July 27, 2001
The Right Honourable Jean Chretien, P.C., M.P.
Prime Minister of Canada
House of Commons
Ottawa, ON K1A 0A6
Dear Prime Minister:
Just over one year ago the Canadian government created the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) to improve the health of Canadians by supporting the full spectrum of health research. This legislation followed intense discussion throughout the health research community on how to capture the excellence of Canadian science and at the same time optimally position Canada in the global health research enterprise. This followed several years of decreasing federal investment in health research while other G-7 countries were rapidly increasing their investment.
Since the creation of CIHR just one year ago, incredible progress has been made in converting the legislation to reality. An outstanding Canadian researcher, Dr. Alan Bernstein, was selected as the first President. Thirteen (13) Institutes covering a range of important health issues have been created and Scientific Directors for all of the Institutes have been appointed. Each Institute has an Advisory Board made up of scientists, representatives of industry, government, the charitable sector and the public. These Boards have been working very hard to develop the strategic initiatives and partnerships for the Institutes. The past year has also been a success in bringing together the entire health research community to collaborate in tackling important health problems. Programs such as the CIHR Interdisciplinary Health Research Teams and the Community Alliances for Health Research have created partnerships involving over 600 researchers from every discipline across Canada. CIHR has identified the training of highly qualified researchers to be an important initial goal and an innovative national program has already been put in place to address this important need. These are outstanding first steps.
CIHR has funded excellent science and, even in the short time since its creation, important breakthroughs have been reported, including the successful islet cell transplantation program for diabetes, discovery of a prostate cancer gene, and new insights into public utilization of the health care system.
CIHR was funded with an initial budget of $470 million. This reflects a substantial increase in federal government support for health research. However, the broad vision and mandate for CIHR includes funding of all areas of health research identified as outstanding by peer review, making the dollar amount of Canadian research grants internationally competitive, contributing towards the growth and diversification of Canada?s knowledge-based economy, and the development of a strategic portfolio of health research initiatives through the 13 Institutes. This broad mandate cannot be accomplished within the allotted budget and will require an orderly growth towards an annual investment of $1 billion within the next 4 to 5 years. This amount would equate to about 1% of the health care budget.
The research community in Canada is very appreciative of the investment that the government has made in research through the Canada Foundation for Innovation, the Canada Research Chairs, and Genome Canada. However, if we are to build the strong and bold health research initiative envisaged by Parliament when it created CIHR, it must be funded appropriately. I urge the government to follow through on the creation of CIHR by providing for its continued and sustained growth, while at the same time investing gradually in new programs.
Sincerely,
Joel H. Weiner, PhD
Professor & Canada Research Chair in Membrane Biochemistry
Associate Dean (Research)
Chair, CIHR Institute of Genetics Advisory Board
JHW/em
cc. Marcel Chartrand