John Bergeron, McGill University

Forty years ago, the former premier of Alberta, the late Peter Lougheed, instituted the Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research. The foundation transformed Alberta scientifically and economically, and attracted scores of talented scholars to the province to establish their careers in discovery research in the life sciences.

The foundation was terminated in 2011, and the consequences have hit discovery research and innovation in the life sciences particularly hard.

Collip and the discovery of insulin

Alberta’s link to Canada’s most important medical discovery may not be well known. Canada has received only one Nobel Prize in medicine: it was awarded to Banting and Macleod in 1923 for the discovery of insulin. However, the key work was done in large part by James Bertram Collip of the University of Alberta. While on sabbatical in Toronto, Collip was invited by Macleod to join the team studying an extract from the pancreas that would lower blood sugar levels in diabetic dogs.

Collip was the first to isolate the hormone we now know as insulin from the crude pancreatic extract. His experimental rigour and talent established the methodology to enable industrial-scale production of insulin, saving tens of millions of lives globally.

As Canada gears up for a celebration of the 100th anniversary of the discovery of insulin, perhaps it should recognize Alberta’s Collip.

The Naylor reports

The demise of Canada’s stature in discovery research — especially in life and health sciences — has been well-documented. Two separate detailed reports were commissioned by two different federal governments. Both reports were put together by medical researcher David Naylor, the former president of the University of Toronto.

The first, “Unleashing Innovation: Excellent Health Care for Canada” was submitted in July 2015 to former federal health minister Rona Ambrose. The report was “dead on arrival” in Ottawa.

In May 2018, Kirsty Duncan, the former federal science minister, commissioned a second Naylor report called “Canada’s Fundamental Science Review: Strengthening the Foundations of Canadian Research.” After some initial enthusiasm expressed by Canada’s scientific community, implementation of the findings of this second report has not been completed.

A key recommendation was to reinvest in open fundamental research. The federal government only funded half of the target amount considered essential to sustain discovery research in Canada by this Naylor report.

Today, there’s no dedicated minister of science. The coincidental elimination of funding programs renders Canada less competitive for discovery research in life sciences.

Research credibility

In the wake of the federal government’s election results in western Canada, a unique opportunity currently exists that may help address the aspirations of the Naylor reports.

One possibility would be to reconsider Lougheed’s vision to make Alberta a global centre for medical research. A federal government initiative to set up a world-class research institute modelled on the United Kingdom’s Francis Crick Institute or the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg, Germany, would pay enormous dividends for Alberta and Canada.

Several world-famous fundamental life science researchers in Alberta provide the international credibility for such a suggestion.

One that comes to mind is University of Alberta virologist Michael Houghton. Already awarded the American Lasker Prize, Houghton was further recognized with the Canada Gairdner International Award after he was recruited to Edmonton. However, he declined the award.

Also at the University of Alberta, cell biologist Richard Rachubinski has recently been featured by the news magazine of the world’s leading chemistry society: the U.K.-based Royal Society of Chemistry. France’s leading popular science magazine La Recherche independently featured the same Edmonton discovery.

Rachubinski’s research investigates parasites that cause devastating diseases in humans; he discovered that when a protein known as Pex3 was inactivated, the parasite died. As reported in Chemistry World, this research provides new hope for the millions of patients globally that suffer (and the thousands that die) from the diseases caused by parasites known as trypanosomes.

Especially relevant is that these diseases have been neglected in part because they were so difficult to study and partly because they tend to affect citizens of less affluent nations.

Inspiration towards excellence

Canadian hockey legend Wayne Gretzky famously said: “I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.” This quote was cited by Steve Jobs when he created Apple Inc. and can surely be applied to the creation of the Peter Lougheed Institute for Life Science Research.

For Canada to emerge as a world leader, a focus on the abundant talent of emerging women scientists (as proposed previously), would truly be going where the puck is going to be.

John Bergeron gratefully acknowledges Kathleen Dickson as co-author.

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John Bergeron, Emeritus Robert Reford Professor and Professor of Medicine, McGill University

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Jeremy Wildeman, University of Bath

Canada is caught in a mess of its own diplomatic making following the recent escalation in conflict between the United States and Iran. This escalation seemed to contribute to the downing by Iran on its own soil of Ukraine International Airlines Flight PS752, with 57 Canadians aboard.

