Johannes Wheeldon, Ph.D

Should We Treat the Globe and Mail as a Cheating Student?

2012-09-24T08:19:17-04:00

In a remarkable reply to the detailed allegations against Margaret Wente for repeated plagiarism, the Globe and Mail has shown itself to be unequal to the tasks associated with running a national newspaper.

In short, basic journalistic integrity at the Globe is dead. Gone. It has "flown the coop, kicked the bucket, shuffled off this mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisible."

The problems with the reply by the Globe's public editor Sylvia Stead are numerous. The largest issue is that Stead fails to address the fact that Wente used a paragraph, almost identical to one written by Dan Gardner, after removing the quotation marks. In short she passed off observations of another as her own. This is plagiarism. Period. Full stop.

As an educator, I know something about this stuff. I see it often. I have argued it is a function both of the technological ease of copying and pasting, and the fact that we simply do not teach students what plagiarism is, why it matters, and how it can be avoided. For three years now, I have been using a version of the quiz provided here to try to assist my students.

But what about columnists and journalists? As HuffPost has pointed out this has been quite a summer for journalistic ethics. Fareed Zakaria and Jonah Lehrer have both been investigated and were both suspended, although Zakaria has since been reinstated at CNN. In the U.S., journalists and media companies take this stuff seriously.

In Canada? Crickets. The silence on this issue has been deafening. Few journalists have expressed an opinion on the matter, and no mainstream brick and mortar newspapers have covered it. Why you ask? According to Sabrina Maddeaux: "Everyone is scared shitless."

So what might be done? Since, as Maddeaux points out, copy editors and fact-checkers are all but extinct in Canada's lame stream media, perhaps you and I can assist. I propose a project organized through kickstarter or some similar organization to raise enough money to buy a subscription to TurnItIn. The Globe and Mail cannot be the only Canadian publication with a plagiarism problem and this project will assist by providing access to a useful tool to identify the number of cut and paste jobs (past and present) presented as original work. Imagine how pleased Canada's illustrious media will be!

Working together we can use TurnItIn's OriginalityCheck and help the media do its job. It's easy -- copy and paste questionable text into the space provided, the program compares the submitted text against a text comparison database and presents an originality index so anyone can see how much of a journalist's or columnist's work is original.

What say you? Shall we crowdsource the Globe's plagiarism problem?

Why Making Prisoners "Pay" Won't Work

2012-05-11T17:11:09-04:00

Mere months after passing Bill C-10, legislation that combined a stupefying number of failed crime policies together in one place, the Federal government is at it again. Time for prisoners to start paying their own way, says the Minister for Public Safety, Vic Toews.

As usual, the language used is instructive. Couched in terms of cost savings, Toews couldn't resist adding the non sequitur that these changes are designed to show victims of crime that prisoners don't get all the rights. As if there were a limited number. Sigh.

As the Globe and Mail reports, these new measures include:

Charging more to stay in prisons, getting rid of incentive pay tied to certain inmate work and ensuring offenders are charged for their phone calls. Theses are among the changes the minister says will save a total of $10 million each year.

As anyone who has been paying attention to this issue knows, Canada is in the process of importing tough-on-crime policies from the U.S. While even conservative Texan policymakers agree these have been disastrous in financial and human terms, Canada will embrace mandatory minimums and harsher sentencing. This will invariably lead to the reduction of community corrections programs that have been shown to best promote successful rehabilitation and reintegration.

Announcing that the measures will save $10 million a year at a time when the costs of the C-10 will amount to hundreds of millions of dollars, Toews is clapping himself on the back for blowing out a match while his house burns down.

Those of us who work in corrections know that most incarcerated individuals are from financially insecure backgrounds. They have little formal education and few job prospects. The idea that we should take more from those who have the least, to help pay for failed get-tough policies is abhorrent. It is also a sign of the times. So where does this all lead?

There are two worrying possibilities. While both would be a profound departure from our policies of the past, neither should be discounted. Progressives ought to start carefully considering how far the Tories will go to change the way Canadians think about justice. When policy is not based on what works to promote rehabilitation but instead craven appeals to base-emotions, cynicism starts to look like good common sense.

The first possibility is based on the underlying idea that prisoners should pay ever-increasing amounts for the privilege of being incarcerated. In some American states, this has led to the advent of Legal Financial Obligations (LFOs) or fees, fines and restitution orders that are assessed at the time of a criminal conviction.

Interest accrues and yearly collection fees are added onto the bill. The Seattle University School of Law argues LFOs represent a significant additional obstacle for those attempting to secure stable employment and housing post-incarceration. By placing financial hardships on those with the least ability to pay, an individuals' sentence is never over.

Paying your debt to society takes on a new and worrying meaning.

The second possibility flows from the first. While Canada has largely avoided the private prison industry -- sometimes known as the prison industrial complex -- past approaches are clearly no guarantee for the future. In the U.S., private prisons are common, despite the high costs for taxpayers, and poor record of private prisons in protecting and respecting the civil and human rights of those incarcerated. But what if prisoners and their families were forced to fund private prisons? What if instead of trying to break the cycle of poverty-to-prison-to-poverty, we actively embraced it?

There are some in Canada who seek to play politics with the lives of our incarcerated citizens. Instead of taking responsibility for supporting these folks to make better choices, funding education and treatment and modelling pro-social interactions, they seek to punish people -- hour by hour, day by day and year after year. These new policies are both more of the same old Tory talking points, and a worrying new front in the battle to forgo Canada's reputation as a global leader in justice policy.

