Two TELUQ professors, partners at the university and in business, use their research work — which is financed from the budgets of school service centers (CSS) — to implement and evaluate a classroom management method in schools . At the same time, they sold training on this same method to more than half of the French-speaking CSSs in Quebec with their private company.
Steve Bissonnette and Mario Richard are professors in the Department of Education at TELUQ University. In 1990, they launched a private company: the Proxima Group, “educational consulting experts”, which became an incorporated company in 2004-2005.
With documents obtained under access to information requests, The duty was able to establish that the Proxima Group has concluded contracts with more than half of the French-speaking CSSs in Quebec since 2013. The company sells training days on various classroom management methods, including positive behavior support (SCP), a component of “effective teaching” which aims to reduce behavioral gaps among students.
At the same time, since 2012-2013, all of the research carried out by Mr. Bissonnette has been financed from CSS budgets. They sign contracts with TELUQ so that Mr. Bissonnette implements the SCP in their schools and then evaluates its relevance.
The accumulation of functions of MM. Richard and Bissonnette — as professors and business owners — are raising eyebrows among some of their academic colleagues. But these criticisms take place in a context of “war” surrounding the Drainville reform in education, Mr. Richard nuances.
Intersecting functions
The duty asked all French-speaking CSSs in Quebec to provide it with a copy of the contracts concluded with the Proxima Group. Of the 61 CSSs targeted, 54 responded to our request. Among them, 63% (34 CSS) held contracts awarded to the Proxima Group for training courses costing a few thousand dollars each.
The CSS des Patriotes, in Montérégie, for example, has paid $128,000 since 2016-2017 for “training offered by Steve Bissonnette through TELUQ and Proxima,” writes spokesperson Julie-Anne Lamoureux. The CSS granted $60,000 to TELUQ for a research agreement on the SCP which ended in 2023. Mr. Bissonnette was the principal researcher. Please note: all research contracts that The duty consulted stipulate that the researcher does not receive any remuneration from the grant awarded to his university.
In Quebec, the CSS de la Capitale extended $108,000 in 2019 for a research contract with TELUQ. The principal researcher, Steve Bissonnette, was to analyze the effects of implementing SCP in two schools. At the time, Mr. Bissonnette had not informed the CSS of his interests in a company that sells training on the SCP. “After verification, the CSS de la Capitale was unaware of the existence of the company Proxima in 2019,” confirmed communications coordinator Marie-Claude Lavoie.
The TELUQ policy on research integrity, named in the research contracts that the university signs with the CSS, defines a conflict of interest as “a situation which presents or can reasonably be perceived as presenting a real risk that ‘personal interest hinders a person’s judgment’. The same policy asks researchers to “disclose to their institution or granting agency any situation where their personal interest or that of someone else could outweigh their own.”
The CSS de la Capitale ended up knowing the Proxima Group a few years later. In 2023, the company billed CSS $3,500 after providing half-day training on SCP.
Same scenarios elsewhere
In 2015, the CSS de la Vallée-des-Tisserands, in Montérégie-Ouest, also granted a little over $7,500 to the Proxima Group for three-day training on the SCP. This was given by Mr. Bissonnette and a research professional at TELUQ.
The following year, the same CSS paid TELUQ an amount estimated at at least $52,500 (since the CSS said it had lost a first invoice) so that a professor, Steve Bissonnette, could implement and evaluate the impact of the SCP. in one of his schools.
In an interview, Mr. Bissonnette denies being in a situation of conflict of interest, in particular because his research aims to “implement” the SCP, while his training is only a simple presentation of this approach. “Proxima’s activities are distinct from those of a professor,” Mr. Richard also argues.
In my opinion, there is at least an appearance of conflict of interest: Professor Bissonnette has an interest in the success of his company and he has a duty of scientific rigor linked to his status as professor.
