Q&A: Evidence for Democracy's Rachael Maxwell on Budget 2021 and listening to the science

2012 was not a good year for Canada's scientific reputation. That summer, white-coated scientists marched to Parliament Hill to hold a mock funeral for the "death of evidence" as a protest against cuts to scientific programs by Stephen Harper's federal government. Citing the weakening of environmental legislation, lab closures and the muzzling of scientists, the protestors argued that the government policies had weakened the flow of scientific evidence to the public.

Evidence for Democracy was born out of that protest movement, and it's now a not-for-profit organization that promotes the transparent use of evidence in government decision-making. Six years later, it's part of a much different science ecosystem.

Environment & Climate Change Canada was second only to Health Canada in its level of funding in the recent federal budget. The pandemic, too, has mobilized scientists across the country and led to public debates on the use of scientific evidence for decision-making (for an example, look to the backlash the Ontario government received after ignoring the advice of its panel of health experts).

Rachael Maxwell, the new executive director of Evidence for Democracy (E4D), recently released an analysis of the federal budget, which noted promising investments in sectors like quantum tech and genomics but argued that the country still needs a national science strategy. Before E4D, Maxwell worked with Genome Canada and Mitacs in a number of public affairs and policy roles, often as a bridge between the worlds of scientific research and policymaking.

Maxwell spoke to Research Money this week about the 2021 budget, why relationships are most important in developing evidence-based policies, and how she views the role of the organization under Trudeau's Liberal government.

What is your reaction to the recently-released federal budget?

There's a lot of variables swirling around this budget, especially a potential federal election. It's important to keep that in mind when reading a federal budget. The volume of demands to be met in his budget was a tall order — we haven't had a federal budget in two years and we're still in the thick of managing COVID-19 across the country. My read on the budget is that it really does attempt to manage the crisis in the short-term but also looks towards the future in terms of growth and recovery.

From a science perspective, my main take-away is that there's a persistent issue in Canada of not having a strong national vision for science. I worry that, in terms of science, if a budget doesn't directly provide significant increases to fundamental, investigator-led research, that the scientific community doesn't see it as a win. But there are significant investments in science in this budget, in areas like artificial intelligence, genomics, quantum technology, and you have several measures in terms of R&D partnerships and bio-manufacturing. There are a number of commitments in there for improving data infrastructure and data strategy for better decision-making. There's a lot in the budget to actually celebrate and to be excited about.

Sometimes we miss out on that because it feels like these are niche, one-off investments, so it's hard for us to see that as an overall system or an overall approach to funding science.

You recently wrote that the federal budget was missing a National Science Strategy. What would it look like to have a broader strategy?

I think about this a lot. And who leads that? That's another interesting thing.

To point to the last year and what we've seen, something interesting has happened. The science community overall pivoted and redeployed to contribute to the COVID-19 challenge. And we've seen what can happen when a variety of stakeholders from the science community and from outside the science community work together towards a common end. There are models around the world where they are taking a more mission-oriented or challenge approach to driving research. Rather than funding a variety, grab-bag of research, it's more targeted to specific challenges. Maybe they're around anti-microbial research or food security. I think the goal of things like a mission-oriented approach is to get the research community working towards common goals, so you end up with much more interdisciplinary, inter-sectoral approaches and solutions.

When you say mission-oriented approach, are you thinking of the DARPA-type model?

That's everybody's go-to, but yes.

As you pointed to in your piece, MP Kirsty Duncan also recently tabled an amendment to create a standing committee on Science and Research. What do you see as the significance of that?

Something like this should be seen in the spirit of good intentions. There hasn't been a standing committee dedicated to science and research. We don't really have a point of comparison here, but I would hope that the underlying motives around this stem from recognition that long-term science and research require long-term vision and coordination, and that there should be a place in Ottawa to give a voice to that long-term vision.

So you see this as a potential first step with more to come?

I'm tentatively hopeful.

Moving away from the budget, how well have Canadian governments, federal and provincial, done in ensuring that scientific evidence on COVID-19 is reflected in policy?