Youth Rocked the Liberal Convention

2012-01-15T16:58:15-05:00

Last year around this time, I argued that to be relevant, the Liberals needed to look to the youth vote, consider democratic renewal within and outside their party, and abandon the drug war. A year later at their convention, many members seemed to agree.

Liberals adopted Mike Crawley, the preferred choice by many young Liberals, as party president. They also adopted, in a nod to the need for electoral reform, a preferential balloting system.

Perhaps the biggest surprise was the large majority support for the legalization of marijuana.

However exciting these developments are, this is still the Liberal Party. Defeated motions included curbing the totally undemocratic power of the yet-to-be elected Liberal leader to overrule policies passed by members and refusing to even consider rethinking what Canada's relationship to the monarchy should be in the 21st century. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

Yet, this did not look like a party on the brink of extinction. Young Liberals at the convention should be proud of their role and organizing ability. Their success should bolster efforts of many to educate young Canadians on the importance of our democracy and their voice within it.

Harper Backs Down on Gay Marriage

2012-01-13T12:54:14-05:00

A kerfuffle of international propositions blew up this week when it appeared the Harper government was rewriting the rules on same-sex marriage to suit its right-wing agenda. Amidst the bluster and confusion, I think this incident suggests three important things about Canada and Canadians: The first is that many people are pretty scared of the Harper majority government. The second is that the Canadian media needs to have better legal consultants. Third, and finally, is that attempts at reform by stealth, by this government or others, will be harder to hide in an age of instantaneous information.

Before turning to these in detail, lets recap what actually happened.

The issue arose because Ministry of Justice lawyers, representing the Attorney General of Canada, took the position in Federal Court that a same sex couple who married Toronto in 2005 cannot legally divorce unless one of them had lived in Ontario for a year. This seems entirely reasonable given that ALL divorces under Canada's Divorce Act require the same thing. In case there was any doubt, equal rights can be an equal pain for everyone.

The second, more dubious argument, advanced by the Crown was that same sex couples married in Canada cannot apply for divorce. They have no legal standing, the lawyers argued, because these women are not legally married under Canadian law since their home jurisdictions don't recognize same-sex marriage. If accepted by the Court, this would have meant thousands of foreign couples who got married in Canada were now deprived of their basic rights conferred by marriage. The full document is here (see page six for the arguments).

A number of Canadian media outlets reported that government policy had changed, and many assumed Harper's supposed secret agenda to remake Canada was not so secret anymore. Within hours the government back-tracked and promised to pass a fix to this obvious legal oversight.

In an interesting post Kevin Kindred, a Halifax lawyer and LGBT-rights advocate, offered a clarifying reply to the media noise. He argued that the panic and firestorm was the result of the difficulty of understanding "private international law," that making an argument does not amount to a policy shift, and that many media outlets were overstating the case. This is a useful piece worth reading, but Kindred seems to make some worrying assumptions.

The first is that no one other than the lawyers arguing the case knew this argument was to be made. If true, the Crown lawyers should give their head a shake -- arguing this position without a heads up to the Minister's office borders on malpractice. If not, the feigned surprise by the Tories about the issue is nonsense. The second assumption Kindred makes is that there is no problem with a government willing to argue a position that if accepted would invalidate thousands of marriages. Kindred is smart guy and he is no doubt right on the law. The law, however, does not exist in a vacuum.

I suggest this whole incident be seen as an important and clarifying political moment. Despite my concerns about the apathy and ignorance I see in my homeland, it is clear many, many Canadians are scared about the ideologically driven federal government under Harper. From pipelines to prisons, they seem to be expecting the worst and waiting for the other shoe to drop. Mr. Harper: take note. Conservative values are not Canadian values. Many people are scared of you and increasingly enraged by your policies.

The second lesson is that the Canadian media needs to have better legal consultants. Strike that, they need better history, politics, legal, sociological, and scientific consultants. While there are good people working really hard, the current media landscape in Canada is replacing our once respected and careful fourth estate with yellow journalism, talking head nonsense, and a increasingly reliance on moral panics be it on "separatist/socialist" coalitions or other divisive social issues to drive website traffic. It is tough to argue that the Canadian media is not in trouble.

Third, and finally, I take the loud condemnation and worried messages I received on Facebook and elsewhere to mean that people are watching and waiting for Harper's attempt to reform Canada by stealth. This may suggest that many will meet these attempts to change the Canadian dream with fierce resistance. In an era of instantaneous information, a smart lawyer, for example, can force the Government to address basic issue of fairness by strategically highlighting Harper's contradictory position of supporting gay rights in the media, but limiting them in court.

I, for one, I am happy to see a little outrage in Canada. We should be outraged by our electoral system, by the ideology of fear and punishment, and by the deep disrespect shown by Harper to our institutions of democracy.

Outrage is not enough though. It must be matched by a less glamorous and more challenging commitment to engage with our broken system of governance. Keeping an eye on Ottawa is good, but getting your hands dirty in your local constituency is the best way to take back your country.

The Smart Way to Fund Academic Research

2012-01-11T10:51:21-05:00

This is the final part of a three part series critically examining the academic research funding model in Canada. Part one outlined why the existing system wastes taxpayers' money and researchers' time. Part two discussed how the current system undermines innovation. This final part proposes some options for reform.

