Science and Research Committee on Sept. 24th, 2025

[Robert Thomas, President, Society for Academic Freedom and Scholarship]

Good afternoon. Thank you for having me speak today.

My name is Robert Thomas, and I am the president of the Society for Academic Freedom and Scholarship, SAFS, which is a scholarly society founded in 1993 in Ontario to advocate for academic freedom and the merit principle in Canadian academia. I am also an academic librarian at the University of Regina, where my work focuses primarily in the humanities and social sciences.

Today I would like to give arguments in support of two criteria that we believe are essential for a successful and principled national research environment. The first of these is merit-based research funding and hiring decisions in Canadian research chairs and funded research. It is important to base decisions in a way that supports and encourages the most promising and meritorious research agendas. Canada needs, for instance, the best cancer, business and political science research. What Canada does not need is research where meritocratic excellence has been eclipsed by other government policy goals, whether or not these have laudatory aims. In particular, I refer to funding and hiring decisions where identity factors such as sex, gender and race can displace the focus on the individual's work itself.

SAFS provides two arguments to this point. The demographics of faculty in any particular discipline does not generally reflect the population at large and, outside of sex ratios, is not always accurately known. As an example, engineering researchers are more likely to be male than nursing researchers. Demanding that both disciplines have the same sex ratios flies in the face of reality.

The other argument we make is a moral one. A scholar should be valued for his or her individual contribution. We believe that there is something dehumanizing about being funded or hired either fully or in part because of identity group factors. I will share a story about a colleague of ours, Augie, who works in sociology on the east coast. He wrote a piece in the SAFS newsletter a few years ago. He explained that he was talking to an unnamed colleague, trying to convince him of the importance of merit as a principle of academic merit. The unnamed colleague talked to Augie and said that when they were hiring him for this job, one of the things they really liked about him is that he is gay, and that would bring more diversity to the department. This did not impress Augie because, as he said in the article, he was hoping that his colleagues appreciated him as competent sociologist and not as a competent homosexual.

The other point is about academic freedom and how it is affected by EDI statements in research. The point I would like to make around equity, diversity and inclusion statements is that, in our view, forcing researchers to voice support for EDI principles in their funding applications is a form of political and ideological attestation that should be considered anathema in a free society and is an extraneous criterion for funding. Some researchers may no doubt write such statements in good conscience. Others will have to outright lie or at least hide their real opinions in order to get the funding that allows them to do the work that they have passion for. Those in the middle will feign enthusiasm for a commitment to EDI that does not exist.

I believe that this is detrimental because it infringes on the moral autonomy of researchers and creates a false idea of broad agreement and assent that may well not exist. Turkish American academic Timur Kuran has written much about preference falsification, where individuals falsify their beliefs due to social pressures to conform. Many other people in these groups will follow suit, falsifying their beliefs as they see the buy-in by their colleagues as proof of the widespread acceptance of the official perspective.

As Kuran's research shows, buy-in can lead to grave problems as people inevitably discover that many in their circles are not true believers but, indeed, are themselves obfuscating their actual beliefs. Long-term buy-in to contentious beliefs requires that people have the moral autonomy to dissent without risking censure or career suicide. Mandating EDI statements of any kind, in our view, is unhealthy as it impinges on moral autonomy but is also self-defeating for EDI's proponents as it helps bury the arguments that need to be had for long-term acceptance.

For these reasons, we believe that making funding decisions and hiring decisions based on identity factors and the requirement of EDI statements should not have any part in research funding criteria in Canada.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you.

We will now proceed to Professor Kaufmann.

Please go ahead. You will have five minutes for your opening remarks.

[Eric Kaufmann, Professor, University of Buckingham, As an Individual]

Thank you.

I would like to make two points [Technical difficulty—Editor]. The first is that there's a trade-off in excellence and equity in Canadian research. The second is that EDI is political and not morally neutral.

I want to raise several concerns over aspects of research funding in Canada under the rubric of EDI. The main point I wish to make is that EDI, as practised by the research councils, reflects a political, left-wing—

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

I'm sorry for interrupting. There is an interpretation issue.

Please stop for a minute.

