable, but, rather, simply to observe that a rational framework and decision-making ideology need to be displayed, even though the actual major programs do not appear to derive from the rational framework, except in the most superficial sense. The Science Council recommended major programs of three categories, differentiated by a time priority, "partly determined by circumstances, and partly by present importance." The first category 10.Senate of Canada, Committee on Science Policy, no. 8, (1968): 946, and Science Council of Canada, Towards a National Science Policy, pp. 13-18. 11.Senate of Canada, Committee on Science Policy, no. 8, (1968) : 945. 12.Ibid., p. 946. (Emphasis added.)

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contained two programs, space and water resources, in which specific plans for major programs are now in existence and "which will provide very useful proving grounds for the concepts to be applied in later programs." The second category consisted of four programs, transportation, urban development, computer applications, and scientific and technological aid to developing areas, each of which was of "indisputable primary importance to Canada." The third group of programs consisted of such areas as health care delivery systems, economic development of Canada's north, the development of energy resources, and integrated resource management. These were programs "each very little different in level of significance from those in the second group, but with their immediate appropriateness and limits less clearly determined."13 It is highly likely that "circumstance" and "present importance," rather than relationship to national goals, are the more operative reasons explaining why many programs were put in each category. For example, the space program represents "circumstance," a scientific word used to denote a strong space lobby, rather than an indisputable top national goal! Health care delivery systems also might seem to be an indisputable top national goal, but its low "time" priority is probably a reflection of the fact that there are not many scientists and technologists interested in it. It should be clear that I am sceptical of the council's attempt to relate national goals with their proposed major programs. This should not be interpreted, however, as a total disagreement with the program concept. As a concept it deserves applause. My point, at this stage, is merely to observe the council's tendency to misleadingly cloak so many of the programs in the robes of national goals. The infinitely more persuasive part of the major program concept of the report is that part related to observations on the "organization of science" in Canada.

Scientists and the Identification of Sectors of Performance

Two comments of the Science Council, in particular, are worth examining, because both are commentaries on the relationships between Canadian scientists and public bureaucracies. The council first recommended that "in future, every new research or development activity

13. Science Council of Canada, Towards a National Science Policy, p. 35.

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be critically examined at its outset to identify the appropriate organization to carry through the project to its final conclusion. For extensive programs that encompass many individual projects, the distribution of these projects among the sectors of the economy must be carefully considered. Such a procedure may well lead to the universities and industry performing a larger share of the research and development in Canada than has occurred in the past."14 This comment is a reflection of the changing balance of power in Canadian science. During the 1950s and early 1960s, while the university and industrial science sectors were building up their basic manpower and capacities (under the auspices of the government science sector), government scientists tended to become used to assuming that major new facilities, which they initiated, would naturally be located centrally as part of the federal science facilities. Certainly an important part of the forces which operated against the ING and Queen Elizabeth II Telescope projects was a general resentment in significant parts of the academic community about the location and management of these facilities, and about the degree and openness of consultation with the outside sectors. There was similar concern expressed in the industrial sector over such issues as the NRC wind tunnel. It was by way of intersectoral involvement in major programs and their subsequent decentralization that NRC's long-elusive goal of promoting industrial research would hopefully be realized. Industrial research would be less a program itself and more a part of all programs. The university sector would also be involved. Both the major program concept and its predicted industrial benefits are attributable to the model of the American space program. American industry has been mobilized by the military and space programs. Canada's industry would be mobilized, not by participation in military goals, but in other social missions.16 14.Ibid., p. 23. 15.Senate of Canada, Committee on Science Policy, no. 8 (1968) : 1265-67. See also, R. W. Jackson, "The Rationale of Major Programs in R & D," unpublished paper prepared for the Science Council, November, 1968, and D. Lecerf, "Major Research and Development Programs as Instruments of Economic Strategy," Impact 17, no. 2 (1967): 115-34. The subject of industrial research and development is treated only in very general terms throughout this book. We have discussed it only in its very broadest terms in relation to the problem of goal displacement in NRC and now, briefly, as part of the major program concept. For more detailed analyses of the Canadian scene, see Andrew H. Wilson, Science Technology and Innovation, Special Study no. 8 (Ottawa: Queen's Printer, 1968); M. P. Bachynski, "How Canada Can Close the Technology Gap through R & D," Science Forum 2, no. 1 (February 1969): 31-36; John L. Orr, "A Technological Strategy for Industrial

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The report's emphasis on the need to identify the appropriate sector and sectoral share of a program is conclusive. It is clear, however, that the instruction to identify sectors will not be easy to implement, because the obstacles to implementation are formidable. The Canadian scene is pocketed with jurisdictional boundaries, the most obvious of which is federalism itself. This, however, is not likely, in my view, to be the most difficult barrier to cross. The greater difficulty is the other "federalism" of the bureaucratic variety. Government departments, special administrative areas, universities, groups of universities, and industrial corporations—all constitute organizational collectivities which must begin to communicate about matters of science and sectoral participation. It will be invariably a process based on persuasion, negotiation, and time-consuming frustrations. The burden of this book has been to indicate that Canada's scientific community has little experience in matters of this kind. It needs to be pointed out, moreover, that there is by no means universal agreement about either the Science Council's diagnosis of or its solution to a major program concept. Dr. Harry E. Gunning, professor of Chemistry at the University of Alberta, expressed a view which undoubtedly represents a considerable body of opinion in the Canadian scientific community: Those unfamiliar with how science develops tend to think of science in terms of the applied scientist. They do not realize that applied science would be helpless without the steady stream of new scientific knowledge which comes from our basic research laboratories. In evaluating the effect of mission-oriented programs on basic science, we must bear in mind that such programs are very expensive and Canada's resources for the support of research are very limited. There will be a strong tendency for Government policy committees to recommend that applied research should grow at the expense of basic research, especially when Federal budgets are tight. Now such policies would not necessarily deal a crippling blow to basic science if the mission-oriented programs are administered intelligently. ... The real danger for Canada is that its mission-oriented programs may fall into the hands of those who do not really understand how the best scientists work. The real motivations for the development of a national science policy

Progress in a Competitive World," Science Forum 1, no, 4 (August 1968) : 3-6; and Foreign Ownership and the Structure of Canadian Industry (Ottawa: Queen's Printer, 1968), Report of the Task Force on the Structure of Canadian Industry (The Watkins report). The NRC has also renewed its own efforts to carry out its initial mandate, including the creation of a vicepresidential post for industrial research.

NATURE OF SCIENCE POLICY 177 in Canada are the pressing need to expand the industrial sector of our economy and increase its efficiency, and in addition reduce the costs of our services.... What we need is a much more flexible structure than that suggested by the Science Council. If a scientist, through his work, can provide the basis for a new industry in Canada, why should it be necessary to have his work conform to some particular missionorientation?' e Similarly, the 1968-69 Annual Report of the NRC reflected the strength of the views of many members of the scientific community and the government sector who hold different views of the causes of the supposed failures of past policies and the suitability of the Science Council's alternatives. The NRC statement again reflects the degree to which the present period represents the meeting of two historic philosophies about science and its organization. It also reflects NRC's sense of annoyance at being the object of so much criticism for its alleged failures: In current national preoccupation with searches for science policies, with self-criticisms and self-doubts, the negative attitudes frequently engendered often tend to obscure real positive assets and solid achievement. In this continuing debate it is necessary to remind ourselves that a so-called "science policy" at best can only provide a broad framework for illuminating choice and decision-making in science. In practical terms, however, priority decision is not guided entirely by what is desirable but also by what is attainable assuming maximum effort. Accordingly, it is necessary to assess existing strength and potential areas of new opportunity- areas where progress is possible because of new ideas, new discoveries and new developments. In discussions on science policies it is frequently stated that a disproportionate amount of research in Canada is carried out in Federal 16. Quoted in University Affairs (April 1969), p. 14. The Macdonald Committee also found considerable differences of opinion about harnessing too much research to missions or goals. [Macdonald, The Role of the Federal Government, p. 9.] For other views on both sides of the issue, see R. W. Jackson, "Major Programs in R & D: Where the Means Justify the Ends," Science Forum 2, no. 2 (April 1969) : 10-14; J. W. Hodgins, "A Time of Decision — and an Urgent Need for Dynamic Leadership," Science Forum I, no. 6 (December 1968) : 6-8; C. O. Hines, "How Ottawa Responds to the Council's Report is the Crucial Issue," Science Forum 1, no. 6 (December 1968): 1446; D. C. Rose, "A Great Deal of Wisdom but Not All Conclusions are Equally Sound," Science Forum 1, no. 6 (December 1968): 16-18; L. E. Howlett, "Is the Science Council on the Right Track? A Critical Inquiry," Science Forum 1, no. 5 (October 1968): 25-26; Krista Maeots, "Scientists Knock Accent on Mission-Oriented Research," Ottawa Citizen, June 5, 1969; and David Spurgeon, `Bureaucracy Threatens Science," Globe and Mail, November 8, 1969.

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Government laboratories, an inference which is quite misleading and totally unfounded. Our total research effort in Canada is somewhat Unbalanced in the sense that we are not doing sufficient research and development in the industrial and technological sector. This is quite another matter. In a young and growing country with great potential, any measures which attempt to correct the imbalance by impairing existing strengths would seriously retard our progress. Rather, we must make every effort to build new strengths in deficient areas. Conclusions about the balance or imbalance of our overall research effort are generally drawn on the basis of comparisons with other countries in Europe and North America. But unlike these countries, Canada has an abundance of natural resources, and a large proportion of government in-house research expenditure is quite justifiably directed toward their development. In spite of this, total government in-house research expenditures on a per capita basis are in fact not out of line with those of other advanced countries.17

Program Evaluation and the Science Budget

The second comment of the Science Council's report deals with the problems of program evaluation. "There is often a marked reluctance to terminate ... programs, even when they are of little priority, as long as the least justification can be found."" The council goes on to suggest several principles for the future, among which are the need to organize all government research on the basis of a mission, the need to conduct regular "technical audits," and the need to fully exploit the concept of regular program budgeting recently introduced by the federal government. It noted that while the problem of goal displacement and program inertia are a problem in managing science anywhere, "it is a particular problem in the government."19 By relating "technical audits" and "program budgeting," the council was also raising several organizational and political issues, and it is important to comment on them. They reflect ultimately on the boundaries of the Science Council's role, and the point at which its role merges with that of the Science Secretariat. At least three issues can be raised. First, what kind of mechanisms will be used to conduct technical audits? Second, how far into the budget process, that is, into the priority projects within major programs, must the 17. NRC, Report of the President, 1968-69 (Ottawa: Queen's Printer, 1969), p. 10. (Emphasis added.) 18. Science Council of Canada, Towards a National Science Policy, p. 25. 19. Senate of Canada, Committee on Science Policy, no. 8, (1968): 948.

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Science Council go to make its role meaningful? And third, what balance of roles and relationships between the Science Council and the Science Secretariat emerges as a result of this process? In short, the questions posed are designed to analyse the meeting of the shortrun, day-to-day, aspects of science policy-making with the long-run aspects. The mechanism by which the technical audit would take place would be an advisory committee at the departmental or agency level, composed of "people who are knowledgeable in the field but who are not committed to that particular department or agency."20 Such committees would hopefully be more independent critics than the NRC committees and would do more than merely avoid duplication with other departments. Dr. Solandt explained further, before the Senate Committee, that he would not like to see this "too tightly organized" as a continuing operation. "I think it is far better that you change your `auditors' quite regularly because if you do not they soon become dedicated to the things they have approved in recent years and you get back into the same rut you were in before." Dr. Solandt was pressed by Senator Grosart on how this advisory committee audit group was related to the overall central science policy machinery. When asked whether a form of "super-audit" group should feed in the results of each departmental audit to the government's minister in charge of overall science policy, Dr. Solandt replied affirmatively, as long as they had no authority. "I can see no objection to coordinating these reviews, either at the level of the minister for science or conceivably the Treasury Board. This would be another very important source of advice to the Treasury Board because if the Treasury Board had access to the reports of these technical auditors it would give them very good feel for where they could sensibly make cuts or where they could give more money."21 It is clear that the Science Council has not, to date, related the flow of information that might come from the audit groups with that which will form a part of the planning, programming and budgeting system (PPB) introduced into the federal government. The internal reporting and evaluation system of the PPB approach ultimately aspires to "audit" programs including the scientific activities of programs. Ultimately the external audit proposed by the council and the internal evaluation systems (PPB) will have to inform one another. One of the dangers inherent in both the internal PPB and the 20. Ibid., p. 1259. 21. Ibid., pp. 1260 and 1261.

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external technical audit processes is that the entire system can suffer from "information overload." The early experience with PPB in the United States may have parallels with the use of a combined system of internal and external audits in Canada. Mounds of information and reports will be fed into already clogged departmental and Treasury Board offices, most of which will be quite useless and much of which will be unread.22 The council has not tackled the tough political part of policymaking in both the bureaucratic and general political level. What happens to the technical audits? Ultimately they are related to the budget process, and this compels us to examine how the council (and the Science Secretariat) see their roles in this process. The Senate Committee proceedings have witnessed an interesting exchange of views on the budget process. The Senators, as politicians, have been extremely interested in this as the heart of science policymaking, and the council and secretariat spokesmen have been extremely ambivalent about their budgetary involvement in the process of advising on, and deciding upon, specific projects within the broad major programs identified by the council. When, for example, Dr. Solandt was asked whether the council's role was limited to advising the government on long-term goals and programs, he answered: We have felt that if we could get a good general framework of policy that was widely agreed to and understood, then the more short-term tactical decisions, if you like, could be readily taken by many different agencies in the light of these policies. Hopefully, if the broad policies are understood and widely accepted, then people will try to make their more detailed decisions to conform with these broad policies.. There is nothing in the terms-of-reference of the Council that prohibits it from dealing with short-term problems. The only short-term one we have dealt with was ING, which we were reluctant to take on as our very first project because this, in effect, was asking the Council to reach a decision on a specific problem before it has ever had a chance to discuss the general background. We would feel much more competent to deal with ING now than we felt two and a half years ago, because 22. For critiques of the PPB system, see Aaron Wildaysky, "Rescuing Policy Analysis from PPBS," Public Administration Review 29, no. 2 (March/April, 1969) : 189-202, and Bertram Gross, "The New Systems Budgeting," Public Administration Review 29, no. 2 (March/April, 1969): 113-36. These arguments about "information overload" are precisely the kind of arguments which NRC always made about excessive bureaucracy. And, of course, they are right to a certain degree. The question is one of achieving a balance between "too much" and "not enough" evaluation.

