Because the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, or SSHRC, has already demonstrated its capacity to transmit disaggregated data directly to accredited researchers, in accordance with current ethical and legal requirements.
That the Committee request the government to establish an official and permanent protocol for the secure transfer of data held by the three federal granting councils, namely, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, or SSHRC, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, or NSERC, and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, or CIHR, specifically, the disaggregated data for all submitted applications, whether funded or unfunded, across all student and faculty funding programs starting at the master’s level.
That this protocol aims to make accessible, in a disaggregated, anonymized and secure form, all data relating to submitted funding applications, whether funded or not, for all student and faculty funding programs, beginning at the master’s level.
That this include the (1) demographic data of applicants and collaborators, including applicants’ responses to the Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion, or EDI, questionnaire; the (2) applicants’ and collaborators’ institutions and departments; the (3) the language of the application; (4) all data concerning the type of application and project content (year of application, grant program, discipline, title, abstract, and amount requested by the applicant); the (5) identity of the evaluation committee, comments, assessments, and scores assigned to applications for each criterion; and the (6) the application outcome and amount awarded.
That access to these data be granted to accredited researchers who have received approval from a recognized research ethics board, and that such data be shared under a security protocol consistent with the international “Five Safes” model used by Statistics Canada and its Research Data Centres.
That the government assume responsibility for coordinating this process and submit to the Committee, within sixty days, an action plan specifying the responsible repository organization for data retention and transfer, the anonymization and security procedures, as well as the implementation and dissemination timeline.
As I explained, this is a good-faith solution for trying to help researchers get access to data. The concern I have as a parliamentarian is that one of the three granting agencies is on board, while the other two aren't, as I also explained earlier.
As an elected official and a parliamentarian, I must ensure not only that there is accountability, but also that data is kept confidential.
The motion I'm proposing today will reassure people—I hope—and shows that there are questions to be raised about how things are done, possibly about data management and, above all, about data governance.
I hope to have the support of my colleagues on this. I also hope that the people in the scientific community who are listening attentively to us will understand that we don't transfer or transmit data in any old way. We already handle it properly. Now, we simply want to provide a framework for the process.
Thank you.