I'll suspend the meeting for a minute because there are some interpretation issues.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

I call the meeting to order.

Before I ask Mr. Kaufmann to go ahead, I just want to explain to members that there are some technical issues and the interpreters will not be able to do the translation for Mr. Kaufmann. Therefore, the solution I am proposing is that, as Mr. Kaufmann has emailed us his opening remarks, he will read the opening remarks and the interpreters will read that in French. With regard to the questions from the members, the solution is that the members can ask Mr. Kaufmann questions and he can send written replies.

Yes, Mr. Noormohamed.

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

Madam Chair, from a timing standpoint, can you give us a sense of how late we're going to go, or what the plans—

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Let me start with Mr. Kaufmann and I will see what resources are available. Further, some witnesses have to leave. I will let you know.

Without delay, I will ask Mr. Kaufmann to please go ahead.

You will have five minutes.

[Eric Kaufmann]

I wish to raise concern over several aspects of research funding in Canada that fall under the rubric of diversity, equity and inclusion, DEI.

The main point I wish to make is that DEI, as practised by the research councils, reflects a left-wing world view I term “cultural socialism”.

Cultural socialism consists of two tenets. The first is diversity and equity. Rather than equalizing outcomes by class, as in say Marxist socialism, outcomes should instead be equalized by race and sex, through discrimination against, say, white men.

The second is inclusion. Minority groups must be protected from emotional harm, even if this requires censoring free speech and limiting the pursuit of truth. This aspect of DEI underpins what's known as “cancel culture”.

DEI is political, not neutral. When I asked a representative sample of 1,500 Canadians in September 2023 whether they approve of flying the pride flag on government buildings, those who identified as left wing approved 63-24, while those who identified as right wing disapproved 74-15. Centrists also disapproved by more a more modest 42-35. The point here is that DEI questions expose wide political divides, therefore DEI is political.

DEI is a dominant ethos of Canadian research funding councils, evident in both diversity statements on application forms and naked race and sex discrimination in hiring and funding calls.

I'll make three points here about DEI. First, most Canadians do not support it. I found that 59% of Canadians favoured a colour-blind approach to combatting racism by treating people as individuals and trying not to see race, as against just 29% for a colour-conscious approach involving combatting racism by being made aware of race, in order to better notice inequalities. In the U.S., a majority of people, including Black and Hispanic respondents, support the Supreme Court decision banning racial preferences in university admissions.

Second, DEI reduces research excellence. Richard Sander famously showed that admitting Black students to law schools with lower entrance scores correlated with those students achieving lower grades. More recently data collected for a 2024 study in the journal Nature showed that female academics had significantly lower numbers of citations than men, even when controlling for field of study and years in the profession. Black and Hispanic scholars had substantially fewer citations than whites and Asians, though the gap was not as large as for gender. This may reflect a form of societal inequality, but artificially narrowing the talent pipeline at award stage does not rectify this problem. It merely prioritizes equity over excellence.

Third, DEI creates the conditions for delegitimizing research funding. Confidence in higher education in the United States has fallen from nearly 60% in 2015 to just 36% by 2024. Among Republican voters, it's gone from 56% in 2015 to 20% in 2024.

In Canada trust remains higher, but it is at risk. For instance, I find just 49% of Conservatives trust social science and humanities professors compared to 69% of those supporting the Liberal, NDP and Green parties. Conservative support of 49% is still higher than the 34% trust I find among U.S. Republican voters, but this shows that once a sector becomes left-coded, it loses the confidence of Conservative voters. Consider that only a quarter of Canadian Conservative voters now trust the media and that's approaching U.S. levels, and support for established institutions such as the CBC is in sharp decline.

Why isn't this recognized? Some 75% to 90% of Canadian academics, according to surveys, are on the left, with a quarter identifying as “far left”. As William Deresiewicz writes, they're therefore insulated from public opinion. This is why DEI heavily shapes grant assessment and hiring, despite being opposed by most voters.

As the U.S. pattern shows, this is not sustainable. Public reaction to scenes on campus, especially since October 7, which have been informed by cultural socialism's outrider of settler colonialism, will only make this more salient.