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we are beginning to get a framework, and when we get one, such as is set out here, well established, we could quite easily deal with shorterrange problems, but I would hate to be asked to deal with those on a small scale. Some of them are so big — ING being a good example — that you cannot very well disassociate them from major policy considerations, because if you decide to build ING you tie up a significant part of your resources.23 Later, the question was asked even more precisely, and Dr. Solandt's response appeared to indicate a recognition of the gap in the long-run, short-run policy advisory cycle. We have not reviewed that, and there is no question but that one of the areas in which we have been very slow in getting started is in this specific examination of objectives.... The Chairman: This is covered by your terms of reference? Dr. Solandt: Yes, we can do it, and, in fact, we have already discussed the mechanism for starting to do it and doing it, but [what] I have in mind here — and I think this can be one of our most important continuing functions — is not looking at specific projects within areas of expenditure, but looking at broad areas of expenditure in order to see that the trends of expenditure are in the right direction and whether the money seems to be reasonably divided between the different segments of the scientific community, and suggesting alterations in emphasis that are needed to meet changing conditions. Until we get to doing this on a regular basis we will not really have completed the cycle of policy advice.24 The ambivalence surrounding the question of how far into the detail of budget projects the council itself ought to go was revealed in my interviews with Science Council members. There appears to be considerable recognition that the real political crunch in science policy comes at the level closer to the short-run. It is at this point where decisions on projects within major programs have to be made, but the council has been reluctant to extend its role into these areas. One internal council working paper indicated that each major program would have four distinct stages: 1. The initial identification of a subject area for further study. This identification may be done intuitively, or on the basis of some initial study in the area itself, or in some other area. 2. Further study by a group or task force appointed by the Science Council. The Council's work should confirm — or reject — the subject 23.Senate of Canada, Committee on Science Policy, no. 8 (1968): 950. 24. Ibid., p. 952.

182 CHAPTER SEVEN area as suitable for designation as a Major Program. It should delineate the boundaries and assess the magnitude of the Program, and should identify the most appropriate agency to carry through Stages 3 and 4. 3. Study of the subject area in considerably more detail by the appropriate agency. This work will identify precisely the projects which make up the total Program, estimate the cost and time-to-completion of each project, and plan their implementation. 4. The implementation of the Program, coordinated by the appropriate agency. The Science Council's involvement will therefore be in Stages 1 and 2, with the Council's resources being more extensively committed to the second stage. The continuation of the Program into the two remaining stages will not come within the control of the Council although, after the passage of a suitable interval of time, the Council will be able to comment upon such action as has, or has not, been taken.25 Another working document indicated, however, that Canada's earlier history with major programs had not been an "inspiring one": There are currently a small number of Government-supported programs, with challenging objectives on a relatively small scale but, on the whole, Canada has had a painful history of programs which have died in their youth - some suddenly, some by degrees. The outstanding case of the cancellation of the ARROW has been joined by others, among the recent being HARP, and the Intense Neutron Generator. The satellite program has come close to death, more than once from "interim collapse."26 "Interim collapse" may be attributable much more to stage three, noted earlier, rather than only to stage two, where the council apparently sees its major role ending. An early indication of the need to pursue objectives into stage three may be found in the council's Third Annual Report. It observed that the distribution of scientific effort by sector had not altered at all, and, in the case of the industrial sector, it had worsened.27 The realization of the council's long-run sectoral configuration will be reached by a series of many short-run decisions. A structure composed of scientists will have to exert some influence on the process. My argument is that while the Science Secretariat clearly has the major short-run responsibilities, the Science Council must move relatively more into these 25.Andrew H. Wilson, "Remarks for the Science Council Meeting on January 17, 1969, with Regard to Major Programs," (mimeo), pp. 1-2. 26.Jackson, "The Rationale of Major Programs," p. 14. 27.Science Council of Canada, Third Annual Report (1968-69) : 8.

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kinds of problems, at least on a selective basis. It, after all, is the major structure through which the nongovernmental scientific community of Canada channels its influence. The reluctance of the Science Council to extend itself too deeply into the budget role is understandable in many respects. It has limited resources and personnel and it clearly cannot allow itself to grow into a wholly duplicative science bureaucracy. After getting its fingers burnt on the ING project, it may also be disinclined to have its advice turned down too often. The presence of government sector scientists may also be a factor which prevents the council from being too aggressive in budget matters, and there may be a kind of collective expectation that politicians do not want them meddling in too much detail. All this would be quite plausible were it not for the fact that the politicians' apparent preference is to stress the need to develop a fairly detailed evaluation of projects within priorities. It is at a point closer to the short-run of the policy cycle that the politician appears to be looking for advice and for ways of evaluating alternatives. In other words, he does not really need to be told that research on water resources is a major goal along with several other major goals. His more frequent and difficult decisions come when he must choose, in a given year, between two or three ten-million dollar projects, all within water resources. It is at this level that problems of sectoral location will also be important, just as important as the sectoral location problems at the more general major goal leveL28 The logic of the present structural duality would appear to place this role of detailed evaluation of projects on the Science Secretariat. When pressed, this has been the Science Council's ultimate retort: We would visualize that we transmit ... information, in reports to the Prime Minister, to the public and, of course, to the Treasury Board, and that the Treasury Board if they are concerned about whether a particular program that they are asked to support fits into our strategy, it goes to the Science Secretariat in the Privy Council Office. This they do pretty regularly, so that they get specific advice on specific programs. It is in consonance with the general views of the Council. Therefore, we have to be careful to keep the Science Council out of recommendations on relatively specific programs; it has to handle the big ones which shape the policy that we ought to deal with.29

While it is clear that the Science Secretariat has been used in this way 28. For the emphasis on project and budget evaluation see Senate of Canada, Committee on Science Policy no. 8 (1968): 979 and 1276. 29.Senate of Canada, Committee on Science Policy, no. 3 (1968) : 253.

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by the Treasury Board, the secretariat has by no means coveted this undertaking, nor has it been an active budget evaluator.3o Both the Science Council and the Science Secretariat appear reluctant to become involved in any active way with the short-run projects within the program areas. Both structures appear to admit the problem, but neither appears to see itself as a part of the solution. Instead the solution to the problem, in the eyes of the Science Council, appears to be the appointment of a Minister of Science Policy, while the secretariat merely observes that it should be the major support staff to the mechanism decided upon. Whatever machinery is developed at the ministerial level, it is my view that, given the nature of science policy-making, the role of the Science Council and Science Secretariat in it requires a more aggressive and active involvement in the shorterterm budget process. Both these agencies will have to more actively want this role, the secretariat on a regular basis and the council on a selective basis. There is little danger that they will come to dominate the budget process. The internal political and bureaucratic forces will see to that. The far greater danger is that they will not be a part of it at all. The Science Council urges technical audits and the use of program budgeting. It stresses the importance of sectoral identification. It is my view that these evaluative problems will be critical not only at the "major program" level but also at lower project levels. If it ultimately hopes to influence these processes, it will also have to develop a capability to be a persistent critic at the project and budget level. The making of science policies ultimately involves a significant transformation of the "power structure" of Canadian science, but, as Robert Gilpin has observed with respect to France, we have "little leverage for doing so."31 The power structure of the Canadian scientific community has been characterized by the domination of the federal science bureaucracy and by a process of decision-making based on incrementalist bargaining among the major government departments and agencies. Proposals came up one at a time and were rarely evaluated in competition with other programs or needs. This process was assisted by the fact that most of the science budget was in the realm of so-called "little science" and only periodically were "big science" items such as nuclear reactors, wind tunnels, or telescopes a part of it. Under such a system there was little political or 30.Ibid., p. 148. See also Senate of Canada, Committee on Science Policy, no. 11 (1969) : 3362-63 and 3371. 31. Robert Gilpin, France in the Age of the Scientific State (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1968), p. 247.

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budgetary "leverage" applied. There will never be unlimited leverage, nor should there be, but I have the strong impression that we have not really tried to apply the kind of leverage needed. Another of Gilpin's observations about France may be applied with even more forceful relevance to Canada: "In this effort the French suffer one overwhelming disadvantage vis-à-vis the more wealthy U.S. The United States can afford to pursue a broad and adventuresome program of basic and applied research. Cost enters into the picture, but the hard choice comes primarily at the advanced stages of the development process when risks, costs, and opportunities can be most easily calculated. The French, on the other hand, with their much smaller scientific and engineering establishment, cannot cast their net wide; priorities must be established at a much earlier stage — that of fundamental research where the uncertainties are greatest. "32 The French have attempted to develop some leverage by utilizing a "budget" envelope and by developing improved statistics on research and development to fit both the long-run and short-run budget cycles. Precisely because the decisions are tougher for middle-sized countries like Canada, it seems to me that Canada must move towards the French model. The Treasury Board, Science Secretariat, and Science Council all ought to be informed by a special R & D budget information system, and by at least a system of selective budget reviews. Under the French system, each minister responsible for certain programs separates out those R & D items and submits them to the French equivalent of the Science Secretariat. The secretariat would then group them into a research package or budget envelope which is examined by both the French equivalent of Canada's Science Council and the Cabinet Committee on Scientific and Industrial Research. The French system has its limitations also. The budget envelope deals only with a small percentage of the overall R & D budget and only with new appropriations and not past programs. Generally, however, the system has helped. It has "provided a forum where scientists and administrators can discuss the state of French science and where scientific research can be defended by the Minister for Science against the tendency to sacrifice it to immediate needs."33 I do not wish to imply that we ought necessarily to adopt the French approach in its detail, nor that we ought to evaluate every year, every budget item on the R & D budget. The point to be stressed here is that 32.Ibid., p. 251. 33.Ibid., p. 205. For another analysis of the French approach, see OECD, Reviews of National Science Policy, France, (Paris: OECD), pp. 19-44.

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Canada should move in the general direction of the French model, perhaps eventually assisted by a working system of program planning and budgeting (PPB). It is, therefore, essential and inevitable, in my view, that the Treasury Board and the Science Secretariat develop means to carry out a cooperative annual appraisal of a science budget. Some recognition of this need may be reflected by the appointment in 1970 of a science adviser to the program branch of the Treasury Board. Some observations ought to be made regarding the impact of the Science Council and the Science Secretariat on the nature of science policy-making, even though they must be tentative and qualified because we are dealing with two structures whose combined life span barely exceeds six years. Generally speaking, the impact of the two structures can be said to be positive and beneficial, by virtue of their early collective role as data-gatherers and by their early role in generating a dialogue about science policy. These are undertakings which have widened the audience beyond the earlier tight, compact little group in or near the bureaucratic sector. Having said that, however, it is clear that there is a great deal to be desired in the areas of both basic information and communication. The Science Council's Third Annual Report seems to stress the inadequacies in information more strongly than at any stage in the council's life, in spite of the fact that information-gathering has occupied much of its early efforts. It has found it difficult to follow changes in the patterns of funding Canadian science which it has recommended because of the "inadequacy of the statistical information that is available, and the long delays between collection and publication of data."34 In its recommendations to the Prime Minister in January, 1969, the council wisely urged the government to provide new means for providing information for "analysis and planning": Planning the growth and expenditure for science would be facilitated by having the necessary analysis of departmental estimates and their five-year projections done during the preparation of estimates rather than some months later. Thus far the Science Council has not even received forecast figures for Federal spending on science for 1968-69. Approximate figures are quite adequate for planning and it should be possible to have these well in advance of the start of the fiscal year. A sampling procedure could be devised to give similarly timely information concerning industrial spending plans. A good example of what can be done in this field is provided by the U.S. Bureau of the Budget's 34. Science Council of Canada, Third Annual Report (1968-69): 7.

NATURE OF SCIENCE POLICY 187 "Special Analyses of Federal Research, Development and Related Programs." ... These analyses of estimated expenditures are published by the beginning of the fiscal year to which they relate. We recommend that a similar report be prepared in Canada by the Department of Finance or by Treasury Board.35 This kind of information inflow is also essential for the Science Secretariat if it is to perform a more aggressive role closer to the short-run end of the policy cycle. The Science Council's role as the focal point for public dialogue on science policies has yielded a net improvement, but it is still woefully weak and surprisingly unknown to its own immediate constituency, the Canadian scientific community. While the appointment of a full-time chairman and the existence of a permanent staff would allow some measure of improvement, it would appear that the ultimate improvement in this constituency linkage will have to rest on a change in the council members' attitudes about reaching their constituency. The Science Council's philosophy of major goals and a new sectoral balance has much to commend itself, and the general tenor of this book is one of general agreement with it. While the philosophy reflects the backgrounds and career perspectives of the council members and staff (and also the Science Secretariat staff), it appears to leave unexamined some of the problems which have emerged in the wake of the council's "inspirational model," the American space program in particular, and the American concept of sectoral balance in general. Most of the potential problems ultimately involve questions of political control over a decentralized scientific-industrial complex. Should the next decade see the development of a sectoral configuration somewhat as the council envisages, it is likely that there will be an increased blurring of the distinction between the public and private sectors in Canada. It is by no means too early to examine the questions asked by one American observer about the contemporary American scene, and direct them to the Canadian scene: "When several of the country's largest firms are entirely dependent on Government business for their existence, when Government must look to outside firms or individuals to define the choice before it, or when individuals divide their time between Government and private positions, the distinctions between public and private become difficult to make. And then where does public responsibility lie? Who is accountable? Who, in fact, makes policy decisions, and with what political authority?"36 35.Ibid., p. 37. 36.Eugene B. Skolnikoss, "The Difficult Political Choices of Science," World Politics (April 1968) : 543.

