Those who wondered how far the CAQ would take partisanship received a clue recently.
Posted at 5:00 a.m.
A clue that shows that the answer is: very far.
As far as directing scientific research according to partisan interests.
In 2022? At the very moment when François Legault sets himself up as a defender of academic freedom? It’s so big it seems impossible. Yet that is exactly what is happening. And that must be denounced loud and clear.
Without much fanfare, the government has launched an initiative called “Secularism Support Program”. The idea: to offer scholarships to researchers who want to study secularism. So far, so good.
But beware: the conclusion of the research is telegraphed. Because one of the objectives of the program is to “promote the Quebec model defined by the State Secularism Act “.
Another pearl: in the criteria for evaluating applications, it is specified that the project must generate “positive spinoffs for the Government of Quebec and the Secretariat”.
The program is managed by the Secretariat for the Reform of Democratic Institutions, Access to Information and Secularism.
Clearly, the government finances research, but only on the condition that it validates its orientations and brings in profits.
“From the moment we say: the model described by the State Secularism Act is the one that must be promoted by a research project, we are no longer in free research. It becomes ideologically oriented research, which serves to promote the partisan interests of the government, ”denounces Jocelyn Maclure, professor of philosophy at McGill University.
“We offer research funding that is accompanied by a fairly clear political expectation,” also analyzes Julien Prud’homme, professor in the department of human sciences at the University of Quebec at Trois-Rivières.
The program has an annual budget of only $100,000, but the case is still not trivial. Law 21 on the prohibition of religious symbols for teachers and other representatives of the State is a central element of the political positioning of the CAQ.
Whether or not one agrees with this law has nothing to do with this, however. It is government intrusion in the direction of research that should worry us.
An interference that is all the more ironic since in the wake of the Lieutenant-Duval affair at the University of Ottawa and other similar cases, François Legault said he wanted to send a “strong signal” to protect academic freedom. .
With this scholarship program, it does the exact opposite.
Let us agree: it is perfectly legitimate for the government to seek to increase knowledge on certain issues. And we can certainly argue that at a time when the different models of secularism are the subject of debate in Quebec, there is a need to know more about this question.
But there are ways to do this.
The best is certainly to go through the Fonds de recherche du Québec (FRQ), the main provider of research grants in the province. The competitions are supervised there. Experts, not civil servants, evaluate proposals and decide who to fund.
The FRQ even have a “concerted action program” which aims precisely to shed light on issues that are important to society. In recent years, various departments have, for example, launched calls for proposals to better understand domestic violence, the aging of the population or school perseverance. An excellent way to align research with the needs of society.
It is not unusual for departments to bypass the FRQ to directly fund research projects. But, in researcher’s memory, never had we seen such a crude attempt to influence research.
Unfortunately, this is not the first time that the Legault government has crossed a red line by transporting partisan issues to areas where they should be prohibited. We remember, for example, the unbearable politicization surrounding the unveiling, last October, of the new Quebec Culture and Citizenship course that all young people in elementary and secondary school will take from 2023.
The school curriculum and scientific research are two areas where partisanship has no place.