44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 31, 2022 10:00AM
- May/31/22 10:11:48 a.m.
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moved:
That:
(a) the House denounce all forms of discrimination;
(b) in the opinion of the House,
(i) research is necessary for the advancement of science and society in general,
(ii) access to the Canada Research Chairs Program must be based on the candidates’ skills and qualifications; and
(c) the House call on the government to review the program's criteria to ensure that grants are awarded based on science and not based on identity criteria or unrelated to the purpose of the research.
He said: Madam Speaker, I would like to inform the House that I will be sharing my time with my hon. colleague from La Prairie.
I rise today to open up a debate that is as important as it is necessary for the future of science and research in Quebec and Canada.
Historically speaking, research funding has always been awarded on the basis of excellence. The scientific process takes place at the frontier of human knowledge, and advancing beyond that frontier requires someone with a combination of skills and qualities that are beyond the ordinary. It therefore seems reasonable, essential even, to direct our limited financial resources towards the individuals with the greatest expertise, towards the most promising projects. That is how we maximize the benefits for society as a whole.
In recent years, however, under the federal government's direction, this basic tenet has been undermined by a new set of equity, diversity and inclusion criteria, which advocate a funding approach based on factors related to identity and representation. While these criteria are rooted in a desire to correct certain historical inequalities that we do not deny exist, the way in which they have been implemented is perplexing.
The most obvious evidence of this trend is the Canada research chairs program, where strict representation targets were unilaterally imposed on universities. Moreover, the members of the House of Commons were never asked for their input either, since the policy is based on a decision that was made by the Canadian Human Rights Commission and ratified by the Federal Court of Canada.
The impact of the policy is starting to be felt. A number of sometimes absurd and aberrant situations have arisen in recent months, where postings for open positions automatically excluded certain candidates regardless of their qualifications. Some positions reserved for representatives of certain groups also remained vacant because no one applied.
In light of this, it is high time that the House reviewed this matter. That is why the Bloc Québécois is moving a motion today for the House to “denounce all forms of discrimination”, recognize that “research is necessary for the advancement of science and society in general”, and acknowledge that, in order to maximize benefits, “access to the Canada Research Chairs Program must be based on the candidates' skills and qualifications” above all else.
To that end, the government must review the criteria for the Canada research chairs program.
In addition to posing a threat to the excellence of Quebec and Canadian research, the equity, diversity and inclusion criteria applied by the Canada research chairs program encroach on Quebec's exclusive jurisdiction over education in three separate ways, since it is a program for hiring professors, it impinges on the autonomy of universities, and it restricts academic freedom.
I will now give my colleagues a brief lesson on constitutional history. The Constitution Act, 1867, placed education under the sole jurisdiction of Quebec and the provinces. Research is an area of concurrent jurisdiction and can therefore be dealt with by both levels of government.
In 2000, the federal government invoked its powers relating to research funding to launch the Canada research chairs program.
We were told at the time that there was no encroachment on Quebec's jurisdictions and that the goal was merely to fund research. However, if we look closely at the program two decades later, we can see that a research chair is a direct pathway to a professorship. In fact, the criteria for awarding research chairs determine who will teach in universities in Quebec and the other provinces.
In addition, the equity, diversity and inclusion requirements under the Canada research chairs program also blatantly violate the universities' autonomy.
As specified in the program policies, “if an institution is not meeting its equity targets, following a deadline stipulated by the program, nominations will be restricted to individuals who self-identify as one or more of the four designated groups until such time as the targets are met”. The four designated groups are women, racialized minorities, indigenous peoples, and persons with disabilities.
We have started seeing the impact of this policy on Quebec universities. Laval University recently posted a job offer stating that only candidates with the required skills and who have self-identified as members of at least one of the four under-represented groups will be selected. The university is basically being forced to shred certain applications regardless of those candidates' qualifications or the relevance of their research projects.
That is only the beginning. The program also states that “[i]nstitutions that do not meet their equity targets by the December 2029 deadline will have their allocation of chairs reduced”. Universities are being held hostage by the federal government, which is threatening to slash their allocated funding and reduce the number of prestigious research chairs they get. One of the cornerstones of university autonomy is the power to select and appoint professors, so the idea that the federal government could change the process cannot and should not be tolerated.
The third issue with the current policy is that it is an assault on academic freedom, which guarantees academics the inalienable right to teach or study any subject, school of thought, or theory without fear of reprisal or discrimination. However, the numerous administrative and bureaucratic requirements heaped on researchers in all disciplines include the submission of an EDI action plan that conforms to certain social sciences theories that are not universally accepted in academia or in society in general. This type of requirement impedes the academic freedom of researchers, who are forced to adhere to certain concepts if they want to obtain a research chair.