This is not just a matter of Canada being caught in an international conflagration involving the Trump administration after its targeted killing of Iranian Maj.-Gen. Qassem Soleimani.

It is also the result of an unnecessarily aggressive posture of Canada’s own when, in 2012, Stephen Harper’s Conservative government closed its embassy in Tehran and expelled Iranian officials on short notice from Canada.

The context of war and Flight PS752

Flight PS752, with its stop in Kyiv, was popular with Iranians flying to Canada because there are no direct links between the two countries. It is also a cheap alternative route in Iran, which is impoverished by sanctions, conflict and corruption.

For months, the U.S. and Iran had been antagonizing one another across the Middle East. These regional rivals have been particularly aggressive since the U.S. withdrew in 2018 from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) treaty, brokered by Barack Obama’s administration, and imposed new sanctions on Iran.

The JCPOA had been designed to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Iran had been upholding its part in the agreement.

This tension escalated to dramatic new heights when the U.S. carried out the unprecedented act of openly assassinating another country’s top official. A fate typically reserved for non-state players in the post 9/11 era, it was carried out at Baghdad’s international airport. Ten people died in the drone attack, including Iraqi factional commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis. This has effectively demolished existing international norms for conduct.

Hillary Mann Leverett, a former White House National Security official, told Al Jazeera the killing of Soleimani amounted to a “declaration of war.”

Iran retaliated

The killing led directly to Iran saying it would no longer honour the JCPOA and launching missile attacks on American military bases in Iraq three days later, with no casualties. It may not be surprising in such a tense environment if the Iranian military fired missiles at an airliner taking off from its own airport, fearing an imminent U.S. strike. Iran, however, should likely have grounded all flights that day, too.

Iran first denied it had shot down the plane, but after Iranian social media users ran rampant with speculation that Iranian missiles were responsible, the government admitted to its actions. Protesters have since taken to the streets against the regime.

Canada’s 2012 decision to cut diplomatic ties with Iran has played a role affecting the tragic loss of Canadian citizens.

It was a decision based heavily on internal political calculations. It has been at great cost to Canada’s ability to have a presence and institutional contacts in Iran to understand the politics and society there — and provide services to Canadians.

This lack of basic intelligence on the ground has hobbled Canada at the worst possible time. Because of these poor relations, Canada also has only limited access to participate in the investigation of the downed flight.

Trudeau primarily blamed Iran

Canada justified cutting ties in 2012 by saying Iran was the world’s “most significant threat to global peace and security.” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau seemed to toe that line in his Jan. 11 news conference, laying blame primarily on Iran.

Trudeau has largely been a adherent of his predecessor’s Middle East policy. However, diplomatic representation would significantly help in the aftermath of the downing of Flight PS752. What is more, countless Iranians are looking abroad for support for their own cause of reform and liberalization, and instead have been subjected to sanctions that harm innocent citizens most.

Diplomatic ties offer opportunities for dialogue essential to avoid conflict and resolve disputes. Further, Canadians live, travel and do business around the world, and a large community of Canadians of Iranian descent need access to Canadian diplomatic representation for their own safety and well-being.

That is why Canada has representation with other states around the world, even some of the most notorious. Indeed, one of Trudeau’s campaign promises in 2015 was to restore diplomatic relations with Iran.

Though the Harper government added legislation that made it difficult to reverse the 2012 decision, it can be done with political will.

Canadians need an embassy in Iran

No one yet knows what the fallout will be from the escalation between the U.S. and Iran. The Middle East is now even more unsafe and unstable. Iran will feel compelled to respond after so egregious an attack on its officials, to save face and show attacks on its leadership come with a cost.

Meanwhile, Iraq is in greater upheaval. And no one can determine yet what the global impact will be after the U.S. so dramatically smashed existing norms of statecraft.

More than ever, Canada needs a presence to be able to deal on its own with the aftermath of these terrible events, with Canadian interests front and centre. As the tragedy of Flight PS752 has made explicit, Canada only hurts itself and Canadians without it.

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Jeremy Wildeman, Visiting Research Fellow, University of Bath

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.