Defunding Science Due To DEI: What It Means for Canada

1:00:00 This episode is a rant. And it's a rant about defunding science due to DEI programs. We have a Canadian election going on, a federal Canadian election going on here in Canada. And there's been talk on the conservative side about defunding programs within Canadian context like funding agencies that have to do with DEI programs. This is not good for science. This is not good for elevating communities that need to be elevated and making science better here in Canada. We're going to talk about that on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. Let's start the show.

1:00:44 Hey everybody, welcome back to another exciting episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. I am your host, Andrew Lewin. And this is the podcast where we find out what's happening with the ocean, how you can speak up for the ocean, and what you can do to live for a better ocean by taking action. Now in today's episode, we're going to be talking about politics. Politics and science to be specific, and also looking at DEI programs. This is not going to be like a hugely political post, but there is a Canadian federal election that's going on. And one of the parties, the conservative party leader, Pierre Poliev came out last week talking about defunding science, I guess projects and science grants based on DEI initiatives. This is scary to me because I don't know if it's trying to end quote unquote woke ism, or if it's just trying to use that as an excuse to defund science.

1:01:33 Either way, both is bad. And we're going to talk about why that's bad today. And we're going to be talking about also how Canada can separate itself from our neighbors down south in terms of their thought process. I've always felt that Canada as a Canadian growing up here in Canada, we have really changed our tune in terms, especially when it comes to human rights. We voted on the approval and the institution of marriage for LGBTQ plus people a long time ago. Unfortunately, that's come back and we see a lot of hateful things said against LGBTQ community. We're also seeing, we've seen the advancement of DEI initiatives within this country, although it's not perfect by any means, but we've seen that advancement.

1:02:20 And now we're starting to see the talk of woke ism and being woke and DEI all being lumped in the middle as a bad thing, you know, where it's which I find really crazy because all it's trying to do is put everybody on the same plane by lifting up communities that haven't been lifted up before or haven't had the chance or the opportunity to be lifted up before. So it's it's putting everybody on a similar plane by a similar plane by like just basically lifting this up. This episode is going to be a bit of a rant. It's not going to be edited. I'm putting this out last minute. I had an episode. Truthfully, I had an episode already planned about the U.S. and their energy policy that's coming out about rolling back, you know, policies and regulations and laws so that they can really put forward on drilling oil and gas and lessening the green energy like wind power offshore.

1:03:15 Not fun, but where you'll you'll hear that on Wednesday because today I wanted to talk about this dei initiative and defunding science that have dei policies. It within the federal government that federal government kind of put together, which is a lot of academic and a lot of nonprofit organizations that are working on not only oceans, but just nature in general and wildlife biology and conservation biology in general as law as well as medical and all social science and so forth. There's a lot of science that gets funded through these programs, but we need to talk about today because the party that could be as like the party in power for Canada is the conservative party is putting together this.

1:03:55 They've proposed this plan to defund science based on whether that program has a dei initiative. Essentially, that's essentially what they want to do. One of the things that they want to do and it's not the I hate to say it, but it's not the biggest issue that's in the the overall issues like the economy, tariffs, sovereignty of Canada, you know, the fact that we want our independence on oil and gas that we're not just selling it to the US. There's a lot of stuff that's happening in Canada and this as well as the environment unfortunately does not get the attention that it deserves. It may not be what everybody wants to talk about or vote on when we're looking at this election.

1:04:36 However, this is important to me is important to the people who are in Canada who listen to this podcast and I want to make it clear about what they want to do what the conservative party have proposed to do because I feel like today is the day, you know, where it's the last day to vote. You know, you got to put in your vote. Everybody go vote doesn't matter who you vote for, but everybody go vote. But understand what this party wants to do to our scientific grant and funding agencies and what it's going to limit and how bad that's going to be. So first off, you know, Pierre Poliev, who's the leader of the Canadian Conservative Party, has led, has pledged to eliminate what he terms as woke ideology from the federal research funding, particularly targeting policies related to equity, diversity and inclusion, EDI or DEI as many people refer to in science and academia.

1:05:27 So this stance has raised concerns among academic institutions and researchers who emphasize the importance of DEI in fostering inclusion and innovative research environments. So this is what's essentially happened in the past before the initiatives happen. There is a big push and a lot of demand for making sure that granting agencies and funding agencies from the federal government would disperse the money equally through like a DEI initiatives, essentially making sure that the money went to a diverse, make sure that it was equal and there was equity in the distribution of the funds as well as it makes sure it's inclusive to everybody.

1:06:10 So it's not just people who look like me who are getting these funds, which was happening, whether we like it or not, that was happening back in the 70s, 80s, probably even before that 70, 90s, 2000s. It's still probably happening today. And so what the federal government did was put in these DEI initiatives so that programs that were applying this, so whether it be academic or whether it be nonprofit or any kind of non governmental organizations, if they wanted to get access to this funding, they had to prove that they're following DEI policies. So that they had DEI policies that they would follow and they had to prove that they were doing this. Now, this doesn't mean that only grants went to minorities or people of color or people in sort of marginalized communities, whether it be gender communities or whether it be cultural communities or race communities.