As a result, the very imposition of these criteria by the federal government for research chairs undermines several key principles and is in itself sufficient justification for a review. This being said, a quick analysis of the numerical requirements reveals the full scope of the policy's incongruity.
As I said earlier, universities have been ordered to meet representation targets by 2029. These strict, one-size-fits-all targets are applied equally to all Quebec and Canadian universities. They are based on the average representation rates in Canada of the four under-represented groups targeted by the program.
For visible minorities, the target is 22% for all universities because that is the Canadian average according to the latest census in 2016. However, what seems to have been forgotten or, worse still, ignored, is the fact that the population is not evenly distributed across the country. In Toronto, members of visible minorities represent 51.5% of the population. In Quebec City, they represent just 6.5% of the population. As it turns out, 6.5% happens to be the exact proportion of Université Laval professors who are members of visible minorities.
Where I am from, Rimouski, which is far from the big cities, members of visible minorities make up barely 2% of the population, but for the purposes of the Canada research chair program, they are supposed to hit a target that is 10 times higher than their actual representation. The federal government's one-size-fits-all solution does not take distinct regional characteristics into account and forces universities in the regions to recruit abroad rather than develop homegrown expertise. That makes no sense at all and it flies in the face of Quebec's university model, which is all about developing skills and expertise across Quebec.
Again, there needs to be a review of the federal government's policy of applying ideological math that does not work in the real world. There are concrete solutions to this nonsense. Of course, we need to increase funding for research and development. Canada is the only G7 country that has reduced its investment over the last 20 years. We need to increase graduate scholarships at the master's and doctoral levels. These scholarships have not been indexed for almost 20 years, since 2003.
In closing, I would like to clarify, specifically for my colleagues in the House, that the debate that we wish to have is not about positive discrimination in general, but about this specific, poorly crafted federal policy that is, moreover, encroaching on Quebec's jurisdiction—
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- May/31/22 10:39:04 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, from what I understand of this debate, the CRC is getting funding. The government is handing out funding for the Canada research chairs. That funding is based on a lot of different criteria, but some of it is based on inclusivity and diversity requirements.
Could the member just give me some examples from Quebec of what he is seeing in job postings, which are part of this motion? What examples is he seeing of postings that are excluding some or including others?
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- May/31/22 12:02:20 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, today I will be sharing my time with my colleague from Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot.
We are talking about research funding in a provincial jurisdiction, meaning Quebec's jurisdiction, and we are talking about it here in the federal Parliament. Clearly, there is already a problem. What is even more problematic is that these criteria for awarding Canada research chairs are not a lesson in democracy. It is not a lesson in democracy because they were introduced in 2000 and this is the first time we have debated them here in the House.
Regardless of what the NDP members say, it is healthy to debate, even if they do not like it. This is especially true given that we have never debated this matter here, thoughts have not been shared, and what I have heard today shows a complete lack of understanding of the academic world. I would very much like to hear what the Minister of Health has to say about this motion, as he is a professor at Laval University. I hope he will have the opportunity to speak.
Let us go back in time. Let us look at the Liberal legacy with regard to funding public services, particularly that of Paul Martin in the 1990s. What was done then? From the first half of the 1990s until 1998, cuts were made to health transfers and social programs, leaving provinces in so much trouble that they had difficulty funding their public services.
Of course, as time went on, health care took up more and more space in the provinces' finances and came to cannibalize all other government responsibilities, including funding for higher education, preschool education and elementary school education. Ottawa's actions left the provinces in turmoil.
Moreover, in the mid-1990s, there was a referendum in which half of Quebeckers said no to Canada. What did Ottawa do? It decided to plant its flag all over provincial jurisdictions. It started with the sponsorship scandal, one of the worst Liberal disgraces in history. It continued in the late 1990s with the millennium scholarships, when a jurisdictional squabble took place with Quebec. The Liberals thought that Quebec's financial assistance to students was not doing the job. They had to get involved.
Since the provinces were in trouble because of the cutbacks, Ottawa said it would create these research chairs. This is the typical old Liberal reflex: they place the provinces in a tight spot, they wait awhile, then they come to the rescue. First, there are no conditions, but, with time, more and more conditions are set, which are expensive for the provinces to administer. Thus, 22 years later, here we are today to discuss the matter.
The issue with the criteria has nothing to do with inclusion or exclusion. Quite simply, the federal government has no business in the matter. It is none of its business. The Liberals will claim they established these criteria to satisfy the courts. However, the courts are only involved because the Liberals are involved. If they had minded their own business, the courts would never have gotten involved in their programs.
Today, we find ourselves with all kinds of criteria for hiring professors. These criteria impede academic freedom, even though professor recruitment is under the purview of the universities, the professors and the researchers.