I strongly advise Canadian research councils to abandon their current focus on cultural socialism or DEI if they wish to retain public support.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you.

We will now start with our round of questions.

Before I go ahead, I will tell you that we have the resources available until 6:45 p.m., so we will have to end the meeting at 6:45 p.m.

I'll start with Mr. Baldinelli.

Mr. Baldinelli, you have six minutes.

[Tony Baldinelli, Conservative, Niagara Falls—Niagara-on-the-Lake, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for being with us this afternoon.

Dr. Saad, I'll begin with you.

In your book, The Parasitic Mind: How Infectious Ideas Are Killing Common Sense, you wrote this:

For decades now, a set of idea pathogens, largely stemming from universities, has relentlessly assaulted science, reason, logic, freedom of thought, freedom of speech, individual liberty, and individual dignity. If we want our children and grandchildren to grow up in free societies as we have done, then we have to be assured in our principles and stand ready to defend them.

Earlier, we had Dr. Snow discuss some of his concerns. He mentioned an activist agenda having been embedding in funding applications, primarily in the social sciences and the humanities. Essentially, you're telling those looking for research grants to accept the narrative to get the funding.

Should science not be about discovery and not accepting the narrative that some government bureaucrat or some university bureaucrat puts forward? Do you agree that we need change this, and how?

[Gad Saad]

Yes, of course, I think we should change it.

The pursuit of truth is a deontological mechanism, meaning that you don't say, “I believe in truth, but...”, right? There is no consequentialist ethic when it comes to the wonder of discovery, the wonder of science, right? For example, in soccer there have only been eight countries that have won the World Cup, even though there are 200 countries that compete. Should we say that we should create more equitable outcomes? In marathon running, Ethiopia and Kenya have won most of the Boston marathons for the past 35 years. Jews have won nearly 25% of Nobel prizes, even though they make up 0.2% of the world's population. So, there are certain human endeavours that are organized along a meritocratic ethos. Science is one such endeavour. We should do away with all this diversity, inclusion and equity stuff because it harms science. I come from a very rough background. If there was ever anybody who had a victimology story, it's me, yet I stand before you, proud that I've overcome my rough childhood. I don't need the help of someone to be a dignified individual. That's what makes me meritorious. I only wish that Canada would readopt that stance.

[Tony Baldinelli, Conservative, Niagara Falls—Niagara-on-the-Lake, ON]

Thank you so much.

Dr. Kaufmann, thank you for comments.

You also appeared at committee here on November 28, 2024. You appeared at the same time as Christopher Dummitt. Some of the concerns that both of you raised were with regard to the lack of viewpoint diversity. In your testimony then, you talked about, “I would like to see the councils get ahead of this problem and move to a colour-blind merit approach.”

Can you expand on that, on what you would like to see and on what recommendations you would make?

[Eric Kaufmann]

There are two issues here. One is the question of meritocracy that is non-discrimination on the basis of race and sex, which we've heard a lot about. There's also a point called viewpoint diversity. I mentioned that 75% to 90% of academics in Canada, according to Chris Dummitt and Zach Patterson's survey, were on the left, so you have very few conservative voices from academia. We're seeing in the United States the implications that this has or may have for the health of the higher education sector.

If you create a hostile environment for certain beliefs, such as conservatism, then you are going to essentially force those people to not go down the academic pathway, and therefore you deprive.... The social sciences and humanities in particular politicize disciplines that need viewpoint diversity in order to arrive at the correct answer. They're not going to get that viewpoint diversity, so you're going to get all kinds of research that's going to go way off track.

[Tony Baldinelli, Conservative, Niagara Falls—Niagara-on-the-Lake, ON]

Thank you.

Mr. Thomas, the Society for Academic Freedom and Scholarship's website indicates, “Many universities have policies that are discriminatory to the extent that they favour groups of students or faculty on the basis of race, sex, etc. Such preferential treatment is unfair, is damaging to academic excellence, and stigmatizes the very groups so favoured.”

How do our university systems and the tri-council agencies go about fixing that?

[Robert Thomas]

I think we have to focus on merit. We have to focus on excellence and do away with the privileging of identity factors.

