Science and Research Committee on Sept. 17th, 2025

[Yuan Yi Zhu]

It's quite straightforward. Professor Dave Snow from the University of Guelph wrote a report for the Macdonald‑Laurier Institute. He read all the web pages of the three research councils and noted all references to equity, diversity and inclusion policies.

It's actually quite simple. Remove all equity, diversity and inclusion criteria from the regulations of the three research councils, because these criteria don't contribute to academic excellence. In fact, they undermine it. Going back to a neutral system for assessing applications, without the equity, diversity and inclusion criteria, would be quite easy and would be a great step forward for Canada's academic community.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you.

We will now proceed to Mr. Holman for five minutes.

Please go ahead. You have five minutes for your round of questioning.

[Kurt Holman, Conservative, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair. Also, thank you to the witnesses for attending today.

I'd like to bring up the summary of evidence provided to the science and research committee by the Library of Parliament on the impact of the criteria for awarding federal funding on research excellence in Canada.

One item that stands out is that the research provided “found that 88% of the university professors surveyed in Canada identified politically as left-leaning”, which is very alarming.

Also noted, with regard to DEI programs, was that a “series of criticisms were made regarding the DEI measures, policies and programs implemented by universities and granting agencies.

“First, several witnesses believed that DEI funding criteria were not ideologically neutral.” Second, witnesses “noted that they believed this risk leads some researchers to self-censor or include a DEI statement even if they do not endorse it.” Third, witnesses “suggested that researchers may even use artificial intelligence tools to write DEI statements in their applications.” Fourth, several witnesses “recommended that such diversity statements be removed from funding applications.” Fifth, some testimony “suggested that DEI measures are discriminatory.” Sixth, some witnesses “argued that by focusing on gender and ethnicity, some DEI measures could be discriminatory.” Seventh, the committee “was also told that DEI policies are generally unpopular and may trigger negative reactions against the groups they are meant to benefit, as well as undermine the reputation of academia.” Eighth, other witnesses “reported that DEI criteria complicate the funding application process and place a burden on researchers.”

As Professor Steven Pinker mentioned on Monday, DEI is a problem. Canada is seriously limiting its potential to be a leader in science and research by prioritizing identity over merit. We should be recruiting our best and brightest to advance progress in these critical fields.

Now, my question is for Mr. Freeman.

You posted an article in The Hub entitled “Canada's universities have lost their way. So why do we keep giving them public money with no strings attached?” At the top of the article, you say, “There is ample evidence that higher education in North America and across the West is not adhering to the social contract implied by its public funding.” You mentioned one of them being “the excesses of DEI”. Could you please expand on that?

[David Freeman]

Yes.

Since we're talking about funding today, I should mention in particular that SSHRC didn't have EDI criteria when I submitted grants or when I adjudicated. In terms of excesses of DEI, I've certainly heard examples from people who've submitted grants to CIHR and to NSERC.

A mundane example is that SSHRC currently does allocate some graduate scholarships by race. In terms of EDI, a mundane example is that my own faculty, the faculty of arts and social sciences at my university, has a bunch of different lists. It has a strategic research plan. Other universities have similar ones. One of their three major cross-cutting commitments is EDI. It seems extreme that it's one of the three major cross-cutting commitments.

Hearing people talk about EDI, raising the pride flag, and having it be such an inclusive environment, and then saying, “Oh well, my next meeting is scheduled on Yom Kippur” just rings hollow to me.

When people argue for EDI and say that it's because they want to include everyone and want to have a diversity of viewpoints, and then there are almost no conservatives in academia.... To me, there are potentially good cases for EDI, but if you take them really seriously, you will see that EDI has been a failure in practice. This problem of a lack of conservatives in academia has become much worse in the EDI era of the last 10 years or so.

[Kurt Holman, Conservative, London—Fanshawe, ON]

My next question is for you, Dr. Zhu.

You mentioned that scholars are taught that the way to get ahead is to use buzzwords. What do you think is the impact of this pursuit of trendy topics on research excellence?

[Yuan Yi Zhu]

Well, look, there are always going to be trends. We are human beings. Human beings are social animals. We like to do what other people are doing.

Again, I cannot recommend highly enough the report by Dr. Snow for the Macdonald-Laurier Institute. It has a page where he looks through all the abstracts submitted to SSHRC for funding in the last five or 10 years. He looks at a number of words and their incidence. You can see words like “equity” or “racism” just going up like this. That really diminishes the questions we answer. It encourages group thinking at the expense of intellectual diversity.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you. We will proceed to MP Noormohamed.

MP Noormohamed, you will have five minutes. Please go ahead.

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

Thank you very much.

I want to start by clarifying some things, because some things were said earlier that I want to make sure were not personally attributed to you.

You made some comments about protests on campus. As somebody who has spoken out on making sure that the Jewish community is able to feel safe and secure in this country as often as I possibly can, including speaking out to some fairly obnoxious anti-Semitic protesters on the Hill the day before yesterday, I want to make sure that what I didn't hear you say was that people who support the Palestinian cause are inextricably linked to terrorist organizations. I just want to make sure that's not what you said, because that's what I heard. I just want to make sure that's not what you said.

[David Freeman]

No, I didn't say that.

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

Okay. I just want to make sure, because these committees end up as clip factories. I want to make sure that's not what you said.

[David Freeman]

It was a specific subset of some people who are associated with that cause.

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

Okay.

You talked a lot about the importance of diversity of thought, and I agree with you. I think it's really important for....

I think my colleague across the way thinks it's funny that I said that, but I am somebody who actually had professors who were conservatives. You might have heard of Robert George, a very famous conservative professor of mine—

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

No crosstalk, please. Let's go one person at a time.

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

You know, some respect from the colleagues across would be appreciated, but I know that might be hard for them.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Can I stop the clock? Please, no crosstalk.

The time is for MP Noormohamed. He's not addressing you. This is his round of questioning, and he should be allowed to do the round of questioning. Let us have no crosstalk. All the questions should be addressed through the chair, and I really want to have decorum in the meeting. We are all adults in the room, so we should....

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

Thank you.

Through you, Madam Chair, to Professor Freeman, when we talk about the importance of a diversity of viewpoints, we shouldn't care about the political proclivities of our physicists or our biologists or our mathematicians, right? We're not saying that should be of concern to us.

[David Freeman]

That's my take. It does have some kind of knock-on effects later in terms of thinking about university governance, collegial governance, but that's of second order, and it's definitely of second order to what the committee is looking at.

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

To be clear, we shouldn't care if 97% of the physicists at SFU happen to vote a particular way.

[David Freeman]

I think that's pretty fair.

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

We shouldn't care whether 97%, 98% or 92% of our mathematicians happen to be liberal or conservative. That should not impact anything, correct?

[David Freeman]

That's pretty fair.

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

Just to be clear, then, some of the culture war language that we hear should not really be something that we focus on. We should be focusing on the quality of academic rigour, correct?

[David Freeman]

Yes, I think we should be focusing primarily on academic rigour, but in disciplines where researcher biases do come into play, we'd want to think carefully about representing the diversity of moral reasoning, the diversity of political reasoning of Canadians, and it's a tricky problem.

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

You've identified that there's potentially a weighting towards one thing. You're not advocating affirmative action for conservative professors, are you?

[David Freeman]

I think it's tricky. If you're going to do EDI, I think that would be the number one target you'd have for your EDI. Personally, I'd be pretty happy if we just got rid of EDI and adjudicated things based on merit, but I think there's a pretty good argument for that, especially in fields where researcher biases do play a role in what gets produced.