In the first two parts of this series, we tried to re-ignite a longstanding conversation in Canada about the need to use limited research dollars to support more Canadian researchers in the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities. The existing system harms researchers and students, who are the kind of diverse expertise required to benefit Canadian society and advance its industries. So what can be done to overcome the existing folly of research funding in Canada? There are at least three options.

The first is to maintain the existing system and attempt to improve it through a concerted effort to increase transparency, accountability, the communication of selection criteria, and through reforms to the flawed appeal process. In 2004, the Federal Court recognized the essential educative character of publicly funded research granting processes. The court suggested that applicants deserve feedback on failed applications for grant monies so that they can better compete in future competitions. While this might be an improvement, it may be the worst of all options because it retains what we have argued is a fundamentally flawed selection process.

It may nonetheless be a useful first step. In an upcoming case, the social scientist among us (Johannes Wheeldon) has requested a judicial review of the Social Sciences and Humanities and Research Council's appeals process (SSHRC). The application argues that SSHRC fails in its required duty to provide adequate reasons for decisions, and to release the sort of information upon which an appeal could be launched.

Unless applicants know how various elements are weighed and what the specific evaluation criteria are, they can't successfully appeal or strengthen future proposals. As it currently stands, SSHRC Doctoral and Post Doctoral competitions mock the requirement under law that reasons be given so applicants can understand how to improve their future applications.

The need for transparency is not limited to the social sciences. Andrew Park argues that with regard to the difficult position of small universities and the challenge of attracting Highly Qualified Personnel (HQP):

What we need from NSERC is a pronouncement -- written in plain English and not their usual fog of bureaucratic prevarication -- that clarifies just how applicants from small universities, and their HQP in particular, are going to be treated.

A second model would abandon the peer review system and invest directly in people not projects. By moving away from the false assumption that is possible to predict what research will or will not result in socially useful outcomes, this approach would focus on funding basic research based on the uniform distribution of research funds.

In some ways, this would be a return to past models in which basic research flourished and many more qualified researchers received baseline funding. While those with the best records of publication, partly tested ideas, and practical and socially useful contributions could seek additional funding through competitions, the question of who is qualified is left up to the much more thorough hiring, promotion, and tenure committees in universities.

These localized systems of peer review are already used to this type of in-depth reviewing of an academic's whole career. Unfortunately under the current system, universities have abrogated much of their responsibility to grant agency committees.

A third, hybrid approach, could maintain a role for peer review while focusing on finding people with good ideas and the nerve to pursue them. This might be based on a revision of Donald Forsdyke's proposed bi-cameral peer review process that builds on the old "invest in people not projects" literature of resurgent interest.

There are, of course, strengths and weaknesses with each of these options. Likely none can fix all the problems associated with a system that is ultimately designed to separate research winners from those who are seen as research losers.

If SSHRC, NSERC, and CIHR truly believed in doubt as the basis of science, they would themselves agree to fund and host a meeting on alternative grant funding systems. Such a conference would only be meaningful if the Tri-Councils agreed to a process in which the view of those it professes to serve would result in meaningful reform. While ever the optimists, our experience with those who run the granting agencies suggest this is unlikely.

What is needed instead is leadership from Canadian academics themselves, and scholars will need to be brave. No reform -- imposed from the top, or emerging from the bottom -- will be successful as long as academics in Canada continue to participate in the failed folly that is the existing research grant system.

This means confronting the fact that applying for funds, serving on committees, and acceding to the resultant outcomes indicates tacit consent with the resultant funding outcomes.

It appears many Canadian academic careers depend on bootlicking obsequiousness instead of speaking truth to power; such an approach will always place academics at a disadvantage. Do our Canadian colleagues truly believe the existing process serves the interests of researchers, students, taxpayers, and higher education in Canada?

In this series we have argued that by acquiescing to covert grant funding practices, the academic establishment harms autonomous research, learning, and innovation. It is high time for a new conversation that can only occur by students, professors, departments, faculties, and universities banding together.

It does appear that engaging in a process outside of the powerful university system can help spur Canada's research councils to acknowledge what nearly all researchers all ready know. An online petition, related to the need to reform Canadian Institute of Health Research (CIHR), and still active, has led more than 2000 signatories and some internal soul searching at CIHR.

Perhaps it is time for natural scientists and social scientists to employ a similar approach to demonstrate just how many of them recognize the problems and are willing to sign on to an effort to reform the system. We seek to start a conversation among academics and researchers themselves and better understand to what extent these views are more broadly held.

We invite you and all others who have a stake in research and research funding to offer your comments and ideas on the funding system operated by SSHRC. We will do our very best to report your views fairly.

The SSHRC feedback form is here and the NSERC feedback form is here.

We will use the anonymous results of our efforts in an upcoming article designed to explore how the granting agencies can better distribute funds and engage in processes that observe the same rigor that is required of the academic scholarship it attempts to encourage. Until they do, our granting bodies fail the basic credibility test all serious scholarship relies upon.

If scholars believe the heart of research is sick, it is time for them to dig deep, confront their own legacies, and speak up whether they agree there are serious concerns over research funding, or not.

The Innovation Gap in Canadian Academic Research

2011-12-11T00:50:16-05:00

This part two of a three-part series co-authored by Johannes Wheeldon, PhD and Richard Gordon, PhD. The authors of the series have explored this issue from different angles elsewhere: Richard has demonstrated how the cost of rejecting a research grant now exceeds the cost of giving one for qualified Natural Sciences & Engineering Research Council Canada (NSERC) applicants; Johannes is currently involved in a case in the Federal Court of Canada, that will finally define what sort of feedback is required to failed doctoral and postdoctoral applicants.