1:06:56 It didn't it didn't matter is everybody was on the same playing field, right? And even though, you know, the science was still great and everything was great. They wanted to make sure that it was still on the same playing field. And that's great. It really worked out great. So essentially what happened is the federal grants incorporating DEI policies, they had several major funding programs administered by Canada's tri-agency, which is comprising of NSERC, SHRC, which is social sciences and NSERC is natural sciences. And then there's CIHR, which to be honest, I'm not too sure what it was, but I think it has to do more with health, I think is more where it comes from. But then they had to have integrated DEI considerations into their frameworks.

1:07:39 They had to have equity, diversity and inclusion, institutional capacity building grant. So that was one of the grants. They aims to identify and eliminate systemic barriers that impede the career advancement of underrepresented groups in academia. New Frontiers Research Fund and FRF requires applicants to demonstrate a commitment to DEI in their research practice and team compositions. Canada's excellence research here. So these are research chairs that are like heads of departments, essentially looking at in academia. And this is NSERC and I think two more, two more different ones. I can't remember now, but mandates institutions to maintain up to date equity plans and promote diversity in research leadership.

1:08:26 And then the Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarships and Banting Postdoctoral Fellowships include DEI considerations in their selection criteria to attract diverse talent. So these programs reflect a broader governmental commitment to fostering inclusive research environments that leverage diverse perspectives to enhance scientific inquiry and innovation. So here's the thing. When you look at science, when you look at nature, and I've said this a number of times, diversity matters, right? The fact that if you have a diverse environment, I'd say a marine habitat, if it was diverse, if it had coral reefs, it had seagrasses, if it had mangroves, it made it a stronger environment because all those habitats contribute to not only diversity of species by having a habitat that can house all these types of diverse species, but it also like if one of those species is gone of the same like functional group.

1:09:19 So say they're like reef builders, then you know that there's if there's multiple species within that same functional group, you know, if one species is extirpated, so is gone from that area for whatever reason, there are others that can do still the same function. Right. But if you only had one species in that functional group, and that species disappears from that habitat, then that function is gone. And that could affect the entire dynamic of the marine habitat. So diversity in nature is important, you're looking even from genetic diversity, if you have a species that's in that's endangered, and you have you preserve a number of the different genetics of the diversity of genetics, so a number of different genetic makeup, you know that if you ever have to repopulate that population, you know that if you have a diverse set of genes in each species or each population, then that diversity will will survive longer because just the process of natural science, just the process of natural selection, one particular set of genes could survive better than another particular set of genes. And so having those sets of genes work together and be able to say which of the populations are going to survive based on a genetic diversity, that's really important. So we have proof that genetic diversity, just diversity in general, from a species, from a genetic level, from a species level, from a habitat level, from an ecosystem level, makes the environment stronger.

1:10:40 It makes it stronger. So remember that. Now when you're talking about a team, a team makes it stronger, like if diversity makes and inclusion, making sure everybody's included, make sure that everything is stronger. Take football, I love football, draft is on as I'm recording this, it's great to see all these different positions really matter. If you have a strong O line, an offensive line, your offense is going to be great. If you have great receivers, your offense is going to be great. If you and your quarterback is going to be great because you have a great offensive line. They allow for the quarterback to have the time to decide which receiver to throw to.

1:11:22 If you don't have a good offensive line, defensive lines comes in, they sack the quarterback, you can't throw, you don't have, you basically have a crappy offense. You don't want a crappy offense. But having each or one of those groups be good or be solid, right? And having a diverse set of good, strong positions and positional groups, you are going to have a better team. But if you don't have those strong positional groups or you're missing a positional group, you're not very good. Case in point, a couple years ago, my San Francisco 49ers were in the NFC Championship playing the Philadelphia Eagles. The winner goes on to play Kansas City Chiefs for the second time in a row for the Niners. Niners had just gotten to the Super Bowl.

1:12:04 Okay, so now they're going against a great team. They're a great team. They lose their quarterback in the first quarter, second quarter. Lose him. He can't throw anymore. He can only run. And even then, he's hurting. His arm is UCL is basically torn. Can't throw far, can't throw it all. They don't have another quarterback because all their quarterback's got to do. One more quarterback, he goes in, he gets a concussion, he's out of the game. They don't have any more quarterbacks. They have to use their running back as a quarterback. And all they do is run the ball. They can't run and throw because they don't have the quarterback. They're losing that diversity. Right? They lost that positional group that actually makes it matter. I'm taking this analogy way too far. Draft is on really hot in my head. But you get the point. The point is that diversity, making sure that everybody's included, making sure that everything is like the equity is there.