I am a university professor. I have participated in the meetings to hire professors. Hiring a researcher is such a delicate situation that even university HR departments do not get involved, whether we are talking about McGill University, Laval University or the University of Toronto. However, here we have the smart alecks from the NDP who are able to tell us, in a convoluted way, how researchers should be hired in fields they know nothing about.
I will explain to the House how a professor is hired. Let us say, for example, that there is an opening in the economics department at UQAM. There is a particular need for someone who specializes in health economics, and 300 people apply. After we eliminate those who do not speak French, we still have between 100 to 110 applicants remaining. Unlike the Liberals, we think that French is important in Quebec. Of those applicants, there are some who specialize in all sorts of fields that are not needed, such as macroeconomics and the like, so we have to sort through all the applications. We are left with between 50 and 60 excellent candidates from all over the world, because the market is global. Then, we have to interview about 40 of them. Some of them fail the interview, so we are then left with a short list of about 20 to 25 candidates. Of those 20 to 25 people, we will choose the best seven or eight to attend what is called a fly out. They are invited to present their research to other researchers who have knowledge of the field, unlike the Liberal Party and the NDP. In the end, a professor is selected and offered the position.
What happens then? Sometimes the person who is offered the job will turn it down because our public services are poorly funded and we do not have the means to pay our researchers properly.
Off they go to France, Great Britain, or back to the United States. Even francophone Quebeckers, who have long been under-represented in academia since before the Université du Québec came to be, no longer want to come to Quebec because our institutions have a hard time paying them. We move on to our second choice, our third and our fourth and we do the best we can. In the end, the shortlist is whittled down to one or two candidates who are the only ones we can hire. That is how it works in universities.
Some people here think that introducing new criteria and making this costly process even more burdensome makes it easier to hire skilled people. They obviously know nothing at all about the sector. Like many of my colleagues, I spent the past 20 years in and around academia. Every time researchers were hired, the most important criteria were gender equality and the integration of cultural minorities. Every time we managed to hire researchers, those criteria were met without the help of federal government conditions or the Canada research chair program. These criteria expose the Liberals' moral narcissism. It is their way of signalling that they are better than anyone else.
What happens in the short term when criteria like these are imposed? Sometimes a few candidates who are members of a visible minority or women qualify for the position. However, because of these criteria, every university wants them. If we are unable to hire them, it is because we cannot afford to increase salaries because of the current salary scales. The money is in Ottawa, and Quebec City has been “defunded” once more in its history, so we do the best we can.
This brings me to Quebec's reality and the Liberals' vision of diversity and inclusion. At the Université du Québec à Rimouski, for example, there is a marine sciences department. There is also the Université du Québec en Abitibi‑Témiscamingue. The Université du Québec has campuses in several different regions, and in some places, the local social makeup makes it hard to recruit researchers. In these places, these criteria are doubly, triply and quadruply limiting. Once again, the universities pay the price, because the Liberal method is to impose conditions but not pay.
The federal government tells us that to have diversity every university needs to reflect the average. When diversity is just an attempt to reflect averages that is a big problem. These conditions substitute appearance for competence. The Liberals know about that because that is how they chose the Prime Minister.
However, our universities need to be independent and have academic freedom. It was universities and their rules that gave us the Enlightenment and that gave rise to the greatest research we have today. Every university and every department across Quebec and Canada knows this and is already acting accordingly.
The government is not telling us that this requires diversity. It is telling us not to trust Quebec to manage its own university sector and research funding. Criteria exist to include diversity, but that is up to Quebec, not the federal government.
Where do we go from here? The universities need to keep working on diversity and inclusion, but the federal government needs to leave them alone. The government needs to stop interfering in research because that is not its wheelhouse, because it is ineffective and incompetent. Personally, I do not get involved in areas of expertise that I know nothing about.
We need to get rid of these ineffective rules that are costly for the Quebec government and the universities and that violate long-standing traditions of academic freedom. These rules are adversarial and punitive, and they are poisoning the work environment of our universities. I will repeat that I participated in departmental meetings to hire professors where these inclusion criteria were used, and it is not an easy process.
What should we do? We have to be proactive, restore funding to the provinces and increase student scholarships. We must ensure that those involved in hiring university professors, as I was, have access to a pool of competent people and have all the necessary options. The moral narcissism of the Liberals and the NDP will not result in better research.
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- May/31/22 1:26:49 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, indeed, my colleague from Rivière-des-Mille-Îles is raising a very important point. The independence of institutions of higher learning is fundamental and essential. Any institution where knowledge is developed and shared, where the leaders of tomorrow hone their critical thinking skills, must not be influenced by any external factors, and certainly not by any government.