Previously we argued that despite the importance of research to Canadians, Canada's existing research funding model creates motivation problems for researchers, discouraged by a federal funding funnel that rewards and therefore supports too few researchers. In this post, we discuss the consequences of the current grant funding model and the specific ways in which this model undermines innovation in Canada.

The peer review process, in theory, provides a means for quality control and self-regulation in academia. Peer review by scholarly peers and experts in a specific field can offer researchers independent and constructive criticism. At its best, peer review ensures published findings in academic papers are based on scholarship that is meaningful, relevant, and credible. At its worst, peer review is slow, expensive, and nowhere near impartial. Concerns about the ability and effectiveness of peer review to ensure quality control are growing. In the end, peer review is a human endeavor and thus subject to the regular foibles of people and their own personal politics.

While peer review remains important for evaluating younger scholars and for quality control in journals reporting research results, it has no place in the grant funding of new, untested ideas by scholars with demonstrable records of achievement. The problem is that peer review has been shown to re-institute orthodoxy as new discoveries, theories, ideas, or hypotheses must overcome the conservative propensities of the peer review process. Scholars have long pointed out:

(Peer review tends to) operate on the negative Achilles heel principle of killing any applicant with any, even minor, discernible weakness, rather than the positive principle of giving the applicant the benefit of the doubt -- since he/she is the most expert of all in his/her own particular field.

As anyone with any knowledge of science knows, it simply is not possible to predict which new ideas may lead to the discovery of penicillin, electricity, or a host of new treatments, processes, and products which many of us rely upon today. Yet the peer review system presumes it can. The problem is old:

Innovative work (because it is new and not yet understood by many people) is more likely to get bad reviews than routine research whose basis is widely accepted; thus there is a strong bias in the "selection" process against innovative research.

Relying on this system, as presently applied, also has administrative consequences that go beyond the enormous time it takes to prepare a grant application. Collaborators must write endless letters of support, committee members must be found, and mountains of paper must be reviewed. Reports from the front lines describe a process that is full of vagaries, inconsistencies, and bias. While some perhaps more cynical scholars might suggest the grant process at present is designed to keep academics in line, tethered to their computers and departments, it is more likely that administrative inertia and aggrandizement has set in. Either way, at present, researchers are being asked to spend too much time begging for money and not enough time doing research. Research productivity could rise significantly if the requirements to write grant applications were reformed. This could in turn renew Canadian excellence and innovation and allow scholars to focus on research, not grantsmanship.

Perhaps the most pressing issue from a research integrity point of view is that the present system seems to deny that doubt permeates all science. Granting councils appear to believe the peer review process cannot ever be wrong, nor even briefly mistaken. Appeals are few and nearly impossible to win. Whatever the good intentions of those who serve the existing model, Canadian taxpayers currently fund competitions through the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Canada (SSHRC), for example, that provide no explanation for the scores on an application and no justification for a rejection that can significantly harm an applicant's academic career. A system based on denying basic accountability to applicants, taxpayers, or the federal court itself cannot foster innovation or promote transparent scholarly research.

At issue is how this arrogance feeds into the widespread war on science, logic, and reason. There is a growing sense that scientists too often focus on profitable book and industry deals and television shows over the slow and less glamorous accretion of empirical evidence and explanations that help society better understand the world. It is no wonder people are skeptical when those who profess expertise fail to explicitly acknowledge limitations that are part of all research. In Canada, the Tri-Councils (SSHRC, NSERC and CIHR) are feeding the myth of the academic superstar, instead of funding diverse research. The result has led to an "internal Canadian brain drain" in which:

... disenfranchised researchers [are] lost to the research enterprise and continue to be paid by their universities for work the present system prevents them from doing -- a two-fold waste of taxpayers' dollars... thousands of good heads across Canada who cannot deliver the goods.

So, what can be done? In the final part of this series we will turn our attention to some reform options.

Omnibus Crime Bill Ensures Justice For None

2011-11-29T13:32:31-05:00

The federal government of Canada is set to institute the broadest, most regressive, costly, and ineffective criminal justice policies in this country's history. Experts, criminal justice professionals, researchers, and even conservative Texan policy makers have all raised the alarm about the economic and social costs of 'get tough' policies for Canada.

The politically-motivated overreach and nonsensical overreaction to crime rates that are the lowest they have been in over 30 years will have an impact on us all. Bill C-10, ironically entitled the Safe Streets and Communities Act, embraces the failed 'get tough' movement, will cost taxpayers tens of millions of dollars, could reduce the use of effective crime prevention programs as it comes at a time when programs associated with effective crime prevention have been cut, and could increase crime rates and victims of crime from coast to coast.

The first problem is cost. By ignoring reality and decades of research, the policy U-turn represented by Bill C-10 will increase the strains on a justice system that is already at the breaking point. Building and staffing prisons is expensive and the new mandatory minimum sentencing regime, predicted to be a failure, will increase the number of people in federal prison -- at an average cost of 130, 000 per inmate, per year. While the economic costs are severe, comparative experience suggests increasing prison budgets could result in redirecting funding for crime prevention programs that are more likely to work to reduce crime. Punishment only approaches to crime creates a cycle of crime and criminality that is difficult to escape.

