The Standing Committee on Science and Research is demanding personal details on every researcher who has applied for a grant in the past five years.Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press
Leaders of Canada’s three federal research-funding agencies were recently invited to the Standing Committee on Science and Research for what should have been a routine discussion of the state of the scientific enterprise in Canada, and how the allocation of federal dollars can promote excellence.
What happened instead was a mugging by a small group of parliamentarians with a seemingly odious agenda.
The committee, made up of Liberal, Conservative and Bloc Québécois MPs, adopted the following motion: That the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), “provide it with the disaggregated data of all submitted applications, whether funded or not, for all student and faculty funding programs from the Master’s level onwards, for applications made between 2020 and 2025.
That this data include 1) demographic data of applicants and collaborators, including applicants’ responses to the equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) questionnaire; 2) the institutions and departments of applicants, including the institutions of collaboration; 3) the language of the application; 4) all data regarding the type of application and project content (application year, grant program, discipline, title, summary, amount requested by the applicant); as well as 5) the identity of the evaluation committee, comments, opinions, scores assigned to applications for each criterion; and 6) the outcome of the application and the amount awarded.”
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There’s a lot to digest there so let’s break it down.
First, the committee is demanding personal details on every researcher who has applied for a grant, successfully or not, in the past five years, including their name, gender, race, age, disability status and languages spoken.
To be clear, these data are already available, but in an aggregated fashion. In other words, we know what percentage of researchers are racialized, have a disability, or who speak English or French, and what their gender is. Information on funded projects, as well as their results, are also published.
What possible reason is there for MPs to have a database of disaggregated data, including deeply personal data on individual scientists?
There is only one obvious motive: To launch a McCarthyesque witch hunt of researchers they deem to be beneficiaries of diversity, inclusion and equity policies.
In fact, this committee has been obsessed with DEI, and has provided a pulpit for some of its fiercest critics.
Tony Baldinelli, a Conservative member of the committee, quoted Concordia University marketing professor Gad Saad, and Harvard psychology professor Steven Pinker, in framing DEI initiatives as “parasitic nonsense,” leading to “woke” policies that are limiting the pool of talent.
The leaders of CIHR, NSERC and SSHRC replied, in turn, that grant recipients are qualified and their projects worthy, and that applying DEI criteria actually brings more – not fewer – viewpoints to the table.
Dr. Paul Hébert, president of the CIHR, added that the biggest limiting factor in Canada’s scientific research enterprise is a lack of funding not a lack of qualified researchers. Only around 15 per cent of CIHR grant applicants get funding. With SSHRC it’s 34 per cent, and for NSERC it was between 20 and 40 per cent in 2025, depending on the type of grant.
The three agencies, known collectively as the tri-council, receive $4-billion a year to fund research. Is that enough? Are we getting value for money? Do we have the right research priorities?
That’s what MPs should be focusing on – money and return on investment – not the skin colour and gender of applicants.
Beyond the demand for applicants’ personal information, the other shocking overreach by the committee is their demand for the public release of peer reviews, scores, deliberation notes of granting committees and the detailed personal information of reviewers.
This is a blatant violation of privacy laws. Do MPs plan to do their own grant reviews? God help us.
This information is confidential for a reason: It allows for free and frank discussion of applications, and protects reviewers from lobbying and harassment.
Reviewers already volunteer their time – and a lot of it. Make the role more unpalatable and you won’t have peer reviewers.
Again, why do MPs need this information other than to use it to harass and mock academics and researchers whose views they dislike?
Researchers are rightfully outraged. Thousands of them have signed a scathing open letter.
That the Conservative MPs on the committee are embracing Donald Trump-like rhetoric about hunting down woke intellectuals they perceive as being left-wing is not surprising.
But what are the Liberal MPs thinking?
At a time when Prime Minister Mark Carney is vowing to attract and retain the best scientific talent in the world, his backbenchers are undermining science by platforming a xenophobic, racist and misogynist ‘anti-woke’ agenda.
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