We have years of research that shows that names, for instance, bias hiring with résumés.... This is well documented in sociology. When we have things like blind peer review as part of the process, that can be a way to evaluate the research without considering EDI. That's one option.
We also have really good streaming that we do for early career researchers. You say that you're an early career researcher, and you're in a particular pool that allows you to be evaluated accordingly. Why can we not have certain pools for people who are saying, “I want to be evaluated on merit”, and for people who say, “Look, I'm from a group that has historically been marginalized in the academy. I do not have the family resources. I went to a small institution, so I don't have the institutional resources to get these great research ideas off the ground”?
When I say that we're going to fund research infrastructure.... I work at a university where my hand is held from the inception of my research ideas right until the moment I click send on my SSHRC grant applications. I have such a robust community, offices that help me, and we want to make sure that groups of people who don't have access to that have access to that.
In their files, if we know they're from one of these groups and if they've been able to identify the reasons they have been on the outside of the research community, we want to bring them in, because that research that's getting missed is actually putting Canada behind. We know that international collaboration increases publications. The people who have natural ties to other parts of the world—because they're first-generation Canadians in the academy or have come here with a Ph.D. from another place—are a huge asset in the Canadian labour force, and we are missing it.