Evidence of meeting #5 for Science and Research in the 45th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was excellence.
A video is available from Parliament.
Visiting Scholar, Declaration of Independence Center for the Study of American Freedom, University of Mississippi, As an Individual
I don't have the empirical evidence, but surely we can argue it philosophically, right? How could it be that the University of Waterloo is looking for chaired professors in artificial intelligence based on the gender orientation of the computer scientist?
Liberal
Taleeb Noormohamed Liberal Vancouver Granville, BC
Have you seen evidence, or examples, where people have been hired to do high-quality research who are less good because diversity criteria were applied?
Visiting Scholar, Declaration of Independence Center for the Study of American Freedom, University of Mississippi, As an Individual
I couldn't give personal anecdotes, because I don't use those metrics.
As a matter of fact—
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Salma Zahid
I'm sorry for interrupting, but the time is up for Mr. Noormohamed.
We will now proceed with Mr. Blanchette-Joncas, for six minutes.
Bloc
Maxime Blanchette-Joncas Bloc Rimouski—La Matapédia, QC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I would like to welcome the witnesses who are with us for this important study.
Professor Saad, you often talk about the growing ideological parasitic attitude of universities. When these criteria appear in federal grant applications, wouldn't that turn funding organizations into political instruments? Also, wouldn't it ultimately undermine public trust?
Visiting Scholar, Declaration of Independence Center for the Study of American Freedom, University of Mississippi, As an Individual
Thank you for that question. I didn't have my interpretation device on, but I speak fluent French, so no problem.
Of course, it affects the trust that the public has in us. I've sat on SSHRC committees for graduate funding where every single grant application in important fields in the social sciences is about queering this and indigenising that. How could that make sense?
I teach evolutionary psychology and psychology of decision-making. What does it mean to indigenize and decolonize the study of psychology of decision-making? It's absolutely laughable. Science liberates me from my sexual orientation. It liberates me from my skin colour. That's what makes science beautiful. Of course, the trust of the public and the taxpayer is damaged when we allow these parasitic ideas to infect our university ecosystems. It's grotesque and tragic.
Bloc
Maxime Blanchette-Joncas Bloc Rimouski—La Matapédia, QC
You've worked on both sides of the border. We know that a number of American states have started to reduce the application of equity, diversity and inclusion policies or to abolish them, some even before Donald Trump's re-election. Are we already seeing a positive impact on research there?
Would Canada not be shooting itself in the foot if it continued down this path?
Visiting Scholar, Declaration of Independence Center for the Study of American Freedom, University of Mississippi, As an Individual
You're correct that there has been an autocorrection of all this diversity, inclusion and equity stuff in the United States. Certainly, the election of Donald Trump has accelerated that. I see no autocorrection taking place in Canada. If anything, I see the doubling down of all of the parasitic nonsense in Canada.
Again, I can't cite you specific empirical studies that point one way or the other, but, again, science is a fully meritocratic thing. Nobody gives a damn about your identity markers. The best people should be doing the best science, period.
Bloc
Maxime Blanchette-Joncas Bloc Rimouski—La Matapédia, QC
In the United States, we're seeing a decline in EDI policies, while here in Canada, we're doing the opposite. Wouldn't this risk isolating our research and pushing our young researchers to where academic freedom and meritocracy remain the norm?
You and Mr. Kaufmann are good examples of this brain drain.
Visiting Scholar, Declaration of Independence Center for the Study of American Freedom, University of Mississippi, As an Individual
Yes. As a matter of fact, I've taken a leave from Concordia University. I am currently at the University of Mississippi at a centre that is rooted in American freedom precisely for that reason.
I stopped applying for research grants and applied for a chaired professorship in 2018, because I wasn't willing to play the game of doing a diversity inclusion and equity statement. I can't be the guy who wrote the parasitic line, and then when nobody is looking play along. I've not had any research funds for seven years. I've now left for the United States precisely because of all these parasitic ideas. If you can imagine that both myself and Professor Kaufmann have left, you can imagine that many other people who should be staying in Canada will decide to go elsewhere where they can pursue their research free of identity markers.
Bloc
Maxime Blanchette-Joncas Bloc Rimouski—La Matapédia, QC
Professor Saad, a study published this year by the Aristotle Foundation for Public Policy shows that 98% of university job postings in Canada have equity, diversity and inclusion criteria that are sometimes mandatory. If ideology is already becoming a condition for hiring, by imposing the same criteria on federal grants, aren't we completely displacing the definition of scientific excellence?
Visiting Scholar, Declaration of Independence Center for the Study of American Freedom, University of Mississippi, As an Individual
As a matter of fact, I quoted this in my opening remarks: 97.5% of academic job applications have DEI as a central feature. Again, that is grotesque. I know for a fact that at one point I was applying for a renewal of my chaired professorship. I held a university-wide chair for 10 years at Concordia. When it came time to reapply, someone told me confidentially that, “Sorry, we couldn't give it to you even though you would be easily deserving of it, because it had to go to a woman.” How do you think that makes me feel? I worked for 32 years as professor, and I lose because I don't ovulate. Does that strike you as fair?
Bloc
Maxime Blanchette-Joncas Bloc Rimouski—La Matapédia, QC
In the same study, we learned that nearly one in five job offers at the University of British Columbia explicitly limits the position to a race, ethnicity or group identity. Isn't that the exact opposite of meritocracy? Isn't there a risk of seeing this logic also creep into research funding by Ottawa?