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The present emphasis has been one of criticism of the degree of public sector dominance and of the difficulty of evaluating and auditing its performance. But the industrial and university sectors are also composed of complex bureaucracies which are equally susceptible, over the long haul, to the sins of goal displacement and to the tendency to act as interest groups. The range of questions that are presently directed by the council toward the public bureaucracy will be increasingly directed toward the "private" bureaucracies. How can the government effectively monitor and evaluate highly advanced projects in industry if the technical competence tends to rest more and more in industry? We have had very little experience with questions of this kind, but they are problems of science policy and organization which, one can fairly predict, will occur. The impact of the Science Secretariat has been primarily that it has, to a degree, changed the "rules of the game" in the internal bureaucratic decision-making processes. Although chapter 2 suggested that the secretariat had been viewed as a relatively illegitimate structure, we did observe that it helps to institutionalize a modest form of "adversary" procedure into decision-making on scientific matters. The cabinet and Treasury Board can consult opinions and judgements other than those coming to it from agencies with a vested interest. Even this adversary process, however, is highly selective and discontinuous. The secretariat appears reluctant to actively initiate this process itself. It remains to be seen whether the tenure of Dr. R. J. Uffen, as director of the Secretariat and principal science adviser, will carry with it a more aggressive posture in this regard. While the preceding chapters have tended to portray and stress the aggregate forces and developments that have shaped the Science Secretariat and Science Council, as organizations, it is important to add emphasis to the critical role played by individuals in the politics of science. The ING project, for example, was promoted by Dr. W. B. Lewis, an aggressive scientist entrepreneur. Alvin Weinberg refers to the place of such role-players as being central to the "politics of scientific leadership." They are role-players absolutely vital and inevitable in any science-government relationship, especially with decisions involving big science. In Weinberg's words, "Only those projects are approved which are backed by true and energetic believers, who underestimate the difficulties and who possibly exaggerate the benefits; and it is the projects with charismatic and forceful leaders that finally succeed.... And, indeed, the relative `political' strengths of the competing scientific leaders — that is, their energy, their tenacity, their scientific skill, their courage — all these are naturally weighed in

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the balance when the politics of science are sorted out. This is neither bad nor good; it is inevitable."37 In my view, the Weinberg comment presents the heart of the dilemma for the Science Secretariat and Science Council, as organizations, and for their role in sorting out priorities in and for science. The two structures will always be surrounded by aggressive scientistentrepreneurs in the governmental, university, and industrial sectors, a group of scientist-entrepreneurs who will each head significant bureaucracies of their own. The Science Council and Science Secretariat have been far too slow, too passive, and too unaggressive to compete very meaningfully in the face of this reality. Much of their reluctance seems attributable to their ambivalence about politics and about becoming involved in conflict with these other entrepreneurs. They know they are in a political environment, but seem unprepared to become involved in the competitive, aggressive activities which ultimately will determine science policies. The making of science policies seems to require something more than just gentle persuasion and sweet rationality. 37. Weinberg, "Scientific Choice and the Scientific Muckrakers," p. 54.

8 Science and Politics and the Nature of Decision-Making

The debate over the nature and meaning of "science policy" illustrates the growing complexity of relationships between science and politics in Canada. In many respects the term "science policy" is a misnomer, especially that part of it identified as science in policy. We are dealing ultimately with the totality of social priorities and allocations and also with the totality of government structures of decision-making. The elementary corollary of this is that the values and structures of politics have affected science, and the values and structures of science have affected politics. In the preface it was stated that there were three objectives set for this book. The first objective was to describe and evaluate the evolution of the structural machinery by which Canadian scientists, governments, and politicians have sought to establish contact with one another. The second objective was to examine the Canadian scientific community as a political system itself. The third and broadest objective was to examine what science policy-making might tell us about the nature of decision-making in Canada. Most of this concluding chapter will be devoted to the third objective, but before proceeding to that task several observations ought to be made regarding issues raised in the first two objectives. The general relationship between the politician and the scientist in Canada has followed a familiar pattern, very much parallel, in its broadest dimensions, to that observed in other countries. From an early era where science viewed itself as being inadequately and poorly supported, and where the politician concerned himself with the need to coordinate, control and avoid the duplication of science, the scientist-politician relationship in Canada moved to the 1950s and

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early 1960s era of what has been called the "funds on faith" period. In the present Canadian era politicians show a more critical interest in science and its consequences. Compared to previous years, the Canadian politician is more concerned about the power of science, but he seems to have come somewhat later on the scene than the politicians of other countries with which we normally like to compare ourselves. The present era is also clearly a reflection of the changing attitudes of the public toward science and technology. Canadian public opinion does not appear to perceive Canadian science per se. There is clearly no Canadian parallel to the general American faith (albeit, partly mythical) of good old American know-how. While Reagan has observed that even the American scientific community "has been able to do little to build an active favourable constituency beyond itself,"1 the ability to generate a reservoir of such support in Canada is even less in evidence. We must do it, moreover, in the full glare and geographical immediacy of the American environment. There are some recent promising but, nonetheless, modest attempts in Canada to face this problem, but the Canadian scientific community, in beginning this task, has to contend with several serious obstacles for the simple reason that it has not developed any of the infrastructure, let alone the attitudes, which other nations' scientific communities appear to have had for a longer period of time (for example, general scientific societies, general journals that discuss science-government issues). The need for the Canadian scientific community to cultivate a wider basis of support is matched by the politician's need to avoid having the present criticism of science and scientists reach pathological proportions. The present climate of public opinion (at least in the limited public identified in chapter 6) tends at times to make the scientist the whipping boy of many societal inadequacies and failures. Much of the present criticism is, of course, long overdue, but it could well reach pathological proportions. The politician, after all, needs the goodwill of the scientific community just as much as the latter needs the goodwill of the politician. One factor that has affected both the machinery of sciencegovernment relationships and also the wider "science and politics" relationships is the tendency of scientists to covet organizational freedom. This was reflected most strongly in an ideological sense in the analysis of NRC in chapter 1. The decentralized, nonhierarchical, 1. Michael D. Reagan, Science and the Federal Patron (New York: Oxford University Press, 1969), p. 304.

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nonmission-oriented, and "antibureaucratic" structure and ideology were clearly intended to differentiate a scientist's organization from the rest of the public bureaucracy. The tendency to covet organizational freedom will undoubtedly be felt in the day-to-day impact of the present science policy debate. In a real sense, the post-Glassco 1960s marks the meeting of two organizational forces within the federal public service. While the rest of the, heretofore, most bureaucratized part of the public service, the regular departments, are being asked to "debureaucratize" themselves by means of decentralization, PPB, and a general loosening of the earlier rigid control system, the, heretofore, most loosely structured section of the public service, the scientific sector, is in effect being asked, by the dictates of science policy, to "bureaucratize" itself. An important point that must be emphasized is that the coming of Canada's second generation of science policy machinery comes almost concurrently with two very major organizational revolutions in the Canadian bureaucracy: the Glassco philosophy and the PPB system. Most parts of the public service, including the scientific sector, have been attempting to adjust to a bewildering and often contradictory set of organizational philosophies. Science has never been totally unorganized or spontaneous, but the present demands for such things as technical audits, program evaluation, and PPB analyses bring the prospect of a significant adjustment on the part of the scientific community in the Canadian federal bureaucracy. The scientists are wary of making these systems of evaluation too stifling and too control-oriented, and, to a degree, they are right in pointing out the real limitations and even dangers that can arise from such an enterprise. There is a great deal to the notion that science cannot be programmed or perhaps even evaluated in the same way that other human activities might be. There appears to be some recognition on the part of scientists that they must evaluate their programs and organizational goals more effectively than they have before. The NRC has created a delegue-general to help in this process. There will, however, be many deep-rooted pressures in most scientific sectors of the bureaucracy which will act to minimize and even eliminate the day-to-day impact of evaluation. These pressures may already have had an impact. The first NRC delegue-general left the NRC after less than one year in the position. The tendency to covet organizational freedom will, therefore, be an important issue in the coming years. A second factor which has affected the science and politics relationship has been the tendency of scientists to disavow politics and to view it as illegitimate. The intrusion of the values and structures of politics

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is a reality to which most of the scientific community in Canada is only beginning to adjust. Any analysis of the prevalence of this tendency, however, must distinguish between the several sectors of the scientific community. Among the senior scientific personnel within the departments and agencies of the federal bureaucracy, there appears to be very little inclination to disavow politics and to view it as illegitimate. This is so at least with respect to their dealings with cabinet ministers. At these close quarters there is little escaping the political reality of the relationships that develop. With respect to their dealings with the outside (university and industrial) sectors of the scientific community, however, the tendency to disavow politics is strong. The tendency was revealed in the views expressed by A. B. Macallum regarding the illegitimacy of the technical civil service's lobby against the national laboratories in the 1920s, in the reaction to the deans of engineering lobby against the ING project, and in the general way in which the roles of professional associations were perceived. While Canadian scientists had always had some degree of "political" relationships with one another, they were primarily individualistic relationships, confined for the most part to individual dealings with granting bodies or committees. Now, increasingly, the relationships are between sectors, groups, and disciplines, that is, between collectivities of scientists. A significant part of the major weaknesses in the present Canadian science and politics relationship can be attributed to this expected political ambivalence. The avoidance of budget or short-run involvement by both the Science Council and Science Secretariat, the absence until recently of a general, open scientific society, the Science Council's approach to rationalistic national policy-making (unlike the politician), and the need to retain the colleague-based structure rather than a form of executive control in the technical audit machinery, are all a reflection of this tendency. So also is the proposal for a Minister of Science Policy, an option which, as we shall see later in this chapter, ignores the realities of both interagency and cabinet power. This is not to argue that the trend will continue at its present strength or that it somehow fully explains the pattern of events we have noted. Clearly, there have been many other factors, including the impact of specific individuals and the complementary tendency of Canadian politicians to disavow science, or at least to embrace it only in very recent years. There are also indications that the need to develop some political skills and structures is being recognized by the scientific community in Canada. In my view, however, they still tend to reflect the existence of political innocence. Much of the Canadian scientific community

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appears to concede the fact that the making of science policies is ultimately a matter of political choice, but there is still an overwhelming propensity to view political processes as irrational, or at least to ignore the fact that political processes have a "rationality" of their own. A further concluding point which deserves considerable emphasis is that the most significant contest within the scientific community is not a contest between disciplines. More important has been the contest between the governmental, industrial, and academic sectors of the community. When acting as collectivities it is not so much engineers against physicists as it is industrial engineers against government engineers and university physicists against government physicists. The pervading force in the 1960s debate about Canadian science policy, as revealed in our case studies and in our discussion of career backgrounds, is one of sector rather than disciplines. And the politics of sectoral balance is played out primarily by scientist-administrators and scientist-entrepreneurs. For the Canadian scientific community, as a whole, the real debate in Canadian science policy-making is relatively less over what goals to pursue and more over where science should be located. The two are, of course, not unrelated, but neither are they the same, and it is on the latter, that of sectoral balance, that the real political contest seems to be centred. It is clear that a number of the general relationships between science and politics are not peculiar to Canada. Many of the same structural and philosophical problems have been present in the American, British, and French debates about science policy, and the relationships are viewed everywhere with considerable criticism and dissatisfaction. Robert Gilpin perhaps best sums up the universality of the structural and philosophical dilemma: What is taking place in France, the U.S. and other Western societies is in effect a Keynesian revolution in the relationship of science and state. Rejecting the laissez-faire-rechercher philosophy of the past, the science planners seek a role for the state in science affairs that can balance the need for central direction against the need for scientific freedom and initiative. But it is a Keynesian revolution without a Keynes, for no one has or can formulate the appropriate magnitude and direction of state intervention.2 While the differences in the Canadian situation are matters of degree, these are important and several deserve a concluding comment. 2. Robert Gilpin, France in the Age of the Scientific State (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1968), p. 246. (Emphasis added.)

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Among them are the degree of sectoral and even geographical concentration of science, the degree of elitism in Canadian science and hence the absence of communication between science and government and among scientists, and, finally, the degree of scientific colonialism to which Canada has been, and perhaps will be, subject. Historically the pattern of sectoral (government, university, and industry) distribution of Canada's scientific and research effort has been heavily weighted in favour of the government sector. While this can be attributed to a number of factors, including the comparatively greater degree of time spent developing our primary resources (as NRC argued in its 1968-69 Annual Report), and to the foreign-owned branch-plant nature of many significant sectors of our secondary industry, it is also true that a major part of this pattern is explained by the bureaucratic power of Canada's governmental scientific establishment. The power of the governmental sector has been enhanced, in a structural sense, because of the great degree of concentration, in terms of status and prestige, within the governmental sector, centred around the NRC. This concentrated government power stood in contrast to an almost nonexistent "external" power in the rest of the scientific community. The industrial sector was virtually nonexistent, and the university sector was composed of a group of individual scientists who were, for the most part, dependent on the government sector in general, and on the NRC in particular. The contemporary period has been primarily characterized by a filling in of these two "vacuums" in the power structure of Canadian science. The concentration of Canadian science, in an Ottawa-based bureaucracy, is one idex of power relationships in the making of science policies in Canada. Another, although less well-established index, is that of geographical concentration. This is inevitably a problem in all countries because science — especially a "little science" granting system based on merit — tends to concentrate resources on areas already well endowed. The problem may be considerably more significant in Canada. It is not surprising, for example, that both the CAP and the QM projects were partly based on the politics of location, with UBC interests attempting to alter the earlier concentration of science in the University of Toronto-Ottawa bureaucracy axis. The problem of location was also present in the ING project. The pattern of concentration is accentuated by the relative absence of scientific resources in the Maritime provinces and, more significantly, in the Province of Quebec (McGill University being a major exception). These indices help reinforce the degree of elitism in Canadian science. Discussions about science have taken place among a very

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small group of scientists. This tendency for issues to be discussed among a small circle of scientists has been reinforced by the tendency for careers to be confined within sectors, rather than across and between sectors, and by the absence of a general scientific society to link the disciplines and to establish some contact with society. While our scientific community has prided itself (with considerable justification) on the international reputation it has, and on the international nature of science, the appropriate degree of these characteristics depends on whose point of view one has in mind. From another point of view Canada has become a scientific colony. While the entire object of science policy-making is to make national science policies, this study has stressed the degree to which it appears that Canadian society does not see science as Canadian science. While every society stands in awe of the two scientific superpowers, the United States and USSR, Canada has been especially exposed (albeit, without much objection) to the immediacy of American science and technology. Much of it has been beneficial. Our sin is not that we accepted it, but that we have scarcely thought about its consequences and that we have accepted it all, without any discrimination or determination of whether or not it suits our own preferences. Our range of choice is not unlimited, but we do have a choice within limited but significant ranges. For example, it is by no means clear that Canada needs a massive space program. There are other social priorities infinitely more important to Canada, for which a scientific input is necessary (housing and health care delivery systems, for example). The Science Council's present emphasis on space is more a reflection of the cultural saturation of the American space success than it is of an urgent Canadian goal.