The second issue is how the social consequences of these policies will increase crime. As Harvard professor Bruce Western points out, 'get tough' policies have significant social costs. For juveniles in conflict with the law, increasing the punitiveness of Canada's once internationally-renowned restorative youth justice system will create more career criminals. It will undermine the very community supports and responses needed to invest in our youth and rebuild lives. For young adults, mandating incarceration for minor, non-violent offences could increase the number of those in prison and reinforce the very criminal behaviour that caused the harm in the first place. Despite the good work of many correctional professionals, Bill C-10 will increase enrolment in prisons -- sometimes known as universities of crime. This could turn adolescent offenders, who might otherwise abstain from a life of crime, into persistent criminals. We will all pay the price for this foolishness.

The third issue is the problem of recidivism. As anyone who works in corrections knows, most people who have been incarcerated will be released back into Canadian communities. Instead of encouraging these individuals to reject a life of crime, warehousing human beings in prisons often leads to more harm, not less crime. What is missing is the connection between poverty and crime and real-life challenges associated with successful reintegration into society. Instead, the focus on punishment and prisons empowers the criminal subcultures that often emerge in prisons. This undermines the personal growth needed to change. Canadian prisoners are more likely to have grown up in poverty and have suffered from mental illness. Those in prison have fewer job skills and social skills needed to succeed in Canada's increasingly competitive society. Increasing prison populations, reducing programs that work, and relying upon simplistic accounts of crime and criminality stigmatizes and labels individuals. This makes their reintegration into society far more difficult.

In August, the Canadian Bar Association (CBA), which represents over 37,000 lawyers across the country, offered a series of clear statements and policy resolutions at their annual conference warning about C-10's costly measures that threaten to pack prisons. Now the CBA has identified 10 reasons why the passage of Bill C-10 would be a huge mistake and a setback for Canada.

If the research is clear, the professionals agree, and experts are organizing against these "dumb on crime" reforms, what could explain the Harper government's drive to limit debate and push the bill forward? In a 2009 article by John Geddes, suggests one answer. Geddes quotes Harper's former chief of staff, Ian Brodie as stating:

Every time we proposed amendments to the Criminal Code, sociologists, criminologists, defence lawyers, and Liberals attacked us for proposing measures that the evidence apparently showed did not work. That was a good thing for us politically, in that sociologists, criminologists, and defence lawyers were and are all held in lower repute than Conservative politicians by the voting public. Politically it helped us tremendously to be attacked by this coalition of university types.

The Harper government is not only out of step with those awful and well-educated "university types," but from the provinces that rightly worry about picking up the costs for reproducing the failed experiments of the past. Ironically, Harper is also offside with Texas conservatives who have warned Canada that madness lies in a policy that expands prisons and reduces alternatives to imprisonment. Despite this, Justice Minister Rob Nicholson has suggested, despite the clear and unequivocal critique from all quarters, that this is not the end, but only the beginning.

As Canadians must now realize, choices made through elections (and electoral systems) have consequences. The harm the Harper government is set to inflict on Canadian citizens, taxpayers, and communities is nothing less than criminal.

Contact your MP, read the Canadian Bar Association submission on the omnibus bill, and discuss via Facebook.

Understanding Research Funding and Folly in Canada

2011-11-21T00:20:40-05:00

This is the first in a three-part series co-authored by Johannes Wheeldon, PhD and Richard Gordon, PhD. The authors of the series have explored this issue from different angles elsewhere: Richard has demonstrated how the cost of rejecting a research grant now exceeds the cost of giving one for qualified Natural Sciences & Engineering Research Council Canada (NSERC) applicants; Johannes is currently involved in a case in the Federal Court of Canada, that will finally define what sort of feedback is required to failed doctoral and postdoctoral applicants.

The role of research funding to an academic's career has never been more important, and yet there is an emerging consensus that the way we organize our system of research grants is broken. While concerns about Canada's model of research funding are longstanding, in recent years they have become increasingly stark. These include perpetual underfunding, charges of bias, and an over-reliance on the peer review system, which favours orthodoxy over innovation. Some believe that this has dumbed downed the professoriate and decreased the quality of expertise in Canadian society. Over time, hiring, promotion and tenure committees have favoured grant writers and grantsmanship over other perhaps more creative and innovative scholars who don't toe the line. There are serious consequences when, as in the current system, you invest in projects and not people.

There are at least three related issues.

First, fewer and fewer academics are getting funded to engage in the research upon which social and technological innovation is based. A variety of other approaches to grant funding could support more researchers and increase research impacts. Case studies suggest that freedom to pursue one's ideas leads to the greatest innovations. Under the existing system, however, the rewards are few, meted out based on what might be called the perversions of peer review justice in which "research funds are literally monopolized by the few who see themselves as the truly excellent researchers according to their own skewed yardsticks."

The second issue is time. Despite the long odds, it is difficult to be an academic researcher without support of one kind or another. This makes the time it takes to plan 'appropriate' projects and prepare grant applications a pressing priority. Living in untenured grant funding limbo is hard on families and rolling the funding dice reduces one's focus on updating course materials, teaching undergraduates, and mentoring graduate students. While the importance of balancing the multiple duties implied by an academic career should not be used as an excuse, it does appear that Canada's grant system is squeezing both professors and students. Instead of engaging in the real research activities that form part of every researcher's unique resume, researchers in Canada are expending time and effort for few awards and even less research support. In short, scientists are spending "too much time securing grants and too little time actually doing science."