Visiting Scholar, Declaration of Independence Center for the Study of American Freedom, University of Mississippi, As an Individual
Absolutely. It's not only in the research-granting process or in the job application process. Even the tenure decision has been fully parasitized by all of this nonsense. There was a professor at UBC who didn't get tenure because she hadn't published much. She then went to the human rights tribunal and argued that she is indigenous and she comes from an oral tradition, so forcing her to write things as a publication went against her culture. Imagine that this is something that the human rights tribunal actually listens to. It's unbelievable.
I want to live in a bigot-free society. I come from Lebanon, where I faced a lot of bigotry. I understand what bigotry is, but the way to solve bigotry is not to impose reverse bigotry.
Bloc
Maxime Blanchette-Joncas Bloc Rimouski—La Matapédia, QC
When equity, diversity and inclusion criteria become essential, both for hiring and for funding applications, aren't we creating a closed circle where those same criteria are reinforced in the committees at the expense of the scientific value of the projects?
Visiting Scholar, Declaration of Independence Center for the Study of American Freedom, University of Mississippi, As an Individual
It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. For example, professors, as Professor Kaufmann said, don't usually hire anybody who has any political position that is contrary to theirs. That's why, in some disciplines—and these studies have been done, and I can share those references with you—in the activist social sciences, you are more likely to run into a unicorn than to run into a Republican or Conservative sociologist. You're more likely to run into a horse that has wings than to run into a Republican psychologist. That's not a good thing. There are very good ideas on the left and there are very good ideas on the right, and our students would benefit from hearing the totality of ideas.
Bloc
Maxime Blanchette-Joncas Bloc Rimouski—La Matapédia, QC
A lot of researchers say they write their grant applications—
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Salma Zahid
Sorry, but we're a bit over time.
Now we will proceed to Mr. Ho.
Mr. Ho, you have five minutes. Please go ahead.
Conservative
Vincent Ho Conservative Richmond Hill South, ON
Thank you, Madam Chair.
My question is for Professor Saad. It's an honour to have you here on this committee.
You mentioned that DEI is an affront to individual dignity. Could you elaborate on that and whether you agree that DEI is a form of government-sponsored top-down ideology?
Visiting Scholar, Declaration of Independence Center for the Study of American Freedom, University of Mississippi, As an Individual
Absolutely. What greater manifestation is there of ideological top-down stuff than DEI? I present myself to the world as Gad Saad. Part of me being Gad Saad is that I have green eyes; part of me being Gad Saad is that I come from Lebanon; part of me being Gad Saad is that I'm a certain height. I've got some merits and I've got some faults, so I am an individual, and I ask you to judge me as an individual first.
The reason I love science is that when I do my science, I'm trying to discover something interesting about the world, and that phenomenon that I'm studying exists independently of my identity. That's what makes science beautiful. It liberates us from our shackles.
That's what I mean when I say it's an affront to individual dignity. All of the members of this committee are worthy individuals because they are individuals. I'm Gad Saad first, and then I'm a member of a group. Nothing could be worse than to create collective tribalism in the pursuit of science.
Conservative
Vincent Ho Conservative Richmond Hill South, ON
Thank you.
We've seen DEI essentially replace meritocracy. This Liberal top-down ideology in federal research is, by the way, funded by taxpayers, so it's essentially a government-sponsored ideology that's being implemented in our public institutions.
Do you think this has the effect of censoring academic freedoms and of being reverse-discriminatory on groups that are considered as not adhering to DEI?
Visiting Scholar, Declaration of Independence Center for the Study of American Freedom, University of Mississippi, As an Individual
It has a huge affect on censorship.
The most dangerous censorship is self-censorship. I receive thousands of emails that always say the exact same thing: “Dear Professor Saad”, and then there's a bunch of compliments, and at the end, they say, “If you decide to read this email on your show, please don't mention my name.”
The person who writes it is a post-doc, a doctoral student or a professor, all of whom are happy that I have the courage to say what I say. They would love to say it, but they know that if they do, they will lose their position in the lab, they will lose their position for funding and so on and so forth.
This is not Yemen. This is not North Korea. This is not Communist China. This is happening in Canada and the United States. This is grotesque.
Conservative
Vincent Ho Conservative Richmond Hill South, ON
Let's go back to basics. DEI purportedly was to create a fair, inclusive environment that's supposed to address historical marginalization, but it sounds like it's creating the opposite effect. It's unfair. It's exclusionary. Also, it's actually marginalizing those who have different viewpoints, which, again, goes against the purpose of academic research, which is the pursuit of knowledge and knowledge creation.
Would you agree that this is affecting Canadians' trust in public institutions? We've seen that Canadians' lack of trust in public institutions is at an all-time low, and that's no coincidence after 10 years of Liberal top-down ideology being implemented in public institutions.
Do you think it hurts our reputation globally?
Visiting Scholar, Declaration of Independence Center for the Study of American Freedom, University of Mississippi, As an Individual
Of course it does, right?
One of the reasons I'm thankful to have built such a large platform is that the message I share with the wider audience is one that resonates with people. When I exist in the rarified ivory tower, I'm viewed as a pariah because I don't say the things that I'm supposed to say, but in the larger audience—the trucker, the corrections officer, the police officer—they're all writing to me and saying, “Oh my God, I wish my son or daughter had you as a professor.”
Being a professor is a privilege. It's a place where you can be a free thinker. The reality, though, is that it's an Orwellian and Kafkaesque world, where everybody is afraid to utter one syllable out of place lest they might be fired or somebody might find out that they don't love Justin Trudeau or that they love Donald Trump.
This is not what we want in our academics. We want them to be free thinkers.
Conservative
Vincent Ho Conservative Richmond Hill South, ON
Yes, and this Liberal government is doubling down, it sounds like. It's actually making it even worse.
What has DEI actually achieved, do you think? Has it destroyed more than it has actually built?