Science Policy and the Nature of Decision-Making

The trials and tribulations of science policy alert us to some of the present and future difficulties and characteristics of decision-making in Canada. The problems are illustrated in the debate regarding the major options for science policy machinery itself, and in the broader characteristics of policy-making in Canada. In the debate regarding science policy machinery in Canada there are currently three major structural options being discussed, the creation of a Department of Science, the creation of a Minister of Science Policy and, finally, the improvement of the present Science Council— Science Secretariat structure. The probability of success of each option

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will depend on the political requisites needed in the atmosphere of the political and bureaucratic milieu in which the machinery must operate. The attempt to develop useful science policy machinery is very much related to the problems of planning, as are the three options discussed here. Therefore, it is clear that their relative probabilities of success will depend on the complex structural and interpersonal relationships of the cabinet and of the federal bureaucracy. Among the structural issues are the criteria of power in cabinet portfolios, the present expansion of the Prime Minister's Office, the relative power and role of the Treasury Board, and the overall problem of legitimacy and accessibility when one minister or department attempts to coordinate other ministers or departments. The main proponent of a Department of Science (and Technology) has been the New Democratic Party. Although its policy was changed at its 1969 policy convention and although the NDP officially supports a Minister of Science Policy, its earlier 1967 resolution deserves analysis. While few now support the Department of Science concept, there is the possibility that if a position of Minister of Science Policy were created, it could develop into a department by reason of normal bureaucratic expansion. Therefore, while the prospects of a departmental form being selected are remote, the possible expansion of a Minister of Science Policy into a department renders an analysis of this option useful. The NDP's 1967 resolution would have created a department which would have the power to "establish, by means of democratic planning, a system of priorities based on national needs." It would take over and expand those federal government functions concerned with science and technology, establish a Canadian research and development corporation, administer an "adequate degree of governmentconducted research," and "provide adequate grants for research in universities and industry." The resolution apparently did not foresee the total concentration of government science in the department, because the new department would also "coordinate" research done in other departments. Clearly, however, the proposed department would take over a wide-ranging degree of responsibility and would operate its own laboratories and grant funds. The Minister of Science Policy option is distinguished from the Department of Science in that the former would not have a "department" as such. It would have a small support staff, but would neither operate laboratories nor grant funds. Its major proponents appear to be the Science Council, in general, and Dr. Solandt, in particular, and also a study group of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and De-

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velopment (OECD).8 There also appears to be support for the idea among members of the Senate Committee on Science Policy. Dr. Roger Gaudry, the vice-chairman of the Science Council, cited the most compelling reason for creating a minister without portfolio: "The one great advantage of having a Minister without portfolio is that he is not responsible for a large scientific staff, so he does not run into conflict with the interests of his own department. He can take a more detached view. We are looking for somebody to carry the responsibility of selling science to the Cabinet and its implications and the needs of science in the country."4 Implicit in the statement, in addition to the advantages of objectivity and a direct voice in cabinet, is the need for a wide perspective — a total view of Canadian science. The minister would obviously need good staff support, but this would be kept small, "50 people perhaps."5 The Minister of Science Policy option appears also to carry with it a key role for whoever became the "deputy" to the new minister. Implicit in Dr. Solandt's statements to the Senate Committee is the notion that the deputy would be the key person. It would appear, moreover, that he may come to wear the same "three hats" that the American chief science adviser does, albeit in slightly altered form. That is, he would be the cabinet's "chief science adviser" (parallel to the President's chief science adviser). He would likely chair the technical advisory panel (the equivalent of the American Federal Council for Science and Technology), and he would head the "secretariat" staff (the equivalent of the American Office of Science and Technology). There is also the suggestion that he might be the major figure on the Science Council. In Dr. Solandt's words, the Science Council would not disappear, as such, if there were a Minister of Science Policy, but it would "transfer its allegiance and it would be advisory to him."ø The general tenor of the statements seems to indicate the adoption of the American model, something which Dr. Solandt indicated he preferred.T The external-internal advisory mechanisms would be more

3. OECD, Reviews of National Science Policy Canada. The study group called the proposed minister a "Minister for the future," and "custodian of an innovating society," p. 415. Phrases such as these reflect the "grand" scale on which many place science policy machinery. 4. Senate of Canada, Committee on Science Policy, no. 8 (1968): 975. The "somebody" could also be a senior official, but this was clearly not the preferred person. 5. Senate of Canada, Committee on Science Policy, no. 11 (1968): 1278. 6. Ibid., p. 1273. 7. Senate of Canada, Committee on Science Policy, no. 8 (1968): 969.

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concentrated, not only at the political-ministerial level, but also at the official level. The third option in the present debate, and the option which the Trudeau government has supported, until recently, is that of improving or energizing the present structure. This involves, as described earlier, the appointment of Dr. R. J. Uffen as chief science adviser to the cabinet, and the transformation of the Privy Council Committee on Scientific and Industrial Research into a working Cabinet Committee, chaired (under present conditions) by a minister, the Honourable C. M. Drury. Drury also happens to be president of the Treasury Board. His Treasury Board role means that he does not have a vested science interest in his own department and, therefore, is in accord with one of the criteria noted earlier. On the other hand, the Treasury Board is the notorious stopper of funds, and this may make the present structure less than ideal. It is presumably difficult to be both the "resident nay-sayer" of the government and the wise planner of science at the same time.8 The Science Council would continue to report to the Prime Minister and would also be given frequent direct hearings before the Cabinet Committee.e The early indications of this combined third option is that there is considerably increased amount of discussion of scientific matters at the cabinet level and that Mr. Drury's Cabinet Committee is now meeting every week." A critique of the three options must be made with the realization that none can be viewed as ideal. There are difficulties with all of them, and there are advantages. A great deal depends on what it is that one wants science policy machinery to do, and how it is to be done. I will look at each of the three options and attempt to relate them to some of the forces, intrabureaucratic, political, and extrabureaucratic, which previous chapters suggest will affect the workability and efficiency of the three structural options. The arguments for a Department of Science are normally much the same as those which accompany the Minister of Science Policy arguments. The need to give science a voice in cabinet is stressed, and so 8. This may be an especially difficult mixture of roles during times of financial stringency. Science and research items in the budget constitute expenditure items that can be more readily controlled. 9. This at least is what the Science Council staff indicates will happen. There appears to be a high degree of optimism that the presence of Dr. Uffen will provide the major breakthrough. 10.See Ottawa Citizen, August 1, 1969. There is still considerable doubt, however, that Mr. Drury, as the minister responsible for science, can give much time to scientific matters. Something of the order of one or two hours per week seems to be the norm, even under the new Uffen-Drury regime.

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is the need to coordinate (considered a "good" thing) and to avoid duplication (invariably considered a "bad" thing). The early years of the NRC witnessed many of these arguments. Significantly, many of the powers of the NDP resolution imply the need to plan, so much so, in fact, that the proposed department really seems to be much more a Department of Planning than a Department of Science. The critique of the Department of Science option can be based on a number of points. Dr. Solandt cited the French experience with a Minister of Science who gradually took on some operational duties related to atomic energy and space, including the disbursement of a not insignificant research budget. In Dr. Solandt's view, this confuses the issue, because, "he has now got an operating department and is no longer an objective policy adviser and I am sure is suspect by all the other departments."11 A more compelling argument can be derived, in part, from the NRC experience. If a Department of Science were created which brought together some or all of such agencies as AECL, NRC, FRB (Fisheries Research Board), and MRC, the department would tend to be dominated, as Reagan has put it, "by its largest missionoriented element." The other components would not be "so much coordinated, as submerged."12 The tendency of the minister to hear, and to listen to, his own departmental voices and their respective priorities would be extremely strong, somewhat as it has been for successive heads of the NRC. In my view, the science policy machinery must insure, as far as possible, that the communication about science priorities be open interdepartmentally within the government, and between the university and industrial sectors outside the government. The NDP resolution calls for its proposed department to "take over and expand" those federal government functions concerned with science and technology. This can presumably be interpreted to include the placing of much of the present research capability of such departments as Agriculture and Energy, Mines and Resources into the proposed department. In a word, such a proposal would be a disaster. Quite apart from what it might do to particular missions, such as agriculture or energy, I would be prepared to assert that the more science and scientists are concentrated in a single department, the more likely it is that the department will become a department of and for science, rather than a department designed to do what the NDP resolution says 11.Senate of Canada, Committee on Science Policy, no. 8 (1968): 970. 12. Reagan was writing about American science, but the argument is equally relevant to Canada. See Reagan, Science and the Federal Patron, p. 259.

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it should do, namely, to assist in solving other social problems and priorities. If certain components of science and research remain with their mission-oriented departments, then one is not talking about coordinating all of science, only a small part of it. The fact is that science is, in itself, not a goal. The whole tenor of the contemporary emphasis has been to stress science in policy. It is precisely because science is supposed to be a means to help achieve a multiplicity of other departmental and agency goals that it cannot logically be housed in a single department.13 The proponents of both a Department of Science and a Minister of Science Policy appear to ignore, or at best give undue weight to, the requisites of interdepartmental and interagency power, at both the bureaucratic and political-ministerial levels. My research for this book has impressed upon me the strength of these forces in the Canadian environment. My present scepticism about the effectiveness of both the Department of Science and the Minister of Science Policy proposals rests ultimately on one fundamental assumption about the nature of these political-bureaucratic relationships. My position rests on the assumption (I think a realistic one) that the criteria by which cabinet members (or aspiring cabinet members) in all political parties assess the political power and status of cabinet portfolios are based, primarily, on a combination of two factors: the proportion of the budget that the portfolios command which in turn signifies influence with respect to interest groups or constituents (for example, Industry Trade and Commerce, Transport, Health and Welfare) and/or the inherent policy interests of certain portfolios (for example, Finance, External Affairs, Justice) which confer high status. Science does not rate highly on either of these criteria nor does it seem likely that it would be rated highly in the future. Science may indeed become politically more important but, as long as it is related politically as a means to other social goals, the portfolios of science policy ministers will not acquire that power. The power will likely accrue to the minister dealing with the substantive area of policy in which science is merely one of several inputs (for example, pollution and environmental management). The Trudeau government's present experimentation with Ministers of State, such as an urban affairs and housing minister (who will have 13. Reagan presents these arguments convincingly in Science and the Federal Patron, pp. 260-61. For a recent, but by no means convincing attempt to revive the debate in the U.S. see Herbert Roback, "Do We Need a Department of Science and Technology?," Science 165 (July 4, 1969): 36-43.

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a policy coordinative role but not a department as such), might lead to the conclusion that the Minister of Science Policy proposal is logically the same. Even on this ground, however, the parallel is not the same. The power of an urban affairs policy minister is likely to be much greater because it will deal with an important constituency and with an inherently important policy area that deals, not with a means to other social goals, but with an area of social policy that is intrinsically identified as an end in itself. The strong likelihood is that a Minister of Science Policy (that is, one with no operational responsibilities) would be politically weak, both in the sense of cabinet power, and in the sense of interdepartmental and interagency bureaucratic power. Because there are no operational responsibilities it is likely to attract a politician of very junior rank in the cabinet. Just as important, in terms of interagency power, it would be very difficult to give to one minister, or his officials, open access to the kinds of information that the other departments (with big science missions) have. There is a much greater legitimacy attached to such access if it comes from one of the central structures of government, the Privy Council Office and the Prime Minister's Office, or the Treasury Board. Such access is critical to the making of science policies. A Department of Science with operational research responsibilities would undoubtedly yield a politician of more senior rank (if one really examines the list of "power and duties" contained in the 1967 NDP resolution, who would not covet such a portfolio?), but this increase in power would be achieved only at the cost of placing other missionoriented science sectors and priorities at a decided disadvantage. It is in this sense that the tendency of the minister to respond to his own department's pressure and to its sense of priorities would be extremely strong. It is my view that, under the present circumstances of interministerial and bureaucratic power, Senator Grosart's description of the Minister of Science Policy, as a "sort of glorified science policy auditor general," contains more truth than he perhaps realizes.14 While the minister would have two requisites of an effective science policy structure, namely, a broader perspective and a degree of (legitimate) access to departmental information, he would lack the other requisite — political power and the power to actually allocate resources. A Minister of Science Policy, per se, is neither effective nor ineffective. That is why the three options discussed here must be analysed in 14. Senate of Canada, Committee on Science Policy, no. 11 (1968) : 1278.

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terms of each one's probability of success. There are at least two circumstances in which a Minister of Science Policy would be a more plausible structure. Both circumstances involve changes in the present political criteria by which cabinet portfolios are viewed and in the degree of political commitment and importance which Canadian governments are prepared to give to science and technology. It is by no means coincidental that Canada's historically most successful "Minister of Science Policy," the Honourable C. D. Howe, was also a politically powerful minister. While his role can be attributed to many reasons — a wartime urgency, the fact that he was an engineer, his relationship to C. I. Mackenzie — his political power and his interest in science were critical factors. He was not an "auditor general" for science. There is a high probability that Dr. Solandt's proposals for a Minister of Science Policy will yield a minister of the "auditor" variety. This is reinforced by the view of the scientists that the proposed minister would not be given any power. Presumably moral suasion and information would be the major tools of the minister of the auditor variety. A second circumstance which might make the Minister of Science Policy proposal more plausible deals with the total concept of cabinet organization in Canada. If my initial assumption about the criteria of power in cabinet portfolios is altered by the existence of a different kind of cabinet system, then it seems to me that the concept of a Minister of Science Policy would have considerably greater merit and likelihood of success. Here it is important to consider the wider system of decision-making. It is in this sense that "science policy," per se, is a misnomer, and the creation of a Minister of Science Policy or a Minister of Science cannot be viewed without giving serious consideration to the overall structure of cabinet organization. The logical extension of the Trudeau government's recent creation of a Cabinet Committee on Priorities and Planning and of the recently introduced Program Budgeting System appears to be the eventual creation of a kind of "inner" cabinet, a group of senior "policy" ministers who would concern themselves with broad policy areas, and who would not head large operational departments. An "outer" cabinet of "administrative" or departmental ministers would head the administrative and operational departments. Under such a system a Minister of Science Policy would be relatively more convincing in that he would presumably join ministers in charge of other core "clusters" of policies, such as defence and foreign affairs, economic policy, social welfare policy, and cultural policy, in the "inner" cabinet. Within each of these areas there would be several "satellite" operating

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departments and agencies. Under such a system the criteria of high status cabinet portfolios could change relatively from those which stress size and budget to those which stress policy development and even planning roles.'5 The need for an overall change in the nature of cabinet organization seems to have been in the back of the minds of some members of the Science Council. "The problem that faces the country is a fundamental one of Government organization, and the Science Council has hesitated to recommend a complete reorganization or a complete change — well, a prospective change in the structure of Government organization — but maybe we should." Later, Dr. Solandt wondered out loud whether "Ministers for policies of other kinds as well" were not needed. re Until such a structure in overall cabinet organization is carried to this Iogical conclusion (and it is by no means clear that it can be, or ever should be, given the other regional and ethnic criteria of cabinetmaking in Canada), a Minister of Science Policy, or a Department of Science such as the NDP has proposed, strikes me as having little likelihood of being successful. Until such an approach to overall cabinet organization is attempted, I am persuaded that there is a much greater probability of effective decisions being made if the government's internal advisory machinery is kept close to the Prime Minister or the Privy Council Office. In spite of my reservations about the tendency of the Treasury Board to have too much of a short-term view of things, I would even argue that, under the existing form of cabinet organization, it would also be a better location for science policy machinery than would the creation of a Minister of Science Policy or a Department of Science. Too little attention has been paid to the combination of factors which might make the President of the Treasury Board a more sensible location or point of entry into the cabinet for science policy machinery. The Treasury Board is caricatured too much as the bogeyman of the present structure, and it deserves a more thoughtful analysis. In terms of the three requisites of science policy machinery we have been developing — power, access, and perspective — it may do fairly well. 15.The NDP resolution, as noted earlier, also really proposes a "planning" unit. The difficulty is that it is one department, and it is notoriously difficult for one department to "plan" others. Punning can be structured only hierarchically as an executive group. 16.Senate of Canada, Committee on Science Policy, no. 11 (1968): 1277-78.