Third, the motivation problems that result when one combines the enormous time it takes to apply for grants with the low chance of success cannot be ignored. Grants are seen as a huge part of an academic's career. As anyone seeking an academic job knows, securing a position in academia has become infinitely more complicated and now requires getting grants. The elimination of mandatory retirement in many provinces has resulted in senior professors staying on in their posts, further straining higher education budgets and reducing the opportunities for young would-be faculty. As the Economist noted in 2007, Canadian universities conferred 4,800 doctorate degrees, but hired just 2,616 new full-time professors.

In practice, this sort of competition is dispiriting to younger academics who may realize they would do better to turn to the private sector than put to themselves in the service of a university system that offers few jobs for them. Paul Sanborn of the University of Northern British Columbia worries about NSERC policies that undermine the morale of current and potential graduate students. He suggests:

"They're astute and observant enough to see what their professors' lives are like. Despite our best efforts to shield them from some of this, I'm sure they're wondering if they have a future in research in this country. And I'm really not sure any more what to tell them."

Graduate students who choose careers in academia must contend with grant bodies who fail to clearly communicate criteria, eschew basic transparency, and uphold granting models that have been criticized for nearly three decades. Instead of operating in the open, decisions are made behind closed doors through secretive informal processes. A specific challenge for SSHRC Postdoctoral applicants is that applicants are provided no substantial feedback when their applications fail and they are at a loss as to what to do next.

The biggest issue, beyond the question of the integrity of the broader science community, is the resultant innovation inefficiencies. By wasting the time and effort of Canada's researchers (paid by taxpayers), and wasting money by operating unaccountable grant competitions, Canada's research funding model is a human resources failure. This harms researchers, students, and limits the diverse sorts of expertise a democratic society relies upon. Research benefits all Canadians, from improving health outcomes to strengthening defence and from testing social policies to better communicating and contextualizing our historical understanding of Canada in the world.

Taken together, these problems have led to a profound number of scholars to say the same thing: "the research system is sick."

In part two of the series, we will examine how the current system undermines innovation and harms the potential for research to benefit Canadian society, reduces international competitiveness, and undermines broadened thinking and imagination.

The Closing of the Canadian Mind? Readers Respond

2011-08-16T15:43:44-04:00

Last week I wrote a tongue-in-cheek missive that examined the narrow-mindedness that has become increasingly common in the Canadian body politic over the last few years.

By using Jeff Foxworthy's famous laugh line, the piece offered a few observations about views that are inconsistent with the open, tolerant, and multicultural Canada where I was raised. Luckily many readers offered their feedback and made what might have been a one-sided rant into a far more interesting conversation. Most readers seemed to agree that the narrow-mindedness I reported was a new and worrying development. They offered some great additions to my first five signs that you might be a small-minded Canadian.

Here are some of my favorites:

- "If you want to simplify complex ideas and issues into talking points and slogans."

- "If you think we should be more like Americans."

- "If you believe that the end of the long-gun registry will 'return your constitutional right to bear arms'."

- "If you don't believe being proudly Canadian requires you to care for the rest of Canada."

- "If you are 'sick of paying taxes' and think 'Coalition' is a swear word."

- "You still think trickle-down economics works -- even while observing our neighbour's meltdown."

- "If you favor ideology over outcome."

- "If you are for individual rights except when you don't like what other individuals are doing."

- "If you don't see a bicycle as a practical solution for the daily commute."

- "If you want to punish children for having bad parents."

- "If you believe that Canada is a Christian country founded on freedom and democracy."

- "When an accident, injustice or tragedy befalls someone you immediately start talking about 'personal responsibility.'"

Not everyone agreed of course. Some readers disputed my characterization that Canadians are small-minded and blamed the lame stream media for the 2011 election outcome. For example:

"A shift of less than 2% of the vote would have kept Harper from majority power, yet you're making it sound like ALL Canadians have embraced.... Harper's political immoralities and values... You're equating ALL Canadians with 39% of the electorate, a good chunk of that hypnotized by the media that looks the other way and excuses Harper's illegalities."

And

"CANADIANS did not 'reward' Harper with a majority, that was done by the press (who gave him a free ride, and other than one single paper endorsed him from country to country despite his excesses and arrogance), and by the bullying tactics and accompanying Elections Canada rulings which kept young people from campus polling stations or even the right to campaign on campus."

Others suggested this narrow-mindedness was not new. For example:

"Traveling to Canada often and seeing how the nation has taken a sharp change to the right, I think a more accurate title would be 'You might be Canadian if...'"

And

"I daresay if you went up to adjoining parts of BC like Nelson and even redneck Trail and said the things you're saying here you'd be laughed out of the room (more likely jeered and booed)."

Some readers took an explicitly partisan view and equated small-mindedness with the PM and Conservative Party. Offerings included:

- "If you think conservatives are better at spending your money..."

- "If you think conservatives will keep you safer..."

- "If you think Stephen Harper is good for Canada..."

Still others accused me of being a partisan myself by trying to link my views with one party or another. Some suggested I was calling ALL conservative voters simple-minded and was accusing others of faults I myself possess. These included:

- "If you think 'conservative good and liberal bad' or vice versa..."

- "If you call people who don't agree with you small-minded..."

This last contribution is a pretty good little line. It would perhaps be better if one accepts that progressives need to adopt the same foundational assumptions that liberals have. I do not. While my views about the incompatibility of pragmatism and liberalism deserves more detailed discussion than is possible at present, for now let me try and answer a question posed through the comment section.