The pandemic has been a real stress test for science, for research applications, for science advice, and for the ability of decision-makers to translate scientific evidence into population-level policy and public health measures. There's a lot going on here, and a lot of different approaches across the country. Not only different approaches, but also overlaps in jurisdiction and some fuzziness around jurisdiction.

I'm really focused on the relationship aspect, which is the relationships between those giving advice and those making decisions. The structure in place around science advice is not something that, in the past, has been talked about much or on display in the same way [as during the pandemic]. But it's important to recognize that science advisory structures are set up in a specific way. It's set up to, in my mind, be both protective and limiting in a way. It's protective in that it's not science or scientists making the decisions, so it's protecting scientists from being the one in the decision-making position. But it's also limiting, because it's not up to a scientist to determine the weight that scientific evidence will have in making a decision. This is where things become really tricky, because science isn't in the decision-making seat. The science advisors we have in Canada are unelected public servants who are not granted the democratic powers of public level decision-making.

So, that's what I have been focused on rather than grading what's going on from one government to the next. I'm very curious about this relationship. Going forward, Canadians will want to think about how their governments have held up during this time, particularly in the application of science in the decisions that have been made on their behalf.

Is there a good way of giving advice and bad ways of doing it? Is there evidence on providing good scientific advice?

I'm not sure if there is a significant body of evidence that has looked carefully at what is good science advice infrastructure. But I imagine we will soon have a wealth of information on this.

What you hear often if you've ever had the opportunity to hear from science advisors like Rémi Quirion in Quebec or Mona Nemer [Canada's chief science advisor], or even New Zealand's former science advisor Peter Gluckman, is that science advice actually really comes down to trust and relationships.

In working with scientists over many years, they do worry a lot about their work being misconstrued and taken out of context, which is an understandable and important pre-occupation. But it's one that can be tempered by good relationships, trust and communication.

Evidence for Democracy originally began as a response to the policies of Stephen Harper’s government, when scientists were prevented from speaking to the press and there were large funding cuts made to government science programs. How do you view the role of E4D now that it has a less adversarial role with the government?

There's always going to be a role for E4D because there is never going to be a perfect state where science and policy are perfectly aligned and everyone agrees on how science should be used in decision-making. Science doesn't change from government to government, but values change. And I think we saw this in Canada with the later years of the Harper government. I would be pretty shocked to speak to former prime minister Stephen Harper and hear him say that he's anti-science. I'm not sure that was the issue. The issue was how much that administration wanted to value science at that point in time. A different government will place a different emphasis and different value on science.

When I hear politicians saying things like "I believe in science" or "we listen to the science", and this decision is based on science, on the one hand I'm pleased to hear that, I'm pleased to hear that a politician has listened to science. But there's a bit of a trap there. By saying I'm pro-science or I listen to the science, you automatically position everyone else as anti-science. Part of E4D's role as a non-partisan organization is to shape a non-partisan discussion around science. We understand that the role that science plays will change based on the values that enter into an issue. We're here, as a steadfast anchor, to keep science and evidence at the table as much as we can.

You talked about different values between governments. How much would you say the Trudeau government values science?

When the Trudeau Liberals were first elected, they really emphasized science and for the first term there, there was a minister of science. We've seen a lot of positive developments. We have a chief science advisor and a growing network within the government of departmental science advisors. These are all positive signs. But the systems aren't perfect and there's lots more work to be done.

This current government does reference evidence-informed decision-making. Even in the updated mandate letters, there is language about making decisions using the "best available evidence." So we like these signals, of course. But one thing that we think is missing from this [discussion] is that it's actually quite hard to evaluate if governments are making decisions off of the best available evidence. So one thing that we are working on, and will publish later this spring, is a report on transparency. At the core of it is a framework that we have adapted from an organization in the UK called Sense about Science. They formulated a framework for evaluating the transparency on the use of evidence in decision-making. We've taken that framework, adjusted it for our context here in Canada, and we'll be unveiling that framework pretty soon, actually.

So, our position is that we are big fans of the signals towards evidence and evidence-informed decision-making. But we also say that the other side of the coin is transparency.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. 

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