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In terms of political power the President of the Treasury Board is almost always likely to rank at least in the middle, or even in the upper ranges of the cabinet pecking order. In terms of interagency access to information, there is much greater legitimacy attached to the Treasury Board's role, in this respect, than any Minister of Science Policy could hope to achieve. In terms of perspective we have already observed that it has the advantage of not having a vested science mission itself. There may even be, under the auspices of a working PPB system, a longer term perspective in evaluating the government's total budget. The last point is still problematical because there will invariably be a gap between the aspirations of the PPB system and its reality. There seems reason to hope, however, that PPB will force a relatively longer term perspective on the Treasury Board than the latter has normally taken. Again, the point in defending the present system, wherein the President of the Treasury Board is also the Chairman of the Cabinet Committee on Science, is not to portray it as ideal, but rather to indicate that it is by no means a totally unwise structural option, given the three requisites of power, access, and perspective. I would not like to see the Science Secretariat become a part of the Treasury Board staff, but there is much to be said, particularly in view of the arguments presented earlier regarding the Science Secretariat and Science Council's disavowal of a short-term budget role, for a relationship to develop between the President of the Treasury Board and the Principal Science Adviser. The present structure, which sees the Science Secretariat and the Chief Science Adviser straddled between the Prime Minister and the Treasury Board, undoubtedly looks awkward in organization charts, but it seems relatively more plausible when one considers the three requisites. My preference for the present structure is based on the assumptions noted earlier regarding the evaluation of cabinet portfolios and the degree of importance granted to science. I would rate a Department of Science and a Minister of Science Policy as the least likely to be effective in that order. It is doubtful, however, that any machinery, including the present structure, can be effective unless a further condition is fulfilled. The total machinery must begin to covet a relatively more aggressive and continuous short-term budget role, along with its, heretofore, extensive preoccupation with long-run goals, and with general data-gathering. Although the greater part of this book has emphasized the impact of government, politics, and bureaucracy on science and scientists, the values of science have also begun to influence the broader characteristics of political decision-making. To use Amitai Etzioni's classification, the contemporary period in Canada can be seen as an attempt to move from an "incrementalist" approach

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to decision-making to a more "rational" model of decision-making.17 This is reflected, both in the bureaucracy with the introduction of the PPB system, and, in a wider sense, by the attempt of an external advisory body like the Science Council to suggest a statement of national goals and a system of major programs and priorities. As indicated in chapter 6, Prime Minister Trudeau and his advisers also seem to be imbued with a more rationalistic model of policy-making.18 The incrementalist approach is one where decisions are adapted "to the limited cognitive capacities of decision-makers," and it reduces "the scope and cost of information collection and computation.'" Such a system does not evaluate all alternatives, but only those policies which differ in an incremental way from existing policies. The increments are evaluated according to a very limited set of indices. The nature of "science policy" decision-making was essentially incrementalist for much of the period before, and even after, the GIasscoScience Secretariat period in the mid-1960s. The rationalistic model aspires to have decisions made in a different way. It sees problems, sets goals, weighs alternative means, costs, and benefits, and then acts on the appropriate option. It implies the availability of information of this kind, and its effectiveness depends, not only on the decision actually made in this way, but also on costs, both in time and money, of collecting and assembling the necessary information. The basic critique of the rationalistic model is that it requires more resources than decision-makers have. Hence there is no guarantee the resources will have been exhausted before a decision is made. The incrementalist model, on the other hand, is viewed as inherently conservative. Under such a model, "policies ... are the outcome of a give-and-take among numerous societal `partisans'. The measure of a good decision is the decision-maker's agreement about it." As a model of societal decision-making it also fails to account for periodic fundamental decisions. The incrementalist views these as exceptions, but Etzioni argues that this is hazardous because periodic fundamental decisions (such as a Medicare plan) "set the context" for future incremental ones. Later incremental patterns "are often the unfolding

17.Amitai Etzioni, "Mixed-Scanning: A 'Third' Approach to Decision-Making," Public Administration Review 27, no. 6 (December 1967): 385-92. 18.See my paper, "Mr. Trudeau, the Science Council, and PPB: Recent Changes in the Philosophy of Policy-Making in Canada" (paper presented to the Canadian Political Science Association, Forty-second Annual Meeting, June 3,1970, Winnipeg, Manitoba). 19.Etzioni, "Mixed-Scanning," p. 386.

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of trends initiated at critical turning points at which fundamental decisions are made."20 The critique prompts Etzioni to suggest a "mixed-scanning" model which combines elements of both: "Mixed-scanning reduces the unrealistic aspects of rationalism by limiting the details required in fundamental decisions and helps to overcome the conservative slant of incrementalism by exploring longer-run alternatives."21 The mixedscanning model involves a detailed "rationalistic" examination of some sectors with a "truncated" review of other sectors. The model involves the decision-maker in developing a strategy of how much time and resources he will invest in the two kinds of scanning: full detail, and truncated and general scanning for high order fundamental goals, and then a detailed evaluation within those high order choices. In short, it seems to suggest that a societal decision-making process cannot evaluate all of the options all of the time. It must be selective and hence, by implication, it involves the continuation, in some lower priority sectors of public policy, of the ongoing operation of incrementalist processes. In sum, however, the mixed-scanning model would yield a significant improvement in a society's ability to steer, to learn, and to reach its goals. Because all models are abstractions of reality, it is essential that we view them critically. The rationalistic and incrementalist models must be viewed in such a way, and yet I am persuaded that they might assist us in analysing the impact of science on decision-making processes. At the heart of the criticism of the rationalist model is the notion that the processes of rationalism involve significant costs, both in time and resources. They imply also that the policy-making means can become ends in themselves, without a decision or a better decision being reached. In short, the rationalistic model can become mired in a "getting ready to get ready" syndrome. Although I was earlier quite critical of the Science Council's specific attempt to relate the goals it posited with the major programs proposed, it is evident that its Report no. 4 is one of the most open attempts to rationalize politics and societal decision-making in Canada. While it is clear that a new form of political rationality is needed, there are dangers that the suggested combined attempts to evaluate via the PPB system and to evaluate via the "technical audit" advisory panels can lead to a form of superrationality which would soon degenerate into a bureaucratic nightmare for the scientist, the politician, the administrator, and the general public. The cost and time involved in evaluating all of the options all 20. Ibid., pp. 387 and 388. 21. Ibid., p. 385.

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of the time would quickly far outweigh the decision made, or would even make decision-making impossible. A curious paradox emerges when science and politics meet in the decision-making sphere. The scientist is portrayed as the most rational of human beings, but the scientist himself has a philosophical view that his own work cannot be "planned." His presence has been the most obvious demonstration to the politician of what rational problemsolving can do. While the politician is increasingly impressed with the reality and rationality of science, he is also aware of the fact that the nature of the scientific and political concepts of decision-making are and will be fundamentally different. In general terms, the scientific enterprise, to the extent that it can be said to make decisions, prefers to make them only after all the information is assembled. The essence of the political enterprise is that it must make decisions frequently when it does not want to and when it has very inadequate information. In the final analysis, perhaps, the apparent short-run confrontation between the long-existing incrementalist approaches and the recent science-induced rationalistic philosophies of policy-making may ultimately yield a de facto process of policy-making in Canada somewhat similar to the "mixed-scanning" model posited by Etzioni. It may yield a political system better able to steer and to learn. But the experience with bodies like the Science Secretariat and the Science Council suggests that our approaches are extremely rudimentary. We have created structures without really knowing what we wanted them to do. The science policy experience has, however, altered the principles of decision-making in two important respects. The Science Secretariat has been the first major structure to be inserted into the central structures of government in such a way that it can act as an "adversary" structure, capable of providing the politician with some alternative evaluation of options on science-related matters. This adversary posture has often been inadequate and it has been very timidly applied, but I am persuaded that future policy-making machinery will increasingly have to include this kind of structured conflict and competition. The second way in which the science policy experience has altered the nature of policy-making is that it has extended the "time-frame" of policy considerations. An external advisory body like the Science Council seems to have been given, in part at least, a "radar-like" role vis-å-vis the future. Such a perspective is undoubtedly essential for the political system, but the Canadian effort to develop such a "scanning" capacity has been very uneven. One major structural difficulty which external "scanning" bodies like the Science Council (and the Economic Council) face is that of developing a meaningful sense of the boundaries of their role. The Science Council has been excessively

210 CHAPTER EIGHT

preoccupied with developing its long-range, rationalistic posture and has spent too little time on its structural prerequisites vis-å-vis the government. There are limitations on how critical external advisory bodies can be before the internal bureaucratic-executive structures begin to view them as illegimate. This is one policy-making structural reality which severely restrains the short-run ability of external bodies like the Science Council from "competing" with the cabinet's bureaucratic and internal political advisers. In short, the lesson which seems to flow from the introduction of such adversary and scanning bodies as the Science Secretariat and Science Council is that we must become as adept at conceptualizing structures as at conceptualizing goals. Such an attempt at conceptualization seems to be beginning within the federal political and bureaucratic executive levels. It is to be hoped that such an exercise will not be a private affair! Much of the content of this book will encourage those with elitist theories of decision-making in Canada. It portrays a system that already has many of the characteristics which have been ascribed to "scientific societies," namely, a combination of professional elitism and very limited democracy. What the meeting of science and politics means for the democratic nature of decision-making is a problem which deserves much more explicit attention. It is a problem left dangling at the conclusion of this book for very good reasons. The reasons are similar to those which prompted me to insert a general disclaimer in the introduction regarding the matters which the book could not cover. The more one attempts to examine the growing interrelationships between science and politics, the more one becomes addicted to the reality that everything depends on everything else. The science and politics relationship is critically influenced by the role of universities; it will become increasingly a factor in that central aspect of Canadian politics, federalprovincial relations. It will alter and blur the conventional distinctions between the private and the public sectors.

Appendix A A Political Assessment of the Senate Report on Science Policy

The publication of the first volume of the Senate Committee's report, A Science Policy for Canada, adds to the growing list of studies on the subject of science and government in Canada.' The work of the Senate Committee, headed by Senator Maurice Lamontagne, has involved the most comprehensive and, more importantly, the most public and open assessment of this complex field of public policy. The first volume presents a critical review of past and present approaches and organizations. Following an introductory chapter on the scope of the Senate inquiry itself, the next four chapters trace the structural evolution and the philosophical assumptions of past and present science policy machinery. Chapter 6 assesses the Canadian scientific effort in an international perspective. The next three chapters report and summarize the testimony of the Canadian scientific, technological, and industrial community. The final chapter presents the case as to why we need an overall science policy in Canada. One of the early reactions to the report was the charge that it was biased.2 That is probably true, if for no other reason than that the committee wanted a report that would have an emphatic impact and, hopefully, result in major reform. It therefore spends little time praising the past, even though it could have found praiseworthy achievements. On the whole, the strategy of the committee to hit hard and to 1.Senate Committee, A Science Policy for Canada (Ottawa: Queen's Printer, 1970). (Hereafter cited as Senate report. Page references are given in text) 2. See David Spurgeon, "Is Senate Science Report One-Sided?" Globe and Mail, January 15, 1971.

212 APPENDIX A

present its arguments in hyperboles and stereotypes is probably effective. The scientific community can rightly call the report unfair or unbalanced, but scientists have probably become used to such criticisms, and their collective political skin has toughened in the past three years. This book and the Senate study can be called parallel studies insofar as their subject matter is that of the general development of the relationships between science and government in Canada. However, both the greater availability of resources and the broader mandate of the Senate Committee mean that the parallel is only a rough one. Indeed, at the level of resources the match is hardly an even one at all! It is important to stress, too, that in addition to the above points, the Senate study had to make specific recommendations. It had to answer or attempt to answer questions regarding the conceptual and organizational basis for developing a science policy. While this book has been written with a view to finding answers to these questions, its primary focus has been to assess (and, in some cases, explain) behaviour in the science and government relationship. In Canada, to a unique extent, the politics and processes of decision-making on science matters are played out in the federal executive-bureaucratic arena where interdepartmental, interagency, and intraorganizational "political" patterns are critically important. The a priori focus of this study prompted me to look for and stress the importance of these patterns. Many of the points of criticism and comment which can be raised regarding the Senate report flow directly from this difference in focus. The Senate Committee and its research staff are certainly aware of the existence and perhaps the strength of these patterns of behaviour, but the first volume of the report leaves the impression that the committee merely hopes that these organizational pathologies will go away or that they will at least be reduced by a little corrective surgery. The premise of the foregoing chapters is that they will not, and that any strategies regarding science policy and/or science policy machinery that fail to deal with them as variables rather than as villains will be inadequate. The work of the committee and its staff deserves praise and admiration. They have offered an unprecedented opportunity to publicly discuss this important topic. The committee's work has already resulted in the reorganization of the Science Council—Science Secretariat relationship and in the creation of a general scientific and technological association, the Association of the Scientific, Technological and Engineering Community of Canada. More recently, almost immediately

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after the report was made public, the Trudeau government announced that it would appoint a Minister of Science Policy.3 The objective of this discussion is to present a critique of several major issues raised by the first volume of the Senate report on science policy. It will question some of the conceptual arguments and empirical findings and will compare and contrast them with those observations contained in this book. The discussion will concentrate mainly on four major topics — hidden policy and goal displacement, the present science policy machinery, science policy as misnomer, and future science policy machinery — chosen because of their general relationship to the concepts and structures of science policy-making and because they deal with those areas of the two studies which are the most analogous. Since we must await the second volume of the committee's report for specific recommendations, some of the observations about its views on science policy machinery must be based on speculation arising from the general points emphasized in the first volume. Hidden Policy and Goal Displacement

The report attributes the pattern of development to a "hidden science policy" (p. 143), a policy developed "by accident" due to the influence of what it calls the "republic of science" and the "republic of management" (pp. 268-75). The emphasis of this book on the sociology of organizational behaviour prompted a description of the same phenomenon in chapter 1 in sociological terms as "goal displacement." Nevertheless, the report documents the symptoms of hidden policy and goal displacement in the clearest terms yet. As do the earlier Glassco Commission and Science Council reports, it traces the extent to which the repeatedly pronounced political goal of utilizing science to promote industrial and economic development has been circumvented, and how federal resources have been allocated disproportionately to pure science activities and to developing "scientists." It also restates the fact that the initial policy coordination role of the National Research Council and the Privy Council Committee on Scientific and Industrial Research had been largely forgotten (pp. 136-52) . Perhaps even more significantly, the report establishes the existence of goal displacement not only over the past fifty years, but even over the 3. The new minister will likely be one of the five "Ministers of State for designated purposes," the provisions for which were outlined in Bill C-207, the Government Reorganization Act, 1970. See House of Commons, Debates, January 26, 1971, pp. 2769-74.

