The Trudeau government is suspending all research grant applications affiliated with a Chinese military research institution or laboratory. In general, requests related to any national defense organization of a “foreign actor” threatening Canadian security will also henceforth be refused.
This was announced by the Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, François-Philippe Champagne, on Tuesday evening. In a press release, he indeed affirms that any “application for a research grant in a sensitive field will be refused if one of the researchers working on the project” is affiliated with a “foreign state actor who represents a risk to our national security” .
According to government sources, however, the new policy would mainly concern China and Russia, but it could eventually target other states.
This all comes a month after an investigation by the Globe and Mail, which had revealed in recent weeks a “close collaboration” between Canadian universities and Chinese military scientists. Minister Champagne immediately undertook to put in place new control rules.
Ottawa is also asking the Canada Foundation for Innovation, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research to “take a more stringent with respect to national security.
“The cutting-edge research conducted in Canada puts the country at the forefront of global discoveries, which can make it an attractive target for foreign state actors,” he said. Minister Champagne, in a joint statement with the Minister of Health, Jean-Yves Duclos, and the Minister of Public Security, Marco Mendicino.
By setting as an “absolute priority” to “protect Canadian research”, the three ministers also evoke “an environment where threats are constantly evolving”, judging that other measures are necessary to reverse the trend.
Local universities called upon to follow
Ottawa also says it has called on Universities Canada and U15, the Association of Canadian Research Universities, to adopt “similar guidelines for all their research partnerships, particularly those related to sensitive areas”. “We will work closely with our colleagues in academia to ensure that these additional measures are put in place effectively,” insist the ministers.
They promise that this “enhanced policy” will be put together “quickly and in close consultation with our departments, national security agencies and the research community”.
On Saturday, a flying machine was shot down over the Yukon on the orders of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. It was the third unidentified aircraft destroyed in North American airspace in a week. Remember that a first Chinese balloon was shot down on February 4 by Washington off the Atlantic coast.
According to the Pentagon, the machine had flown over sensitive military sites. For its part, Beijing claimed to have used the aircraft “for research purposes, mainly meteorological”, but according to images captured by American military planes, the balloon was well equipped with spy tools.