Science and Research Committee on Sept. 17th, 2025

[David Freeman]

Look, as people have tried to politicize the university in various ways—to, let's say, push divestment from arms manufacturers, which I definitely oppose—my views have come out. You can't find my office location online. I lock my doors and make sure people don't know where I live. It's a new reality. Jewish people got used to this kind of thing over the generations; I just have to get used to it.

[Vincent Ho, Conservative, Richmond Hill South, ON]

Do you agree that the government should do something about this?

[David Freeman]

Yes.

[Vincent Ho, Conservative, Richmond Hill South, ON]

What do you think they can do about it?

[David Freeman]

Remember that universities are primarily provincial jurisdictions, so thinking about the allocation of SSHRC funding across disciplines is number one. This kind of activism at the university level is coming from somewhere, and it's coming from these far-left activist movements.

Second, think about conditions attached to the indirect costs of the indirect research funding. I'm not saying to withdraw people's grants, but there's a big slush fund of money going to universities that they're using to pay administrators and stuff like that. You might consider some policies and making that conditional in some policies.

[Vincent Ho, Conservative, Richmond Hill South, ON]

Federal tax dollars go into it, so it is indirectly tied to the federal government. Funding ultimately trickles down to the faculty and the administrators and has essentially created a space that has suppressed voices that are dissenting—even Jewish voices, but also voices that are not—

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Mr. Ho, your time is up. Thank you.

I will remind everybody that the scope of this study is on the federal research funding criteria.

With that, now we will proceed to MP Jaczek.

MP Jaczek, you will have five minutes for your round of questioning. You can please begin.

[Helena Jaczek, Liberal, Markham—Stouffville, ON]

Thank you so much, Madam Chair.

Perhaps we could keep language in this committee non-partisan, objective and directed to the purpose of this particular study.

With that, I would like to ask something of both Professor Freeman and Dr. Yi Zhu.

Professor Freeman, I think your experience has been particularly with SSHRC. Is that correct? You haven't been involved with NSERC or CIHI or the other funding agencies that the federal government has in place. Is that correct?

[David Freeman]

That's correct. It's just SSHRC.

[Helena Jaczek, Liberal, Markham—Stouffville, ON]

Is that the case, Dr. Yi Zhu?

[Yuan Yi Zhu]

That's correct.

[Helena Jaczek, Liberal, Markham—Stouffville, ON]

In the course of the study, we have already heard a number of suggestions, which I think might assist both of you, about the concept of blinding the initial proposal application made to one of the tri-agencies in terms of who the professor involved is, the researcher, the number of papers published and any identifying characteristics so that the proposal would be looked at as objectively as possible, as well as the originality of the idea and potentially the research capacity of the team.

Have you followed our deliberations in this committee?

I'll start with you, Professor Freeman. Does that merit-based review, strictly looking at the proposal itself and not necessarily the proponents, appeal to you?

[David Freeman]

I try to follow the committee a bit and I didn't hear that one. That's new to me.

The idea of blinding the proposer's name is fine. It's probably a good idea. In terms of blinding the number of papers published, at least for SSHRC, we're looking at both the proposal itself for the challenge criteria but also for the capability criteria. You're basically scoring their CV. What's their track record in publishing papers? I don't know how you're supposed to do that unless you want to separate those two parts out, which might be feasible. It adds a little bit to the administration, but it's not a bad idea.

[Helena Jaczek, Liberal, Markham—Stouffville, ON]

The stepwise concept has been introduced as well. Thank you for that.

Dr. Yi Zhu, have you followed any of our deliberations and heard some of the suggestions that have been made? Do you have any comments?

[Yuan Yi Zhu]

I'm afraid I haven't followed this committee, but I have heard of this idea.

There are two views on this. The first view is that your name or your identity shouldn't factor into the decision. The second view is that if somebody is successful already, why don't we give them more money, because they have already been successful? The answer is that maybe that person is really good at getting grant money. Is there a link between getting grant money, for instance, and success? Some people are just really good at doing grants. There's a sort of magic to it.

I think there is a debate to be had here as to whether this would make a difference. I suspect that it really depends on the level of funding. Funding for Ph.D. candidates is not the same thing as funding for mercenary researchers. If you are a Nobel Prize winner and you have a big lab and you ask for money, that makes sense, because you probably have a few dozen papers and we know who you are. If you are only starting out, maybe that's different. I'm agnostic, but I think it really depends on the level of funding we're talking about, and perhaps also the subject field of research.

[Helena Jaczek, Liberal, Markham—Stouffville, ON]

Thank you.

Another idea that was thrown out in the previous Parliament to this committee was to have a certain percentage of applications subject to completely random funding. In other words, there would literally be a lottery for, say, 10% of the applications, because often in science, what may arise from particular research is completely unexpected.

I will throw that out to you, Professor Freeman, to see if you have heard of such a proposal and what you think of it.

[David Freeman]

Any time you're randomizing, it is going to be an inefficient use of public funds. I do think that some sense of merit, at least as defined by the academic discipline, can be based on a proposal and what someone has published in the past.

The problem is that if an academic discipline is just getting it wrong in deep ways, then there are benefits to stepping outside that. An alternative to that, if I could suggest one, might be having another stream that's easier to apply for but offers relatively low amounts of money for low-cost research. SSHRC has tried to do this, I think, with the lower stream of insight grants. Keep in mind that I'm thinking about social sciences and humanities, where some research has pretty low costs.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you.

We will now proceed to Mr. Blanchette-Joncas for two and a half minutes.

Please go ahead.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski—La Matapédia, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'll continue with Professor Zhu.

Is there strong evidence that equity, diversity and inclusion policies improve the quality of scientific research, or are these measures mainly symbolic?

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

I'm sorry for interrupting. We will stop the clock. There is no interpretation.

Okay, now we can hear it.

You can start from the top, please. Thank you.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski—La Matapédia, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'm still speaking with Professor Zhu.

Is there strong evidence that equity, diversity and inclusion policies improve the quality of scientific research, or are these measures mainly symbolic?

[Yuan Yi Zhu]

I've never seen any research suggesting that these policies improve outcomes. It may exist, but I've never seen it.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski—La Matapédia, QC]

If these equity, diversity and inclusion policies continue or gain momentum, what lasting impact do you anticipate for the future of research in Canada?

[Yuan Yi Zhu]

I think that there would be a negative impact. We're already seeing some of the effects after a decade of implementing these policies. Many people will choose a different career path instead of a career in research because they don't think that they'll be treated fairly and equitably given their personal characteristics.

Some of my friends left academia, while others were suspended or fired from their university jobs as a result of their views on equity, diversity and inclusion policies. We're losing talented people who could be conducting great research. They wonder what they're doing there. They could have a job in a bank and earn more money, instead of conducting research in environments that they consider hostile to their ideas.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski—La Matapédia, QC]

Could you provide some tangible and concrete recommendations on how to improve the situation in order to avoid the type of issues that you just mentioned?