214 APPENDIX A

past three years. Despite the fact that the "first obligation" of government policy was (again) stated in 1967 to be that of ensuring "that technical innovation in our industry is brought to a competitive level (internationally)," it observed: "The `first obligation' stated by the Minister of Industry in 1967 received in subsequent years the lowest priority: an increase in support to industry of $22 million, or 32%, as compared with $70 million or 115% for the academic sector and $130 million or 37% for government agencies. This clearly shows that it is difficult for the government to achieve its policy objectives in the absence of a coherent strategy and a central mechanism to carry it out" (p. 110).4 Hence the hidden policy mechanisms still seem to be in operation. It is interesting to note that Dr. R. J. Uffen, the principal science adviser to the cabinet, has challenged the Senate Committee's contention that goal displacement has occurred even since 1967. Appendix D presents the expenditure patterns on scientific activities to 1970 and indicates a higher rate of growth in expenditures in the industrial sector than in other sectors. Undoubtedly part of the problem in monitoring aggregate science policy performance is the difficulty in obtaining data and in agreeing upon the rules of interpreting the data under each category. My analysis in chapter 1 agrees with the symptoms identified in the report. However, its explanation of why hidden policies have developed seems to be uneven in its treatment of the major variables. On the one hand, the report is thoroughly convincing in debunking the often cited argument that Canada's poor industrial R & D performance is due to the greater need to develop primary industries (p. 150) .6 On the other hand, it is surprisingly simplistic in its treatment of the foreign ownership variable. Citing studies by A. E. Safarian and Melville Watkins, it notes that, on the whole, foreign-owned branch-plant firms have performed as well as, and in many cases, better than Canadian-controlled firms (p. 147). Much greater emphasis needs to be placed on the foreign ownership variable, particularly in the way in which the Watkins report related the pattern of foreign ownership to the structure of Canadian industry.6 The assessment in chapter 1 of the NRC and the causes of its goal displacement indicates that the Canadian industrial community was not exactly eager to develop its R & D capability, 4. See also p. 152. 5. The report appropriately calls this the "hewers of wood and drawers of water" argument. 6. See Melville Watkins, Foreign Ownership and the Structure of Canadian Industry. Report of the Task Force prepared for the Privy Council Office (Ottawa: Queen's Printer, 1968), pp. 94-96.

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a state of mind encouraged by the heady, foreign investment-induced expansionist era of the late 1940s and the 1950s. Robert Gilpin stresses the uniqueness of the Canadian science policy situation and attributes a great deal of the explanation for this unique situation to the foreign ownership variable. The foreign ownership variable, moreover, will become even more critical as federal strategies for technological development, based on a greater degree of control over foreign-controlled corporations, confront the policies of Quebec and other provinces that are still striving to attract foreign industry for employment and resource development purposes.? The variables on which the Senate Committee's explanation of the hidden policy seems to dwell are the "republic of science" and the "republic of management." The republic of science refers to an approach to the allocation of resources where scientists would be free, in laissez-faire fashion, to determine their own priorities (pp. 268-70). The republic of management approaches the allocation of science resources on a disjointed micro-basis. Science policies are formulated separately by those directly responsible for certain departments and agencies of government, "regulated from the outside by the requirements of economic, social or cultural missions" (p. 272) . The report seems to identify these two "republics" as if they are or were two different schools of thought, approaches, and groups. The point that needs to be more candidly stated is that the truly unique aspect of Canadian science policy structures centres on the fact that the two republics are virtually the same. They have encompassed largely the same group of "scientist-administrator" policy actors, located in the federal bureaucracy. The laissez-faire norms of science and of deputy ministers cumulatively reinforce one another. Grand designs and central coordinators are equally suspect to both. Chapters 1 and 2 of Science and Politics in Canada illustrate that these patterns are unique in degree in the Canadian context, and, therefore, it is misleading to view them as being somehow separate. And it is misleading to label these views as "minority" opinions as the report does (p. 268) . They may be "minority" to the Senate Committee, but they are not to policy actors themselves! The report might also have identified the republic of politics much more explicitly as a causal variable. While the general tenor of its discussion is critical of successive governments for not having science 7. Robert Gilpin, "Science Policy for What: The Uniqueness of the Canadian Situation." A paper presented to the Conference on Science Policy and Political Science, sponsored by the Science Council of Canada, Ottawa, March 19, 1971.

216 APPENDIX A

policies, the report seems to make the science and management republics the villains of the piece. It must be remembered that one of the primary reasons why "scientists and managers" were able to adopt a self-regulatory stance is that Canadian politicians to a unique degree (relative to other areas of government policy) let them. Finally, both the Senate report and this book fail to point out a simple reality that hidden policies and goal displacement often result because such general objectives as the "promotion of industrial and economic development" are so diffuse that they are bound to elicit different interpretations by different policy actors.8 One can identify goal displacement with fifty years' or even three years' hindsight. Even with twenty or thirty years' hindsight, however, the Senate Committee report is unconvincing when it cites several "cases" of Canadian scientific development where, the committee feels, science policies might have helped: the Canadian nuclear energy program, military aircraft development, and computer development (pp. 72-83). Perhaps science policies would have been of assistance, but the report really does not offer the sort of framework that might have been helpful. It is important to make this point not just to be fair with past policy actors but also to be realistic about the expectations we raise about present and future science policy concepts, particularly in view of the fact that we are now moving into the even more diffuse and value-laden area of social goals.

Present Science Policy Machinery

The report describes the evolution of the science policy machinery beginning with the National Research Council and the Privy Council Committee on Scientific and Industrial Research. It argues that the present newer bodies, such as the Science Secretariat, the Science Council of Canada, and the Economic Council of Canada, have not so much "replaced" the pre-1960s machinery but rather that they have merely become "parallel" to it. The report concludes that "it is difficult to see how under present conditions the unrelated efforts of three councils and a secretariat can be more successful in establishing a coherent and efficient central machinery for science policy than the isolated action of one council in 1916" (p. 106) . The report also asserts

8. See W. K. Warner and A. E. Havens, "Goal Displacement and the Intangibility of Organizational Goals," Administrative Science Quarterly, 12, no. 4 (March 1968): 539-55.

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that "there is really no new process for making science policy decisions," and that Canada's approach seems to be based "on a series of policies for individual sectors, all strongly influenced, at least negatively, by Treasury Board decisions" (p. 104). Generally speaking, my analysis in chapters 3, 4, and 5 strongly confirms the committee's contention that the present system is characterized by parallel structures, particularly with respect to the NRC. On the other hand, this kind of parallelism seems both natural and inevitable. Departments and agencies that have a major mission in a certain policy field are bound to claim and practise an advisory role no matter how many specialized central advisory bodies are created. A similar parallelism undoubtedly exists in economic policy between, for example, the Department of Finance, the Treasury Board, the Department of Regional Economic Expansion, and the Economic Council of Canada. The committee's contention that "no new process" has resulted is an inaccurate assessment. Granted the rational millenium has not been achieved, but my analysis in chapters 3, 7, and 8 indicates that the "rules of the game" in science policy decision-making have been altered by the mere presence and availability of the Science Secretariat and Science Council. Hence, there is a new process. The process is new because it creates a modified "adversary and vetting" capability that simply did not exist at all before 1964. One may deplore the fact that the "evidence" for this process is partly derived from such "negative" decisions as the cancellation of HARP, the Queen Elizabeth II Telescope, and the ING project, but one cannot conclude that no new process exists. Departments and agencies now know that other sources of advice are available to the cabinet and the Treasury Board, and an assessment of interdepartmental and interagency behaviour indicates that the presence of central policy competitors is indeed a significant change. The Senate report paints a fairly rosy picture about the attitudes of departments and agencies regarding the need for new central machinery (pp. 188-90). Chapter 2 indicates that their support for the Science Secretariat and the Science Council is much more conditional. Initially they viewed the machinery as being illegitimate, but gradually they have learned to live with the new machinery and to take its presence into account in their own strategies. Stating that a new process does exist is one thing. Assessing whether that process is good enough is another. The strongest area of agreement between the report and this book is the repeated emphasis on a science budget. Early in the report there is a strong indication that the committee supports the concept of a science budget. It seems to favourably endorse the Glassco Commission's recommendations in this regard

218 APPENDIX A

(p. 95) . One key to any significant further breakthrough in the rules of the policy game rests on this element of science policy machinery. The achievement of any long-run science policy objectives, as stressed in chapter 7, will be carried out by a series of short-run decision sequences, through the budgetary process. The monitoring of expenditures must take place in the short run. Chapter 7 urged that the Science Secretariat ought to be engaged in this activity on a continuous basis and the Science Council ought to do so on a selective basis. The budget role is the key to making the Science Secretariat more of an active and aggressive agency than it has been. The report is correct in its view that the secretariat has conceived its role in terms of a data-gathering and "service" agency (p. 183) . The service agency implies giving advice when asked, rather than actively initiating such advice. The disavowel of a budget role helps explain why a passive posture was adopted. In this respect the role of the secretariat has not appreciably changed under Dr. R. J. Uffen's tenure as director. Its "service" and nonbudgetary character predominated as it had under his predecessors, Dr. Forward and Dr. Weir. It must also be pointed out, however, that the passive role is a reflection of the fact that the Science Secretariat, as a central specialist advisory body, located in the Privy Council Office, was in a sense a unique forerunner of the developments that have taken place there in the past three years. Activist policy evaluation and initiation by central agencies ran against the grain of the way things were done in the entire federal government. The Science Secretariat seemed to know that not only was its role relatively illegitimate vis-å-vis the scientific bureaucracy, it was illegitimate, period! Because activist roles by central agencies may now be relatively more legitimate than in the mid-1960s, a better climate may exist so that bodies such as the Science Secretariat can be more active.° But greater legitimacy for such roles is not enough; the effective application of this role requires power, and part of the reins of power lies in the budgetary processes and in having a say in the way in which resources are allocated in the short-run period.

Science Policy as Misnomer

The Senate Committee's first report does not really tell us what a science policy is. It does explain why there is a need for one and it 9. For a discussion of the development and recent changes in central policy organizations in Canada see G. Bruce Doem and Peter Aucoin, eds., The Structures of Policy-Making in Canada (Toronto: Macmillan Company of Canada, 1971), chap. 3.

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devotes considerable time to telling us what a science policy is not. In short, it is not — or at least it should not be — merely the laissez-faire free market approach of the "republic of science" nor the Iaissez-faire disjointed incrementalist approach of the "republic of management." After assessing the Science Council's attempt at formulating a science policy, as reflected in its general report, Towards a National Science Policy for Canada, and in other reports, the Senate Committee concludes with the impression that the "Science Council has been working in a vacuum and that its impact on Canadian science policy has been minimal" (p. 107). The report is less than candid about why this is so. It is surely not just because there is an "absence of an overall plan." The real reason for vacuums in science policy is that, in several important respects, the concept of science policy is vacuous. The term "science policy" is a misnomer, in part at least. The failure to be candid is reflected in the way the report treats the so-called minority views of the "republic of management." It quotes the views of Dr. Richard R. Nelson, formerly of the RAND Corporation, as an example: In exactly the same sense, I wonder if it is meaningful to think of something called an overall science policy. There is a tremendous variety of objectives and instruments that come under that umbrella. You have objectives relating to defence, to economic growth, to science per se, to education. There is a vast variety of instruments: spending, taxes, patent protection, regulatory policy. Many of these objectives are relatively independent of each other. Many of the instruments can be used relatively independently. What you mean by a science policy as contrasted with other policies is very unclear.... [P. 273] The committee glosses over this "minority" view and lumps it in with the views of the managerial republic. The argument by Nelson is not the same as the other examples of the republic of management cited. His assessment is essentially a recognition of the policy processes inherent in the republic of politics. The use of science in policy, that is, in other social and economic areas (urban development, housing, environment, health, et cetera) will not be determined on the basis of priorities in the allocation of scientific resources as such. It will be the reverse. General political decisions and policies to tackle these substantive policy areas, based on a number of criteria,, will determine a major part of the allocation of scientific and technological resources. In this sense it is important to point out that a part of "science policy" is a misnomer. If one accepts the committee's definition that "science is the rational and systematic understanding of man and nature" and that technology

220 APPENDIX A

is "the organization of knowledge for the achievement of practical purposes" (p. 3), then logically one must assert that a significant part of the allocation of scientific and technological resources simply flows from decisions about general political priorities. For example, one of the top priorities of the federal government in 1970 was to end inflation. To help achieve this it created a Prices and Incomes Commission. Certain of the resources devoted to this commission could be called scientific or technological in an applied sense. The resources were allocated not because of anything one could call a science priority. It was a political priority. The importance of this point is not just a conceptual one. The fact is that a great proportion of scientific resources will be, and ought to be, allocated in this way. Hence, it is not a minority issue, no matter how much the report labels it as a minority view. Both the Senate Committee report (p. 281) and the earlier Science Council reports are on firmer conceptual grounds when they discuss those elements of science policy dealing with the policies for science; for example, the overproduction of Ph.D.'s, the appropriate pattern of allocations between sectors (governmental, academic, and industrial) and disciplines in the scientific community, and the development of scientific information systems. In short, the manner in which scientific resources will be allocated in the future will be as follows: a) a major proportion will be allocated through the regular political policy process, a process where "science" as such is not the a priori determinant. b) a major proportion will be allocated in an ongoing process of "little science" allocations based in part on the laissez-faire initiatives of scientists, but increasingly influenced by the social and economic missions determined in (a). c) periodic, but important, allocations determined by the active scanning and vetting activity of such bodies as the Science Council, the Science Secretariat (and future Senate Committees). These allocations will be concentrated on activity and criteria related to the technological and innovative potential of the programs and on their ability to produce the new industries with large potential export markets (for example, the STOL Aircraft). While it is true that "science resources ought to be independently considered in their own right,"10 as Dr. Christopher Freeman has 10. Quoted in Senate Report, p. 280.