1:12:53 Everybody's on the same page. You get a stronger team. You get a stronger science team. You get a stronger lab. You get stronger policies and journal articles and everything. You're getting people, especially when you look at culture and you look at gender, you're getting people from looking at different sides. And especially when you're looking at conservation and science, you have to have people with different perspectives. It challenges the sciences more. And having those different perspectives, those diverse perspectives, you end up having better science because of it. It's not just from one culture, one gender. It's from everything. So having that different group, yes, you may get challenged at certain times, but having all those different groups, the challenging makes it better. Science criticisms are what makes things better in science. It's what science is rooted on.

1:13:42 And so if you have a team, right, from different cultures, different backgrounds, working together, the science becomes better. It's just how it happens. So taking away DEI initiatives just because of the word DEI or quote unquote woke ideologies takes away the strength of the science. And it goes back 10, 20, 30, 40 years to a time where people who give out the grants can show their biases towards people who look like me because they think that, you know, people like me only have the education, only have the ability to go forth, which is not true. There are so many other people. If you look at any university, especially now in Canada, it is so diverse. There are so many people who are brilliant, who are intelligent, who are hardworking, who are ready to do conservation, whether it be in the marine realm or the wildlife realm.

1:14:34 And they are great scientists and they're going to be great scientists, but they can't be great scientists if they don't get the same opportunity as people who look like me. That's really what it comes down to. So having a platform, a political platform where the conservative party who have a chance of getting into power, all the polls say suggests otherwise, but you never know. It's going to be a close race. Say that, hey, you know what? Like, we're just going to take this DEI initiative away. We're going to go back to what we were doing before because we did it better. Now we didn't. There's no suggestion that we did things better back then when we didn't have the ideas. But making sure that funding is canceled for any DNI initiatives could also cancel funding for science in general. We know the conservatives are anti climate change. We know that they tend to be anti environment anyway.

1:15:23 So it's not going to go towards like encircles those natural science types of of funding programs or social science where you have to include a lot of different groups, local groups, indigenous groups in this process for conservation. Who knows better than to take care of North America than Canada than indigenous people. Right. And so, but if we take it away where we're not making sure that each team in each institution or each nonprofit organization or whoever's getting that recipient of that of that money that funding. Now we have nothing, right? We start to lose those groups. They're not included in those groups. And we start getting back into parachute science. We start getting back into more selfish science and it's not good.

1:16:07 Collaboration is key. DIs part of that. Whether you want to call it D I or not, you still have to do it. And there's still an opportunity to do that for every institution. Right. To say, you know what, we're just going to continue our programs. We just may name it something different. But we're going to continue our programs, but it takes away from people who may have some opportunity. And that's what I want to talk about today. So here's what's going to happen. Essentially, the implications of this proposal is that peer poly has proposal to eliminate funding tied to any kind of quote unquote woke policies has sparked debate within the academic community. Critics are quit critics argue that such a move could undermine efforts to address historical inequities in academia and diminish the quality of and relevant of Canadian research at the global stage.

1:16:50 Supporters, however, contend that research funding should be allocated based solely on scientific merit without considerations of identity politics. Here's the problem with that. We tried to do that before and it didn't work. We tried to do that before and we saw biases. Hence why we put in these D I policies. That's why we're putting it in. It wasn't working like that before. Everybody's like, well, should be on scientific merit. Yes, it should be. But when you look at the recipients back in the day, we're starting to, we started to see the biases. It was all white people, white men. We know this is a problem. We knew this is a problem. We did studies on this. And now you're just taking it away because people are sick of hearing about welcome D. I guess who's sick about it. Yes, guess the people who are sick about it. It drives me nuts to see this. And yes, I agree that some policies go way too far to the other extreme. We need to find in the middle, but it's should still be on scientific merit, but making sure that everybody's included.

1:17:47 Part of the D.I. Make sure it's diverse. Make sure it works. Make sure you're getting different perspectives. Make sure that teams are built based on diversity, equity and inclusion. That's all I have to say today. And so take that in mind if that's something that's important to you when you actually go and vote today for my Canadian audience here. Because I think it's important. I'd love to hear your thoughts. Let me know in the comments below if you're watching this on YouTube or hit me up on Instagram at how to protect the ocean. That's at how to protect the ocean. Just DM me or if you want to email me, go to speak up for blue dot com. Hit the contact page that goes right to fill out the form that goes right into my inbox. Good luck with the voting. I hope a certain party wins. I'm not going to tell you who you can kind of tell.

1:18:31 But regardless, you know, go vote exercise your vote to win and let's just keep making sure that science is funded for everybody, not just for one particular person or identity. Thank you so much for joining me on today's episode of the how to protect the ocean podcast. I'm your host, Angelou and have a great day. We'll talk to you next time and happy conservation.