These criteria must be applied, enforced and fulfilled, or else funding will be pulled. This is very serious. These are not just objectives for reaching a certain ideal. These objectives are being imposed with serious financial consequences attached for universities. My colleague's question is therefore very relevant. The government, regardless of its political stripes, is playing an extremely dangerous game when it imposes criteria and objectives with financial penalties attached. This is highly problematic.
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- May/31/22 1:39:52 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for her question. I agree with her that there is a need to ensure transparency in the programs and in how funding is allocated.
We need to make sure that we do so in order to counter my colleague's previous question, that is to say that we are not questioning the scientific rigour or the competence of indigenous peoples and racialized communities. What we are questioning is equality of opportunity.
I agree with my colleague. We need to make sure that all programs are transparent, because we have to demonstrate that they have the merit to be among the research chairs and to be funded by the research chairs.
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- May/31/22 3:03:07 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I will try this again. After significant cuts made by the previous Conservative government, we are delivering results for our Canadian Armed Forces.
Some of these results are the tax-free income for members deployed on international operations, close to $200 million to improve access to health care and implement a joint suicide prevention strategy, $6 million per year in new funding for military family resource centres, which means more child care hours, and enshrining a victims' bill of rights in the military justice system.
This is our top priority.
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- May/31/22 3:05:05 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Bloc Québécois believes that research funding should be allocated based on skill. The federal government thinks it should be allocated based on diversity.
Visible minorities represent 51% of the population in Toronto and only 2% of the population in Rimouski, but both regions are subject to the same criteria.
Our universities are scrambling to recruit and reflect diversity, but we have to be realistic. Why not trust the universities and fund scientific research based on scientific capabilities?
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- May/31/22 3:16:01 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, yesterday, I asked the government a very straightforward question that warranted a very straightforward answer. I did not get that. I rise again today because of the gravity of this situation. Yesterday, I found out that a third indigenous woman was murdered in Winnipeg this month. She was the mother of four. Women are dying in Winnipeg. It is ground zero for MMIWG.
Therefore, I will ask again: Will the minister confirm last week's funding announcement includes a low-barrier 24-hour safe space as requested by my community? Yes or no.
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- May/31/22 3:16:42 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, yesterday's news is indeed part of the ongoing tragedy in this country of missing and murdered indigenous women and girls. The funding in the announcement of last week will create the infrastructure necessary to operate a facility that will be welcoming for people who are in distress. As to the member opposite's current request, which is one of many, it is clearly one that needs priority. It is something that we support, as a government.
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- May/31/22 4:51:51 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to come back to what my colleague from Winnipeg North said in order to set the record straight. Quebec is the place and the society with the most accessible school system in North America. That is the first thing.
Does the member for Winnipeg North understand that Quebec is a caring society? Does he not realize that, when it comes to social justice, Canada could find better things to do than to impose dysfunctional criteria on Quebec's universities?
I would like to hear his thoughts on some other things.
We are talking about diversity, but there is a great diversity of opinions. In April, three members expressed their misgivings about the funding criteria for research chairs in Canada. They were the member for Louis-Hébert, the member for Argenteuil—La Petite-Nation and the member for Mount Royal. Where are they today?
Does my colleague from Winnipeg North agree with his party's censure of these colleagues who disagree with the research funding criteria?
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- May/31/22 4:53:43 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I always like to hear about the University of Manitoba. It is where I went to school.
I would note that the member for Winnipeg North and the member for Kingston and the Islands both get a lot of time in the House. I would encourage them, at some point, to cede some time to equity-seeking groups and marginalized groups in their communities.
I did want to visit the topic of people with disabilities. We know that too many of these roles are not being filled by people in equity-seeking groups, and certainly, people with disabilities have even more barriers and challenges getting access to academic grants. Does the government have any affirmative action initiatives to make sure that persons with disabilities are able to equally access grants, research and funding in this country?
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- May/31/22 7:24:52 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, in question period on March 21, I asked the government why 90% of the funding under the rental construction financing initiative went to for-profit developers and why the units being built often ended up being 30% to 120% above the average market rent. I called on the government to change the requirements to ensure that housing units built under this program are substantially below market rent, and reforms were included in the agreement the NDP entered into with the Liberals.
I am glad the confidence and supply agreement has significantly reformed the RCFI, including changing the eligibility for the program to under 80% of average market rent and allowing for loans to be forgiven when rent is below this minimum threshold. The change also includes an increase in the percentage of units per building that need to meet that criteria, from 20% to 40%. By way of comparison, let us say no changes were made. Rent based on the Liberals' affordability definition under the old RCFI was $2,294 in Vancouver per month. Under the new agreement—
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