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stated, it is equally true that the majority of science resources will not and should not flow from such "policies." There is a further conceptual ambiguity which the Senate Committee should have been more candid about: the claimed parallels between science policy and economic policy. "It must be emphasized again that the role of an overall science policy, like that of a macro-economic policy, is not to replace specific policies but to support them with a basic framework, broad terms of reference, and criteria to assess their efficiency" (p. 281). While it is clear that the art of economic policymaking is much more advanced than the art of science policy-making, it is surely debatable whether even economic policy does what this statement would have us believe. Economic policy certainly can provide a framework about the aggregate level of resources regarding fiscal and monetary policy, and about balance of payments, but the claim about criteria of efficiency is grossly overstated. Within the aggregate level of resources, economic policy tells us very little about the determination of priorities, except in a negative way. Moreover, as an economist, Senator Lamontagne has paid too little heed to Robert Gilpin's view that the science policy era is a "Keynesian revolution without a Keynes."21 The point here is not merely that a Keynes has not yet appeared. The ability to develop some aggregate economic framework rests in part on the fact that economic policy has been viewed more as a substantive policy end in itself. The present interest in "science policy" seems to be concentrated on science in policy, that is, science as a means to other ends. Therefore, we have no grand theorists like Keynes because we are dealing with something that exists, in part, in a conceptual vacuum, and probably always will. These ambiguities concerning science policy are reflected not only in the Senate report but also in the 1970 American assessment. Hearings before the Daddario Committee revealed the rational desirability of "deducing" science policy from national goals. It was noted, however, that "none of the witnesses who discussed the deductive approach to science formulation provided specific examples of how this method would operate."12 The answer to this question is surely that it is already done to a certain extent. It already operates in part at least. Normal priorities produced by regular political processes do result in the "deductive" allocation of scientific and technological resources. Because most scientists (and economists) view regular political processes as being inherently "irrational" (that is, not related to precise goals), they 11. Robert Gilpin, France in the Age of the Scientific State (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1968) , p. 246. 12. See John D. HoØeld, "Hearings on Science Policy," Newsletter for the Science and Public Policy Studies Group, 2, no. 1 (January 1971) : 8.

222 APPENDIX A do not recognize the processes for what they really are and they criticize them for being unplanned.

Future Science Policy Machinery One of the immediate events to occur following the publication of the first volume of the Senate Committee report was the announcement by the Trudeau government that it intended to appoint a Minister of State for Science Policy, the structural option seemingly favoured by the Senate Committee. Chapter 8 has assessed the pros and cons of the various structural options and hence a full discussion need not be repeated; however, it is still essential to comment on the new minister's probability for success. The general tenor of the Senate report is cause for even more concern about the intrabureaucratic and intracabinet obstacles that the new minister will face. Once again it would seem that the key structural focus for the new minister's role will be the science budget, and the report's emphasis on the budget makes it a likely central recommendation of the second volume. Just as the report drew an analogy between science policy and economic policy, it draws an even stronger (and more valid) analogy between government science activities and financial activities: Both kinds of operations are carried out in one form or another by all departments and agencies. They both involve the transfer of something — money or information — from the federal government sector to others. In carrying out their specific mission, all government agencies must plan their expenditures, prepare a budget, and thus develop their own financial policy. In the same way, they must all make decisions about their science activities and thus formulate their own science policy. But governments do not rely exclusively on the particular financial policies developed by their specialized agencies.... Yet this is precisely the approach that has been used by the Canadian government in dealing with its science activities. [P. 275] The paradox of the report is that, while conceptually analogies are drawn and stressed between science policy-making and economic and financial policy-making, the equally important structural parallels are ignored. Next to scientists, the villain of the Senate Committee report is the Treasury Board. Even though a Minister of Science Policy is virtually a fait accompli, it is to be hoped that both the government and the Senate Committee will take steps to ensure the closest identification of the new minister with the Treasury Board, such as by appointing him to the Treasury Board. The reasons were assessed in chapter 8 of Science and Politics, but they deserve repetition.

REPORT ON SCIENCE POLICY 223

The Minister of Science Policy will have to possess three structural prerequisites if be is to maximize the success of his role. Chapter 8 identified these as perspective, legitimate access, and power. The term "perspective" is defined as the capacity to take as objective a look as possible at all scientific activity both in and outside the government. This means that the minister could not head a department that would have operational responsibilities. Otherwise he would have an unavoidable vested interest in allocating resources to his own department. Perspective also means that the minister would need a science budgetary review role. It would appear that the new minister will have no difficulty fulfilling this first prerequisite. "Legitimate access" means that the new minister would have to have open access to the kinds of information about present allocations and future plans that the other departments and agencies with major mission-oriented scientific activity have. Because the minister will have no vested departmental interest, he will possess a modest degree of access. But there is a much greater legitimacy attached to such access if it comes from one of the central structures of policy-making such as the Treasury Board or the Privy Council Office. Even under the present machinery where the Science Secretariat (which would presumably become the advisory staff for the new minister) is located in the Privy Council Office and reports ostensibly to the President of the Treasury Board, Mr. Drury, such legitimate access has been difficult to achieve. That kind of access, however, is critical, especially if more active budgetary and policy roles are contemplated. The Minister of Science Policy, acting on his own, is going to have difficulties in this regard unless he can borrow, or attach himself to, the "reflected glory" of one of the central agencies. "Power" is defined as the ability, at the ministerial level, to gain access to information, to influence cabinet colleagues of those departments that actually allocate scientific resources, and to affect the.allocation of those resources. With respect to this prerequisite the minister will suffer serious liabilities. Because the Minister of Science Policy portfolio involves neither an inherently prestigious policy function with a politically important constituency nor responsibility to directly allocate a Iarge sum of resources, the portfolio is bound to involve a minister who will be politically weak in the pecking order of the federal cabinet. Because of purely personal skills and qualities he may be able to acquire greater power, but this is doubtful. It is not enough that the new minister have "authority" in a legal sense, as so many of the witnesses before the Senate Committee put it.13 He must find ways 13. See, for example, Senate Report, p. 254.

224 APPENDIX A

to acquire, or at least to maximize, all three of the prerequisites of perspective, legitimate access, and power. The dictates of intrabureaucratic and intracabinet behaviour make this essential, and these elements of policy strategy ought to be more openly discussed as variables in the science policy debate. The Senate report is properly concerned about the parallel nature and the lack of focus of the present science policy organizations — the three councils and the secretariat. There is a real danger, however, that a new form of parallelism might develop. While the total machinery may be focused on a single minister who has more time to think about these matters, the minister himself may not have the necessary access to the decision-making agencies. While the present structure admittedly represents a scatter-gun approach, it is at least aimed at the centre. There is reason to be concerned that the proposed machinery may be able to take better aim but that it will merely hit a periphery target, and will have even less net effect than the present structure.

Concluding Observations

The reservations expressed in this book about the conceptual and structural ambiguities of the science policy debate are increased by the finale of the first volume of the Senate Committee report that asserts how goal displacement has occurred in other policy areas, such as education, housing, social security, urban development, the environment, and health care (p. 283 ). We appear, in the final analysis, to be talking about the totality of social problems and objectives and, therefore, about the totality of central governmental policy-making structures. For scientists who feel themselves to be unfairly and excessively under attack, this ought to place the phenomenon of goal displacement in some perspective. The focus of this book continues to lead me to place great emphasis on the intraorganizational and political variables. This is the bias of some political science studies, and the area where the political scientist can make a legitimate and useful contribution. The Senate Committee had a much broader mandate and it had, as well, to recommend answers to serious problems. It is hoped that some of the questions and variables raised in this book will receive further emphasis as the "science policy" debate continues.

Appendix B NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL-MEDICAL RESEARCH COUNCIL GRANTS TO UNIVERSITIES

(In Millions of Dollars) NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL

1917-18 1927-28 1937-38 1947-48 1957-58 1958-59 1959-60 1960-61 1961-62 1962-63 1963-64 1964-65 1965-66 1966-67 1967-68

Scholarships and Fellowships

Research Grants

0.005 0.041 0.023 0.138 1.0 1.1 1.3 1.5 1.9 2.3 2.6 3.1 4.3 5.5 6.9

0.008 0.113 0.191 0.819 1.7 3.1 4.6 5.0 5.9 6.9 8.0 11.9 15.2 24.6 31.3

Facilities

0.1 0.3 0.4 0.7 1.0 1.7 1.9 2.0 3.7 6.1

Other

NRC Totals

0.3 0.3 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.5 0.5 0.6 0.8 1.5

* * * * 2.7 4.6 6.5 7.2 8.9 10.7 12.8 17.4 22.1 34.6 45.8

MEDICAL RESEARCH COUNCIL

GRAND TOTAL

* * * * 0.9 1.5 2.0 2.3 3.3 4.3 5.1 6.9 12.3 12.4 20.5

0.013 0.154 0.214 0.957 3.6 6.1 8.5 9.5 12.2 15.0 17.9 24.3 34.4 47.0 66.3

Support of Research in Canadian Universities by the National Research Council of Canada (National Research Council, 1969). Based on a brief prepared for the consideration of the Study Group on Support of Research in the Universities co-sponsored by the Science Council of Canada and the Canada Council, March, 1968, p. 29. * Distribution between "Science and Engineering" and "Medical" not available.

SOURCE:

Appendix C Summary of Goals of Six Professional Associations

Agricultural Institute of Canada 1) To organize and unite all workers in scientific and technical agriculture, so that they may combine effort to promote the scientific and practical efficiency of the profession and to make the profession of increasing service to the agricultural industry; 2) To maintain high standards in the profession; 3) To encourage a national policy of agricultural research; 4) To help to procure for scientific work in agriculture greater financial support and wider fields of usefulness; 5) To aid in securing and maintaining closer cooperation among all workers engaged in the profession of agriculture in Canada, and better coordination of their work; 6) To aid in bringing about a closer cooperation between the profession as an organized body and the various agricultural associations throughout Canada; 7) To serve as a medium where progressive ideas for improvements in agricultural education, investigation, publicity and expansion work can be discussed, formulated and recommended for adoption when deemed advisable; 8) To aid in ensuring the employment of professional men for professional positions; 9) To issue publications in the interests of agricultural science. Contemporary Interpretation of Purposes and Objects Based upon a study of the institute's organization and operations in

SUMMARY OF GOALS 227 1962-63, a statement of interpretation of the organization's purposes and objects was approved at the 1964 annual meeting as follows: The purposes and objects of the Agricultural Institute of Canada are to be interpreted as meaning the following: 1. To establish and maintain the cooperation and coordination of all provincial professional agricultural organizations, associated with the Agricultural Institute of Canada as its provincial divisions, and all national scientific societies with objectives which pertain to the advancement of agriculture through science which are associated with the Agricultural Institute of Canada as affiliated societies, upon policies and activities of common interest by: a) developing and maintaining high standards in the profession of agrology in Canada; b) facilitating the acquirement and interchange of professional and scientific knowledge among the members of the Agricultural Institute of Canada and its affiliated societies; c) advancing the professional and economic well being of the members; d) assisting in the development throughout Canada of uniform registration requirements and examination standards for the profession of agrology; e) providing advice respecting legislative matters common to professional agricultural bodies throughout Canada; f) providing a forum for the discussion of problems and developments respecting professional and scientific matters related to agriculture; g) promoting a knowledge and appreciation of the profession of agrology and enhancing the usefulness of the profession to the general public; h) promoting research and the application of the results of research for the betterment of agriculture; i) maintaining activities to foster high standards in educational institutes and programs pertaining to agriculture. 2. To cooperate with other societies or organizations for the advancement of mutual or national interest. 3. To act as a national voice speaking on behalf of professional and scientific agriculturists in Canada. SOURCE:

Agricultural Institute of Canada, Membership Directory (Ottawa,

1966).

Canadian Aeronautics and Space Institute Section 1. The object of the Institute shall be: to advance the art, science and engineering of aeronautics.

228 APPENDIX C

The word "aeronautics" as used herein shall refer to all forms of flight by physical means, both in and beyond the atmosphere of the Earth. Section 2. Without in any way Iimiting the generality of the object set out in Section 1, the means by which the advancement of the art, science and engineering relating to aeronautics and space shall be accomplished may include, inter alia, the following: a) the provision of facilities for the exchange of information among its members, b) holding of meetings for the presentation and discussion of technical papers, c) the promotion of the exchange of information between the Institute and other scientific and engineering organizations having interests related to aeronautics and space, d) the establishment and maintenance of libraries and collections of information and technical material, e) the publication of a journal, and f) the encouragement of education, research and invention. sounca: Canadian Aeronautics and Space Institute, By-Laws and Regulations (Toronto, January, 1968).

Canadian Association of Physicists a) To further the advance of the Science of Physics; b) to promote the use of physical discoveries in the interests of mankind; c) to promote knowledge in the physical sciences and the dissemination of information relating thereto in and between all sections and regions of Canada; d) to advance mutual understanding and cooperation between physicists on the one hand, and universities, research organizations, and industry on the other. sounca: Canadian Association of Physicists, "The Objects of CAP" (mimeo).

Canadian Council of Professional Engineers a) To establish and maintain a bond between the provincial and territorial associations and cooperation of professional engineers in Canada and to assist them in: i) coordinating and standardizing their activities; ü) promoting and maintaining high standards in the engineering profession;

SUMMARY OF GOALS 229 iii) promoting the professional social and economic welfare of the members of the engineering profession; iv) promoting a knowledge and appreciation of engineering and of the engineering profession and enhancing the usefulness of the profession to the public; v) promoting the advancement of engineering and related education; vi) generally carrying out their various objects and functions. Canadian Council of Professional Engineers, Letters Patent Incorporating the Canadian Council of Professional Engineers (Ottawa, January 14, 1965). SOURCE:

Chemical Institute of Canada a) To maintain all Branches of the profession of Chemistry and

b) c)

d) e)

f) g)

Chemical Engineering in their proper status among other learned and scientific professions; To form an organization immediately available for consultation by the Government; To encourage original research, develop and maintain high standards in the profession, and enhance the usefulness of the profession to the public; To protect the public by gathering together a body of chemists and chemical engineers who may be consulted with confidence; To look after and promote the well-being and interests of chemists and chemical engineers by: having registration bureaux, social centres, employment bureaux, centres and mediums for the acquirement and interchange of scientific experience and knowledge, clearing houses of chemical and chemical engineering knowledge, including libraries and bureaux, and other means; To establish scholarships, medals and prizes; To petition Parliament in the interests of Chemist and Chemical Engineers.

SOURCE:

Chemical Institute of Canada, Charter and By-Laws (Ottawa, 1967).