Increasingly, within universities in Canada, there are advertisements, which you may have heard of from other witnesses, that for a particular position, you need to have a particular race—you have to be Black, you have to be indigenous or you have to be a woman—instead of focusing on an individuals' abilities to best meet the needs of that science. It's focusing on excellence and on their actual production as an individual instead of focusing on something where, by an accident of fate, they are a particular race or a particular background.

People don't bring that to the table per se. That is just something they are, rather than what they focus on with their work. That excellence should be the benefit we're looking for.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you.

MP Noormohamed, please go ahead for six minutes.

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Professor Saad, I really enjoyed your book, The Saad Truth about Happiness. Sometimes, in this profession, I think we live in some of those times.

A question came to mind and I'd love if you could share with us.

Are there any empirical studies that you can cite that show that diversity initiatives actually harm the quality or objectivity of scientific research?

[Gad Saad]

Thank you for your kind words. It's lovely to hear that people on the committee are reading my work, so thank you for that.

I don't have the citations in front of me, but there is no conceivable reason that diversity along sexual orientation or skin colour, or whether you're two-spirit or non-binary, is going to improve our capacity to map the human genome or better understand the distribution of prime numbers. Science liberates us from the shackles of our personal identities. It's an epistemological tool that democratizes our capacity to seek science. By definition, science should be free from all that stuff.

If you want references, I can certainly try to whip some up for you.

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

I would love some, because the empirical data that I have seen shows that diverse teams tend to produce more innovative and higher impact research. That's evidence. That evidence means something.

I'm trying to understand what the methodological problem there would actually be.

[Gad Saad]

You're right that there are some metrics of diversity that improve research quality. For example, interdisciplinarity, where you're getting diverse expertise joining together to solve a problem, does lead to better outcomes. Some of the biggest and most important breakthroughs in science come at the intersection of disciplines. Interdisciplinary diversity does improve science.

Whether or not I have people on my team who are exclusively homosexual or heterosexual, or self-identify as Latinx does not help me solve the distribution of prime numbers. It almost seems laughable that in the 21st century I would have to make that point.

Intellectual diversity does improve science. All of the other metrics of diversity don't.

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

A lot of what you're saying is that meritocracy should trump all. As somebody who has spent most of my life making sure people didn't identify me, promote me or put me in positions because of my religion, my name or the colour of my skin, etc., I'm a big believer in meritocracy.

One of the challenges, though, that we've seen in Canada and other parts of the world is that it's much harder to measure merit in systems where access to education, funding and networks has historically been unequal.

How do we overcome that, so that you are in fact getting exactly what you've said, which is the widest diversity of viewpoints such that you are able to do high quality research?

[Gad Saad]

Thank you. That's a great question.

That's the tension—which I'm sure you're familiar with—between equality of outcomes and equality of opportunities.

Any time we find that there is a lack of equality of opportunities, we should intervene and try to solve this. A hundred years ago, we didn't have women in medical schools. Today we have more women than men. A hundred years ago, most universities were populated by men. Now, at the bachelor, master and doctoral levels in the United States, women outnumber men across five racial categories.

Wherever we see that there are truly systemic barriers to entry for any group, then we need to eradicate those, but that doesn't come from saying only queer people who are non-binary get to be a professor of artificial intelligence at the University of Waterloo. Imagine how insane that makes us look globally. Artificial intelligence is one of the hottest areas. Is one of the elite universities in Canada going to choose its chaired professors based on whether they are Latinx or queer?

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

Let's just dig into this piece. I'd love to hear from you and then Professor Kaufmann, depending on how much time I have. Are we saying that by having diverse academics, or people who are hired where those criteria also exist, that we're abandoning the merit principle? If so, have research quality outcomes actually diminished because more diverse people have entered academia?

[Gad Saad]

If the manner by which we've achieved diversity within those research groups stems from non-meritocratic ethos, by definition then the quality of the research goes down. I wouldn't mind if every one of my post-docs were two-spirit if they are the best people possible. If none of them are two-spirit, so be it.

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

Are you seeing that academic outcomes and research has diminished because those types of individuals who come from equity-seeking backgrounds are now producing research, or is the research quality the same, or better?