I have always had a strong belief in the need for independence of academic research. I'm old-fashioned in that way. Ultimately, academics get tested by their peers, by other people. You can't publish a paper unless it's been looked at by two or three, normally many more people than that, and they write reactions to it and so on. All universities, or all reputable ones, have ethics officers and ensure that their research meets the ethical principles in dealing with human subjects, etc.
I have never been sympathetic to the notion that government itself should look after research or hold individual researchers accountable. There are some fundamental freedoms, which include freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and freedom of politics, but I also include in that, as do most people who look at it, freedom of artistic expression and freedom to do research. One has to be careful, in patrolling the boundaries of those freedoms, that one doesn't intrude too far into government doing things or preventing things that it doesn't approve of, rather than simply ensuring that the basic standards and rules are observed.
The whole process of grant-giving to universities through SSHRC and the National Research Council is a matter of peer review and granting of money. This is a very heavily entrenched process. Its equivalent in government is the process through which the Public Service Commission reviews appointments and promotions and tries to ensure that the principles of merit are observed and that there is no bureaucratic patronage or personal favouritism in appointments and in promotions.