Engineering Institute of Canada a) to develop and maintain high standards in the engineering profession; b) to facilitate the acquirement and the interchange of professional knowledge among its members;

230 APPENDIX C

c) to advance the professional, the social and the economic welfare of its members; d) to enhance the usefulness of the profession to the public; e) to collaborate with universities and other educational institutions in the advancement of engineering education; f) to promote good relations and the exchange of information between engineers and members of allied professions, nationally and internationally; g) to cooperate with other technical societies for the advancement of mutual interests; h) to encourage original research, and the study, development and conservation of the resources of Canada. SOURCE:

Engineering Institute of Canada, By-Laws (Montreal, 1967).

Appendix D Federal Government Expenditures on Scientific Activities 1958-59 to 1970-71 MILLIONS 059_6 0

100

61-62

63-64

65-66

67-68

69-70

7I-72

90 60

70

.il

60

III

50

OM

III

ME

' ■■

III ■■

40

30

20

100 90 80

--

70

--"11111.11 .,

60

..

5 40

"' / ~

30

UNIVANDTIES

20

N®

10

58-59

60-61

62-63

64-65

66-67 ' 68-69

70-71 CHART 4 SOURCE: Dominion Bureau of Statistics (Ottawa, 1970), prepared by the Science Secretariat of Canada. * Industrial Research and Development Incentives Act

Index

Advisom Panel for Scientific Policy, 5.48, i 0

~ m i c u l m aInstiNte l of Canada, 1026,132,226

Agricultural m a r c h . 87 Agriculture, Department of, 2.23, 26,150

American Federal Council for Science and Technology, 199 American 0 5 c e of Science and Technology. 199 American presidential science adviser, 151, 199 American space program, 145, 175,

British Committee on Atomic Energy, 157 British scientific professional associations, 130 British Select Committee on Science and Technology, 157 Broadbent, Edward, 162, 163 Brookhaven laboratories, 115 Budgetary process, 180, 184,206, 218

Bureau of Government Organization, 8

Butler, Gordon, 127

187

Arrow project, 145. 182 Association Canadienne-Frangaise pour SAvancement des Sciences (ACFAS), 108,133,137 Association of the Scientific, Technologicaland Engineering Community of Canada (SClTJX), 16, 13940.212

Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada (AUCC), 120 Atomic Bomb, 51 Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (ABCL),5,101,104,111 Atomic Energy Control Board (AECB), 104,109

Cabinet Committee on Priorities and Planning, 204 Cabinet committees, 146 Cabinet Committee on Science and Technology, 15 Cabinet organization, 205 Cabinet portfolios, 202 Camsell, Charles, 25 Canada Council, 165 Canadian Aeronautics and Spaca Institute, 227-28 ~anadi&~ssociation of Physicists, 78,105,127,139,228-29

Canadian Committee of the International Astronomical Union, 66 Canadian Consemation Commission. 3

Bachynski, Morel, 139 Basic m a r c h , 160 Beals, C. S., 68 Bie science, 101, 102, 119

Canadian Council of Professional Engineers, 132,228 Canadian Manufacharem' Association. 52 Canadian National Railways, 91

234 INDEX Canadian Patent Corporation, 161 Canadian scientific community, 14, 123, 192; absence of consensus of, 122; career patterns of, 89; "committee" and "colleague" network of, 6, 39; communication between sectors in, 90, 139, 165; "curiosity-directed" scientists of, 169; development of political skills in, 130; elitism in, 196; system of, 123, 131 Carnegie Institution, 67 CERN, 115 Chairman of the Privy Council Committee on Scientific and Industrial Research, 61, 142 Chalk River, 42, 51, 104, 113, 115 Chant, Donald, 128 Chemical Institute of Canada, 44, 78, 126, 127, 139, 229 Chief Science Adviser to the Cabinet, 84, 88 Churchill, Gordon, 108, 142 Churchill Range for Upper Atmosphere Research, 61, 78, 79 Civil Service Act of 1918, 29 Civil Service Commission, 23, 29, 31 Cockroft, Sir John, 109 Coldwell, M. J., 50 Committee of Deans of Engineering, 116, 132 Communications, Department of, 30 Conseil europeen pour la recherche nucleaire (CERN), 115 Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), 50 Cronyn Committee, 26, 27, 28, 37

Daddario Committee, 221 Dawson, Sir William, 134 Decision-making process, 55, 61, 62, 64, 65, 147, 209, 210; "adversary" procedure of, 65, 188, 209, 217; rules of the game in, 61, 70, 188, 217; "time-frame" of, 209; tradeoffs in, 149 Defence, Department of, 23 Defence Production, Department of, 61

Defence Research Board, 5, 46, 61, 70, 88, 91 de Havilland Aircraft of Canada, Limited, 91 Diefenbaker, John, 108, 142, 144 Dominion Experimental Farms, 2, 27 Drury, C. M., 11, 67, 84, 142, 153, 200 Duckworth, H. E., 112 Economic Council of Canada, 12, 13, 70, 172, 209, 216 Economic policy, 221 Eisenhower, Dwight D., 152 Electric Reduction Company of Canada Ltd., 91 Energy, Mines and Resources, Department of, 14, 65, 67 Engineering Institute of Canada, 128, 132, 229-30 Estimates. See Budgetary process Etzioni, Amitai, 206 Expenditures on scientific activity, 4, 149; difficulty in obtaining data on, 214; geographical concentration of, 196 External advisory bodies, 210 External Affairs, Department of, 80 Federal bureaucracy, 23, 33, 55, 74, 153, 193; environment of, 157; "political system" of, 50, 146, 202; views of Science Secretariat and Science Council of Canada, 74-77 Federalism, 132, 176 Federation of Biological Societies, 127 Finance, Department of, 33 Fisher, Douglas, 154 Fisheries, Department of, 5 Fisheries Research Board, 2 Foreign ownership, 6, 162, 214-15 Forward, Frank A., 10, 59, 63, 86, 218 France, science policies of, 184 Freeman, Christopher, 220 French-Canadian scientists, 133, 138 Functional analysis, 38

INDEX 235 Gaudry, Roger, 12, 199 General scientific association, 125, 133, 197. See also National academies Geological Survey of Canada, 2, 23, 26 Gilpin, Robert, 184, 195, 214 Glassco Commission, 2, 6, 9, 48, 57, 63, 136, 213 Goal displacement, 22, 118; causes of, 49, 213-16 Government Organization Act of 1969, 84 Grace, Norman, 139 Great Britain, 56, 133 Grisdale, J. H., 25 Grosart, Allister, 139, 179 Gunning, Harry E., 176

Hawker Siddeley Canada Ltd., 91 Hays, Harry, 150 Health care delivery systems, 174 Heeney, Arnold, 32 High Altitude Research project (HARP), 70, 182, 217 High energy physics, 105 High energy project, 105-8 Moulding, J. D., 94 House of Commons, 36, 50 (see also Parliamentary attitudes); proposal for standing committee on science and technology, 157, 162; 1960-61 special parliamentary committee on research, 142 Howe, C. D., 4, 9, 48, 51, 141, 204

Industrial research, 22, 49, 58, 128, 175, 214 Industry, Department of, 61, 143 In-house research, 58, 64 Institute for Aerospace Studies, 94 Intense Neutron Generator (ING), 2, 14, 81, 99, 101, 145, 171, 175, 182, 217; cancellation of, 118, 147; cost of, 104; Study Advisory Committee on, 114; symposium on, 111 Interior, Department of the, 3, 23, 26

Katz, Leon, 95 Kennedy, John F., 152 Kent, Tom, 8, 144 Keynes, J. M., 195, 221 Korean War, 46 Lakoff, Sanford A., 124 Lamontagne Committee. See Senate of Canada Special Committee on Science Policy Lamontagne, Maurice, 13, 97, 139, 211 Lewis, W. B., 114, 188 Liberal party, 158-59 Lignite Utilization Board, 26 Little science, 101, 124, 196 Macallum, A. B., 24, 28, 31, 37, 194 McCutcheon, Wallace, 83 Mackenzie, C. J., 4, 8, 42, 47, 58, 86, 109, 204 Mackenzie report, 2, 9, 58 McNaughton, A. G. L., 47 McTaggart-Cowan, Patrick D., 85 Maritime provinces, 196 "Materials science," 105 Medical Research Council, 5 Merit principle, 30 Military defence research complex, 162 Mines, Department of, 3 Mines and Technical Surveys, Department of, 5, 14, 66, 81, 116 Ministerial arena, 141; access to, 151; relationships to scientists, 149 Minister of Science Policy: announcement of, 213; concept of, 143, 151, 153, 194, 198-99, 202-4, 205, 206; as a structural option, 222-24 Ministers of State, 202 Mission-oriented agencies, 36 Mission-oriented research, 93, 168, 172 Mount Kobau, 14, 67, 68 National academies, 135. See also General scientific association

236 INDEX National Academy of Sciences, 121 National Aeronautical Research Committee, 62 National Health and Welfare, Department of, 5 National Research Council (NRC), 1-3, 21, 26, 72, 101, 112, 177; advisory committees of, 40, 131, 154; antibureaucratic ideology of, 34, 41; associate committees of, 39, 44; 1921 bill, 24; committee "democracy" in, 99; coordinating and advisory role of, 34, 48; d616gu6-g6n6ral of, 193; diffuseness of goals of, 23; divisions of pure physics and pure chemistry in, 93; laboratories of, 2I, 24, 26; organization of, 38; relationship of, to Civil Service Commission, 32; representation of industry on, 5152; role of, in creation of professional associations, 131; wind tunnel, 79 Nelson, Richardson R., 219 New Democratic Party, 154, 160-63, 198, 205 NRX and NRC reactors, 113 Nuclear physics, 103 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), 79, 198 Orlikow, David, 157, 163 Parliamentary attitudes, 36, 50, 154-56 Patterson, G. N., 94 Pearson, Lester B., 8, 12, 87, 142, 145 Pepin, Jean-Luc, 116 Petch, Howard, 127 Planning, 186, 201 Planning, programming and budgeting (PPB), 73, 143, 178-79, 186, 208 Policies for science, 167, 168 Political parties, 158. See also Liberal party, Progressive Conservative party, New Democratic Party

Pollution Probe, 128 Porter, Arthur, 96 Porter, John, 163 President of the Treasury Board, 72, 143,205 President's chief science adviser, 199 Prime Ministers: access to, 89; attitudes to science of, 144, 146 Prime Minister's Office: expansion of, 198; "presidentialization" of, 146 Prince, Eward E., 28 Principal Science Adviser to Cabinet, 15 Privy Council Committee on Scientific and Industrial Research, 2-3, 5, 9, 23, 34-35, 48, 56, 64, 66, 70, 80, 116, 185; chairman of, 61, 142; transformation of, 146, 200, 213 Privy Council Office, 10, 12, 55, 77, 78, 84, 114, 146, 218 Professional associations: democratization of, 129; as interest groups, 78, 126, 129; objectives of, 125; organization of, 131-32; role of, as apolitical structures, 128, 130; role of, in creation of the Science Secretariat and Science Council of Canada, 128 Progressive Conservative party, 159-60 Public opinion, 158, 163, 192 Public Service Commission. See Civil Service Commission Puddington, I., 127 Pure research, 128, 170

Quebec: relative absence of scientific resources in, 196; educational system in, 138 Queen Elizabeth II Telescope (QEII), 2, 14, 66, 171, 175, 217 Queen's University, 107

Rationality: of decision-making, 207-8; of political processes, 195; of the Science Council and Science Secretariat, 189

INDEX 237 RCA Victor Company, 8, 94 Reisman, S. S., 74 Ronson, Clifford, 34 Rose, D. C., 68 Ross, R. A., 26 Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, 66 Royal Commission on Government Organization. See Glassco Commission Royal Society of Canada, 108, 129, 133, 135, 137, 138

Safarian, A. E., 214 Saunders, C. E., 27 Schneider, W. G., 49 Science budget. See Budgetary process Science Council of Canada, 2, 11, 55, 59, 71, 94, 95, 144, 168, 171, 198, 216; associate members of, 94; chairman of, 12, 80, 91, 152; committees of, 81, 94; consideration of the ING proposal by, 116; inventory studies of, 79; as longterm adviser, 71; "postseparation" period of, 77; purpose of, 11; representation on, 71, 89, 94, 97, 187, 195; role of, as a public forum, 15; special study groups of, 81; staff of, 85, 99 Science, Department of: concept of, 56, 153, 198, 200-3, 205, 206 Science Forum, 164 Science policy, 21, 144, 167, 169, 171, 191, 197, 213, 218 Science policy machinery, 15, 55, 66, 71, 74, 97; future, 222-23; present, 216-18; structural options of, 197-206 Science Secretariat, 2, 5, 8, 55, 5961, 65, 80, 84, 144, 168, 216, 218; as budget adviser to the Treasury Board, 73, 183-84; as a confidential adviser, 15, 60; directors of, 86-88; passive data-gathering role of, 80, 218; positive active advisory role of, 85; staff of, 89-90 Scientific management, 30

Scientist-administrators, 195 Scientist-entrepreneurs, 195 Senate of Canada, 24 Senate of Canada Special Committee on Science Policy, 2, 48-49, 139, 157; analysis of report of, 211-24 Shutt, F. T., 26 Snow, C. P., 155 Social sciences, 95-97 Solandt, O. M., 12, 91, 172, 179, 198 Space agency, 61, 80 Spurgeon, David, 127, 165 Steacie, E. W. R., 12, 43, 50, 56, 88, 128, 135, 142 Stevens, H. H., 35 Symons, T. H. B., 159

Task force on Satellite Communications, 79 Technical information, 52 Technology, 1, 52, 82, 136, 148, 174 Tory, H. M., 28, 41 Trade and Commerce, Department of, 3, 23, 35 Trainor, Lynn, 129 Transport, Department of, 5 Treasury Board, 5, 23, 25, 33-35, 61, 70-73, 185, 198, 200, 217 Tri-Universities Meson Facility (TRIUMF), 119 Trudeau, P.-E., 15, 118, 142, 146, 150, 202, 212

Uffen, R. J., 15, 84, 88, 188, 200, 214, 218 United Kingdom, 6, 56, 157 United States, 6, 56, 133, 144, 157; Canada's exposure to, 197 United States Atomic Energy Commission, 121 Universities of Canada: internal government of, 102; science policies of, 120 Universities Research Association Inc., 121 University of Alberta, 119 University of British Columbia, 10, 68, 108

238 INDEX University of Manitoba, 112 University of Saskatchewan, 94 University of Toronto, 67, 108

Van Steenberg, W. E., 66 Veterans Affairs, Department of, 5 Vig, Norman, 130

Watkins, Melville, 214 Wehlau, W. H., 68 Weinberg, A., 170, 188 Weir, J. R., 7, 59, 83, 87, 218 Whitehead, J. R., 7, 59 Wind tunnel. See National Research Council Wood, Robert C., 130 World War II, 113, 141, 154