A reader, noting the success of small-mindedness as part of conservative political strategies asked, "What is the answer? We need one...fast (in Ontario anyway)."

I do not know the answer, but at least part of the answer requires progressives to ask some rather basic questions about what they believe and why. Here are a few starters. I hope folks will contribute as before and make this the beginning of a longer conversation. For now...

You might be a progressive Canadian if:

1. You believe that facts and reason guided by the scientific tradition provides the best (although still imperfect) means to form defensible opinions about the world.

2. You demand transparent, accountable, and connected political decision-making over processes that are centralized, closed-door, and clandestine.

3. You recognize and embrace the idea that no one makes money without the investments of previous generations and the support of those around them.

4. You believe in equality of meaningful opportunity, not equality of outcomes.

5. You tolerate and try to respect different views, practices, and sexual orientations and positions (gasp) -- however you can NEVER tolerate intolerance.

What say you?

You Might Be a Small-Minded Canadian If...

2011-08-10T09:06:50-04:00

Sixty per cent of those who bothered to cast a ballot last May likely woke up the morning after unable to believe Canada's new political reality. While the majority of Canadians now know the feeling of many Americans after the 2004 re-election of George W, the suggestion, "Do not mourn, organize!" seems simplistic. Indeed, preparing for 2014/15 requires first that progressives learn the lessons of 2011 -- and recognize what Mr. Harper's win means for Canada and Canadians.

One observation is that the political consciousness of Canadians appears to have changed drastically. Some readers may recall when the 1993 attack ad focusing on Chretien's face was firmly rebuffed in Canada. Less than 20 years later, our new majority government has embraced character assassination and the politics of personal destruction as a legitimate campaign strategy. They have pursued a mean-spirited public policy and attacked those who have the temerity to disagree with them.

Over the last five years, the Harper conservatives committed a series of crimes against the People's Parliament and dismissed the increasing concern expressed by noted constitutional scholars as so much noise. However, it was not only the traditional corporate mainstream media who formally endorsed these actions. By rewarding Conservatives with a majority, Canadians themselves have expressly and/or at least tacitly consented to this approach to politics and governance. What are we to make of these developments?

In the UK, a sketch comedy show called Little Britain pokes fun at those who inhabit "little England." This is a term historically associated with anti-colonialism, but is now applied to English people who are regarded as overly nationalistic and increasingly xenophobic. It's comedic potential is somewhat undercut however by the policies of the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) and the rise of the English Defense League (EDL), both of whom profess to stand up for the rights of "ordinary" British and against foreigners generally, and the rise of Islam more specifically. The EDL is now claiming to be the protector of Britain and sending members into the streets to deter rioters. The extent to which the riots are being used as part of the UK's "multicultural malaise" bodes ill for a more in-depth understanding of the complexity of these multi-city events.

It may, unfortunately, be a sign of the times. Canada, once a middle power with noble ideals today seems smaller somehow and increasingly petty. The news that the PM locked himself in a bathroom during a recent trade mission to Brazil seems a perfect metaphor for a country once at home in the world, and now reduced to pouting in the potty when things don't go our way. While name calling is rarely useful, it may be cathartic in the short run to say what you see. To paraphrase that great philosopher Jeff Foxworthy, you might be a Small-Minded Canadian (SMC) if:

1. You think spending time being successful outside of Canada is a character flaw.

2. You think the threat of Quebec separatism was awful, but the Alberta "firewall" was A-OK.

3. Although you are the product of immigrants, you now want to close to the door to other more "ethnic" immigrants.

4. You think bilingualism is a plot to employ undeserving "frenchies."

5. You favour superstition over science, ideology over evidence, and ego over empathy.

So what do you think? Are we witnessing the closing of the Canadian mind? Can you improve on the list above? What about the Alberta tar sands, G20 protests, and prison instead of prevention?

If you feel so moved, please fill in the blank in the comments section below. Depending on the response, the results will be re-posted next week.

"If you (fill in the blank), you might be a Small-Minded Canadian."

The End of Growth? Existential Narratives and the New Normal

2011-08-05T07:59:29-04:00

What if the debt crisis in Europe and the U.S., and the general economic unease is the product not of ignorance, ideology, or ineptitude? What if, instead, the crisis of credibility within so many of our social and political institutions is the product of a broader failure to acknowledge that the pursuit of growth at any cost has been a short-term success but has sown the seeds of a longer-term failure?

Consider population growth and the added stress on the limited planetary resources as billions more people will inhabit the Earth over the next few decades. According to the Global Footprint Network, we surpassed our capacity in 1988, and today, we needed the resources of 1.5 planets to sustain our economy. The problem is not only more people but western affluence and the consumption-based economy we have exported around the world. There are some practical realities that underpin our economy and must be faced.

Today 80 per cent of our energy comes from fossil fuels, clearly linked to climate change. Petroleum is part of so many of the products we take from granted everything from milk, soap, and beer and our addiction to cheap, industrially-produced meat. While the rising cost of food has gotten some attention recently, the challenge of access to fresh, clean water -- called the "silent emergency" goes largely ignored.

