Part of the university community was recently moved by the existence of the Secularism Support Program launched in December 2021 by Quebec. With a modest annual budget of $100,000, this program claims to want to improve knowledge of secularism and its political, social and cultural issues. What nevertheless causes indignation is that instead of meeting the standards of the academic world, the work thus funded should have “measurable and positive” spinoffs for the government and promote the model of the Quebec state itself. same. Several researchers have rightly denounced the program’s biased objectives and evaluation criteria. Faced with this kind of drift, we are entitled to expect our leaders to rectify the situation. We are especially tempted to conclude, like the editorialist Philippe Mercure, that “in researcher memory, we have never seen such a crude attempt to influence research”.
Is it so sure though? Because a parallel immediately comes to mind between this recent intrusion of provincial power into the scientific space and the federal research policy put in place by the Minister of Science and Sports, Kirsty Duncan, in May 2017. More dramatically, this measure, known as the Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Action Plan, was imposed on Canadian and Quebec institutions, which risked losing substantial funding if they did not follow the instructions. In the process, the three federal granting agencies (SSHRC, NSERC and CIHR), whose combined annual operating budget was $3.5 billion in 2019-2020, adopted a joint policy statement aimed at fostering the integration of EDI principles “into the design of the research program and into practices”. Such financial pressure also explains the sudden ideological fervor of certain university rectors… But by directing the very “design” of the programs in advance, such a statement above all seriously called into question the independence of the researcher.
At first glance, the objective seemed very legitimate, since it was a question of improving the under-representation in the university environment of four target groups (Aboriginal people, visible minorities, women and the handicapped). But this beautiful table on positive discrimination is misleading. Because the new EDI standards are not limited to the recruitment of professors and research students. From now on, any request for funding from one of the granting agencies must comply with such criteria. Thus, in a context where federal authorities consider “diversity” to be a sine qua non of “excellence” (terms that are poorly defined in themselves), a whole apparatus of concepts, “intersectionality”, “micro-aggression” , “white normativity”, etc., is in a way imposed as a natural framework, both prior and undisputed, on researchers, whether their work bears on subjects as varied as history, genomics or law. Failure to comply can even be very costly, as Patanjali Kambhampati learned the hard way. This chemistry professor at McGill University was refused two grants, having made the “mistake” of questioning the relevance of the EDI criteria in the development of his research team.
It goes without saying that, from the natural sciences to the humanities, no concept in itself constitutes a truth, and that all concepts must be questioned and debated. Finally, many research models are accepted, including committed knowledge. The fact remains that in the name of the EDI mantra, federal policy tends to promote militant research which, in its subsidized form, has swapped the spirit of rebelliousness for intellectual academicism, as evidenced by the program obtained in 2018 by the Concordia University: “Decolonizing Light: Identifying and Countering Colonialism in Contemporary Physics”.
Much is made today of the work on secularism wanted by Quebec. However, if it is necessary to denounce at all levels the intrusions of political power in research, in particular the orthodoxies to which it tries to subject it, the lack of coherence is visible here. It is, to say the least, remarkable that when it comes to EDI standards, dictated by the federal government, researchers have for the most part remained discreet. The media ignored them, to say nothing of the managers at the head of our educational and knowledge establishments. The fact remains that when it comes to academic freedom, and especially freedom of research, there can be no double standards.