I might frame it slightly differently. I've reviewed enough applications to know that what we see are a lot of performative exercises in writing proposals. As you said, someone thinks, “Oh, this is going to be screened for EDI, so I'd better make up some EDI stuff”, as opposed to genuinely looking at the research questions and asking whether the research has different implications for women, people living in rural communities, racialized people, indigenous people and so on.
We see it as well with GBA+ analysis within the government. Some departments have really embraced it as a way to improve their service to Canadians, and others treat it more as a check box. I think it's an issue that has to be addressed.
I want to add a couple of comments on the issue of diversity within academia, because I'm in a business school, and my university has a lot of professional schools. There's a big engineering school and a big business school. I would argue that it skews very differently, in terms of politics, compared to a smaller university that has a liberal arts focus. It's really important to recognize that there are certain disciplinary traditions that probably also relate to some of the ideological perspectives that shape evidence.
However, I want to come back to my opening comments and how the vast majority of Canadians believe that the focus on equity, diversity and inclusion is appropriate, and a very small percentage feels it isn't.