Academic Rigour in Canada

"None of those men, or those who served with them, would now be eligible to teach at the university named in honour of their sacrifice."

"DEI has gone too far for too long."

Former Alberta premier Jason Kenney 

 

"In a 2025 study, the Aristotle Foundation examined 489 job postings issued by ten Canadian universities and found just a dozen that did not contain some element saying that candidates would be prioritized based on their race, gender or sexual identity."

"Despite this, it's still somewhat rare for a university to explicitly turn away candidates based on identarian characteristics."

"In the Aristotle Foundation study, only16 of the 489 jobs they analyzed 'discriminated against candidates based on natural, uncontrolled factors or group identity'." 

Tristin Hopper, Journalist, National Post

Aristotle Foundation

 

All University of Toronto job postings and 96 percent of Dalhousie’s mentioned or implied a candidate’s “contribution to DEI” was an asset.

McGill and the University of Saskatchewan required all applicants to complete a DEI survey.

Nearly two-thirds of the University of British Columbia’s (UBC) and 55 percent of the University of Manitoba’s job postings required candidates to submit a DEI statement or essay.                Aristotle Foundation

 

The sole university in Newfoundland, founded post-World War I in St.John's in memory of the contribution made by Newfoundlanders that was outsized to their population when fully one percent of the province's males died during the First World War -- giving birth to Memorial University, which now has a policy, sponsored by the Canadian federal government, of offering academic positions in favour of LGBTQ, women, Indigenous populations given priority to members of the 'white community' regardless of academic merit.

 

Founded as a 'living memorial', job postings while containing a reminder to applicants that the school was founded on the premise of honouring white-male sacrifices defending democracy to ensure that their "cause and sacrifice might not be forgotten", while denying positions to white-male Newfoundlanders presents a conundrum of mixed messages. At the present time, five job postings come complete with itemized restrictions that effectively shut the door to 'privileged' white males. Those five jobs are exclusively limited to "women, 2SLGBTQIA+ individuals, Indigenous peoples, racialized persons and those with disabilities".

 

(L-R) Muna-Udbi Ali, Assistant Professor, Black Studies in Geography and Environment, Faculty of Environment and Urban Change, York University; Cornel Grey, Assistant Professor, Department of Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies, Western University; and Stephanie Latty, Assistant Professor, Department of Criminology, Toronto Metropolitan University.

 

These five-year postings in the hard sciences for the most part, include research positions for computational biochemistry, musculoskeletal health and 'AI-driven navigation for Arctic and harsh environments'. 'Indigenous knowledge, youth and digital technology' and 'community health and substance use', make up the last two of the postings. Universities now throughout Canada post academic positions that emphasize an 'equity' component meant to advantage some identity groups over others; the favoured from the disfavoured.

 

The Canada Research Chairs Program funds all of these screened positions, a $311-million federal program that financially supports roughly 2,000 academic posts at universities across the nation. Since 2021 the funding expresses strict targets on "equity, diversity and inclusion". At the least, 22.9 percent of all academic positions funded by the program must favour "racialized" individuals, 4.9 percent Indigenous people, 7.5 percent those with disabilities, and 50.9 percent either women or trans individuals. This, in a province where 87.4 percent of the population is of European stock in comparison to 69.8 country-wide.

 

 

Those looking to find work at Canadian public universities based on their qualifications alone might be hard-pressed as a recent study found that 98% of job postings had diversity, equity and inclusion requirements. Public universities now overwhelmingly mandate DEI policies for academic jobs across Canada.  True North

 

New Frontiers in Research Fund (NFRF) Webinar on best practices in equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI)

"NFRF expects applicants to clearly demonstrate their strong commitment to EDI in their applications and in the implementation of their research projects, if funded."

"This webinar accompanies the “Best practices in equity, diversity and inclusion in research practice and design” guide to support NFRF applicants and reviewers in achieving greater equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) in their research practice and design".

"Applicants and research administrators are encouraged to attend the EDI webinars to learn more about how to integrate EDI into a research project. These webinars apply to all NFRF competitions, including special calls."

Canada.ca

Canada Research Coordinating Committee

New Frontiers in Research Fund

Inclusiveness ... Or Exclusion?