According to Paul Gilding the idea of infinite growth on a finite planet is nonsense. The challenge is to change the narrative from the never-ending pursuit of growth to one focused on how to maximize happiness, community, and meaningful interactions. He argues in the short-term, we will deny our problems until we are faced with large scale calamities. The recognition of the existential threat will provide the general political will that is required to address this collective emergency over the long term. While optimism is to be appreciated in this time of malaise, it may misplaced without considering in more detail competing meta-narratives that at present appear to be incommensurable.

The first is the liberal notion that science and reason can guide dialogue and deliberation, and that inclusiveness and an open mind can result in positive policy outcomes. This view is on the ropes almost everywhere. In my opinion, we do not live in an era in which facts, reason, and understanding are what drive decision-making. Unless liberals uncover what it is they believe and articulate it clearly and compellingly, it is the second narrative that will remain in ascension. This view is rooted in the belief that egoism is a political virtue, that compromise is for weaklings, and that the Earth has been provided for us to use and abuse. Against the realities of climate science, this second view cannot make room for the implications that result from accepting existing research. Denial ain't just a river in Egypt. In recent years, this view has gained a political foothold in Canada as ideology over evidence is guiding everything from (in)justice policies to environmental indifference.

Perhaps the real crisis is that the embarrassing debt ceiling deal has supplanted discussion on the real calamities that we all face with a debate that has been manufactured, manipulated, and uncritically presented. The disgust is palpable, but the solutions are far more complex. What is the new narrative to guide progressives?

The Crisis of Credibility

2011-08-02T13:20:00-04:00

While many appear to be breathing a sigh of relief after the debt limit deal in Washington this week, significant damage has been done. The low opinion of many in the U.S. about the lack of leadership in American politics has now been effectively internationalized and this crisis of confidence has fundamentally altered the political conversation. For progressives, it has perhaps once and for all ended any idea that "change" based on "hope" can be achieved.

Confidence, of course, is based on credibility and the combination of increasing access to information is providing a front row seat to the tawdry business of politics as usual. The view is not pretty. While new expectations around social transparency and the energy of the millennial generation is exciting, unless we consider in more detail what these changing expectations mean in practice, liberalism is lost. No political ideology based on inclusiveness, equality, facts and reason, can withstand the well-funded and steadfast anarchism of the American right. While many assume the coming age of austerity is economic in nature, the developments of these last months in Washington might usefully be seen as just the latest example of once-vaunted pillars of our modern society crashing down.

Consider the number of institutions that have imploded in the last decade. From sex-abuse scandals within once venerable churches to the stupefying fiascoes on Wall Street, and in the Gulf of Mexico, a general malaise has replaced the optimism of 2008. The view that billionaires share the interests of the so-called populist Tea Party and that the Supreme Court is merely an extension of the political parties and corporate interests that supported them in the past has enshrined a rather depressing view of a society.

Are we really mere grasping individuals seeking to maximize self-interest by all means necessary? If so, why are so many surprised when the institutions we have built fail to uphold basic standards of decency? Congress can no longer claim integrity of any sort, and in the UK the News of the World scandal has so far tarnished the media generally, Scotland Yard specifically, and may still bring down David Cameron's coalition government. In Canada, the idea that editorial boards at our national papers are neutral and principled voices was effectively undermined when in the last election nearly every single paper endorsed a prime minister who refused to answer questions from the media. Oh brave new world!

Of particular concern is that this crisis that is so evident in other institutions is also threatening the academy. In addition to supporting research to assist a better understanding of the world, Universities serve an essential role of building the critical thinking skills required for the workplaces of the future. Yet, while lip service is paid to the idea that a university education exposes students to civilized discourse, open minds, and models by which one could vehemently disagree without becoming disagreeable, institutions of higher education are more often seen as corporatized warehouses of ideological indoctrination.

On the right, the University of East Anglia's lack of transparency in its own internal processes served as a proxy for those who continue to deny climate change. On the left, there is a stubborn refusal to define 'good' scholarship, or even what constitutes a well-qualified candidate, as any definition merely serves the orthodoxy of the elites. This sort of nonsense infects hiring committees, research funding, and tenure decisions.

While maligning the petty world of academia has been a longstanding enterprise, the increasing failure by academics to practice what they preach can no longer be easily hidden. If universities and publicly-funded research institutions want to lead us out of the wilderness of unenlightened self-interest, they must first reform their own internal practices. Unless academic institutions embrace the most basic tenant of all education and research -- credibility -- they can hardly seek openness and accountability from others.

Some institutions will be unable to take up this challenge. They lack the creativity to find meaningful solutions and fundamentally misunderstand their obligations to the next generation. They will, of course, soldier on, and rely upon obscure "black box" decision-making that reeks of bias and lacks basic transparency. As such, they will be increasingly challenged, and become the source of ridicule as their failures are connected with an increasingly pervasive and dangerous anti-intellectual narrative.

For academics concerned by the crisis of credibility in our political, economic, and social institutions, it is time to take a good look in the mirror. By acquiescing to covert hiring, promotions, and grant funding practices, the academic establishment provides fodder for those who seek to further erode the value placed on expertise in public policy making. By teaching only one side of a debate, relying upon top-down instructional methods, and embracing fill in the bubble evaluations, they do harm to their invaluable role in creating autonomous learners and innovation thinkers. It is high time for academics to confront their own legacies and consider if they are truly worthy of their posts.

Are they willing to engage in the socially relevant, self-critical, and reflexive work of the academy? Unless they are ready to lead and put their best selves forward, our broken political process may be seen as the model by which facts, reason, and understanding are employed. The time for following has long passed. It is time to lead or make way for the next generation.