A Commons committee has been warned that taxpayer-funded university research grants are being used to promote far-left activism rather than genuine scholarship. Blacklock's Reporetr says the science committee is examining criteria for $4.5 billion in annual federal research spending.“Activist faculty are almost universally left, to the far left, in their politics,” testified David Freeman, professor of economics at Simon Fraser University. He said advocacy-oriented scholarship is shaped by researcher bias, views, and morals.“I am not talking about your Liberal voter, but people who are on the far left,” Freeman told MPs. When asked by Conservative MP Vincent Ho what that looks like in practice, Freeman cited “Marxist scholarship or critical race theory.”.“In my opinion the lack of political balance among advocacy-oriented researchers risks social buy-in for universities as institutions,” he said. “Is it legitimate for a broad spectrum of Canadian taxpayers to fund left and far left advocacy under the guise of research funding? I think the answer is no.”Freeman also criticized what he called “cancel culture” and said the ideological imbalance on campuses undermines universities’ role as truth-seeking institutions. .“Some approaches to scholarship even reject the distinction between pursuit of truth and pursuit of activism,” he said.The committee’s own report last year found that “around $4.5 billion” is spent annually on campus research, mostly awarded through competitions. Another academic, Maryse Beaumier, a biochemist at the University of Québec, said in a written submission that she is “increasingly disillusioned” with federal grant criteria. Policies tied to diversity, equity, and inclusion were influencing decisions, she warned, at the expense of science, excellence, and merit.