However, Professor Steve Bissonnette’s two functions overlapped in 2016, still at the CSS de la Vallée-des-Tisserands. After purchasing online training on effective teaching from TELUQ, the CSS needed support. His representatives therefore contacted Mr. Bissonnette through his TELUQ email address. It was ultimately with his company that the professor provided the requested help. Two invoices dating from 2016 and bearing the Proxima Group logo show “living expenses” (travel, accommodation, meals) of just over $1,000 for “TELUQ training”.
In an interview, Mr. Bissonnette emphasizes that “this is pretty much the one and only time we have accepted this type of mandate.” Since TELUQ courses never provide “face-to-face” support, the professor came to fill this need with his company, he explains.
Asked for this file, representatives of TELUQ University refused to grant an interview to Duty. “Considering that our professors Steve Bissonnette and Mario Richard have already informed you on the subject of effective teaching at TELUQ University, we have no further information to provide on this subject,” wrote Catherine Lévesque, advisor in communications and marketing for the University.
A conflict… with nuances
The duty interviewed two professors who have no professional ties with MM. Richard and Bissonnette to get their opinion on this situation. They raised red flags…with some nuance.
“If these same people do indeed have a business that appears to benefit from implementing this type of strategy [le SCP] in other establishments, with other school service centers, we can consider that it is a conflict of interest,” observed Frédérick Bastien, professor of political science at the University of Montreal.
“In my opinion, there is at least an appearance of conflict of interest: Professor Bissonnette has an interest in the success of his company and he has a duty of scientific rigor linked to his status as professor,” Olivier Grenier also commented. , doctoral candidate in science, technology and society at the University of Quebec in Montreal.
“However, the interests at stake are not necessarily in conflict,” warned Mr. Grenier, who is interested in aspects of methodology in educational sciences in his research. “From Mr. Bissonnette’s point of view, the interests are in fact perfectly aligned. In fact, he has a training business because he believes that the results of his research are rigorous and therefore likely to improve the situation in the education system. »
Mr. Bissonnette specifies for his part that his company is “a sideline » which does not allow her, on her own, to earn a living. “I am not soliciting and see no conflict of interest. […] I’m completely legal. My own university knows the Proxima Group,” he adds. The professor emphasizes that his collective agreement allows him to devote 20% of his time to outside activities, which can be paid.
Funded by school service centers
Mr. Bissonnette’s research has not been funded by a research fund since 2012-2013. “I don’t need it because the funds come directly from the school service centers,” underlines the professor in an interview. Mr. Richard affirms that the demand from the CSS is “great”, and that they do not want “to be dependent on obtaining or not obtaining subsidies”.
Likewise, the demand for Proxima’s services comes from the field, according to Mr. Bissonnette, who sees this as proof of the “disconnect” between the faculties of education and the school environment. “I am hated [dans les facultés d’éducation]. Deeply,” he says during the interview.
In these faculties, the case of the TELUQ professors arouses obvious unease. A professor, who requested anonymity for fear of professional reprisals, points out that Mr. Bissonnette perhaps avoids applying for grants from large research funds to avoid the peer review that comes with this type of request. . “They are often criticized for this,” adds a professor from another university, still on condition of anonymity. “However, what matters are the scientific articles that are subsequently submitted,” explains this same person.
Mr. Bissonnette affirms that his comments on “effective teaching”, of which the SCP is one of the components, are rejected by several of his peers (see other text). “They will tell us, for example, that the search for effectiveness, the use of so-called experimental research, is good for medicine, but not necessarily for education,” he observes.
In the written response he provided to the DutyMario Richard also emphasizes that, in a “broader perspective, it is important to take into consideration [le fait] that there is currently a war in Quebec academia since the adoption of Bill 23 [la réforme Drainville]and more particularly on the creation of the National Institute of Excellence in Education [INEE] », which according to him is opposed by a “majority” of education professors. “In this context, all means are good to publicly silence those who have publicly spoken out favorably, which is our case,” he writes.
With Dave Christmas