"The targets are in place to address a historic and persistent under-representation in the program of individuals from the four designated groups as identified in the employment equity act: women, racialized minorities, Indigenous Peoples, and persons with disabilities."

Statement, Canada Research Chair program

 

"[Only a small number of positions are advertised with such exclusive criteria, as a way to help institutions meet their targets to ensure that we have representation."

"Men are not being barred from participating in the program."

Marie-Lynne Boudreau, director of performance, equity and diversity, Tri-agency Institutional Programs Secretariat, Canada Research Chair program

 

"On the surface, to the Canadian general public [this does] seem very discriminatory in the sense that it's reverse discrimination, right?"

"When [a hiring committee] they have an open call, other subjective factors, sort of overwhelm and hijack the actual qualifications needed."

"To me, what Canada's doing is to actually make it fair. People who have access to influence and resources and know how to make the system work for them -- that is not meritocracy."

Eddy Ng, Smith Professor of Equity & Inclusion in Business, Queen's University

The University of Waterloo campus in Waterloo, Ontario. Photo by Lars Hagberg/The Canadian Press/File

The University of Waterloo recently posted a Canada Research Chair for climate change, water or future cities research in the faculty of environment. The posting restricts potential entrants for the position to anyone self-identifying as female, transgender, non-binary or two-spirit. In the faculty of engineering a  job notice lists the same exclusionary requirement. And to complete the trifecta, a second engineering position has opened singularly to "First Nations, Metis, Inuit/Inuk and those from other Indigenous communities across Turtle Island."

 

There was a time, not so long ago, when it was the other half of recognized binary humanity, women, who were being highlighted as disadvantaged against male applicants for university positions. Equity at that time was labelled 'affirmative action'. And at that, it was white men and women candidates for university positions. Then the search for equality extended to black candidates. And now it has moved to fully embrace all those whom liberal-progressives identify as the ignored, disadvantaged minority groups within society.

 

Initiated in 2000, the Canada Research Chairs program funds these positions to the tune of about $311 million annually with the intention of spurring science and research, finding the most suitable candidates to fill the chairs, individuals recognized for their outstanding professional capabilities in their areas of expertise. The intention is "to attract and retain a diverse cadre of world-class researchers, to reinforce academic research and training excellence". 

Latterly, the program set targets to increase representation of certain groups, to address a lack of diversity among the chairs; women and gender minorities to constitute 50.9 percent of all such Chairs across the entire program, with 22 percent visible minorities, 7.5 percent people with disabilities, and 4.9 percent indigenous, roughly corresponding to population statistics.

According to the latest information on the CRC program website, at October 2021, 40.9 percent of positions across the program were held by women and gender minorities, 22.8 percent by visible minorities, 5.8 percent by persons with disabilities and 3.4 percent by Indigenous  people. Men constitute a majority (54.2 percent) of Canada Research Chairs; the gender ratio persists within other designated categories. 

 

Human rights complaints arguing that white men were over-represented in the program to the detriment of those represented by protected groups spurred deadlines the universities must meet for diversity targets, extending to 2027. According to research out of the University of Saskatchewan, 82.4 percent of respondents agree that diversity is 'fairly' or 'very' vital to the workplace. This widespread belief aside, 59.8 percent of respondents feel demographics should not factor into hiring decisions. The focus should be on perceived merit, at risk of reducing workplace diversity.

There was a time, in the early quarter of the last century, in early years of the 1900s when universities practised strict quotas against admitting Jews to Canadian universities. Either as students and even more so, teaching positions. Jewish intellectuals found themselves persona non grata at Canadian universities until the 1930s when those restrictions began to ease. Jewish academics practising in the teaching profession were a rarity; a result of racial prejudice rife at the time. Exclusion then, inclusion now.

"Had we continued our discrimination against Jewish professors ... there would have been a significant deficit in the advancement of knowledge."

"Thankfully, we moved in the right direction against discrimination. But now, somehow, we've embraced this false notion that discrimination can be good and it simply cannot."

"In general when immutable characteristics become the bar by which someone is offered a job, well, of course, you're going to have people who are not as qualified."

"And, the thing that concerns me is ... it's suggesting that they could not make it on their own merit."

"This is the height of racism. This is an incredibly racist policy, to say that someone who was a person of colour could not compete on their own competency and merit."

David Millard Haskell, professor, faculty of liberal arts, Laurier University