Keep climate a national priority
Fear and anxiety is settling over Canadian universities as the Trump administration attacks research into everything from climate change to pandemics — and as US funding dries up, scholars worry the effect could redouble if the same thing happened here.
Many Canadian researchers rely on the US to fund their work, largely by participating in international projects or collaborating with American colleagues who receive the US funds. But in the weeks since taking office, US President Donald Trump has frozen or cut millions worth of research funds, especially on subjects like climate or gender — vast swaths of study he considers “woke.”
The federal Conservatives' Quebec platform, unveiled last week by party leader Pierre Poilievre, promises to "end the imposition of woke ideology" in federal funding for university research. The announcement echoes the "war on science" that ex-prime minister Stephen Harper — Poilievre's former boss — waged in the 2010s, drawing global condemnation.
The US cuts have curtailed the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration's international collaborations, data collection and research on climate and fisheries, and forced the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to end all support for studies into climate change, COVID and other topics. The administration has also cancelled or delayed thousands of federal research grants, on top of cutting funds to some universities and drastically limiting the overhead costs covered by the NIH.
Canadian scholars have been pulled into the bloodbath. Last month, foreign researchers receiving or applying for US grants were asked by the Trump administration if their research deals with climate, environmental justice or diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). Studies on these topics were threatened with losing their American funding. American government grants provide about $57 million to Canadian scholars each year, estimates the Canadian Association of University Teachers.
"It's a substantial amount," said Peter McInnis, the association’s president and a professor at St. Francis Xavier University. The cuts are devastating for researchers working on multi-year projects reliant on continuous funding, and torpedo decades of research collaborations with US scholars, he said. Both are vital to solving global problems like climate change and future pandemics.
"We're all pretty anxious about it," said a researcher in the natural sciences at a major Canadian university who spoke to Canada's National Observer but asked their name not be used out of fear of retaliation. Beyond the possibility of losing funding, since Trump took office some non-US scholars have been detained at the border or refused entry while visiting the US for work.
The smallest US grant the scholar currently receives is around $100,000, but the bulk of their work depends on multi-million dollar collaborative projects with American colleagues. Those grants fund years of work, travel, and essential sample analyses that wouldn't be possible under Canada's funding scheme alone, they said.
Their stress is exacerbated by the vague rubric the Trump administration is using to make its cuts, which targets words with wide-ranging uses like "systemic," "diversified" or "barrier," which may apply to any number of things. In some cases, for example, “transgenic” — a term that refers to genetically modified organisms — was caught up in a keyword-driven purge, and mistaken for “transgender.”
"We're just in limbo right now. So far, none of the grants I'm on have been cut, but we keep getting mixed messaging about 'more reviews' you should look out for," they said.
The cuts amount to an "academic tariff" on research that doesn't align with Trump's rightwing ideology, McInnis said. The teachers’ association is calling for the federal government to backfill funds Canadian researchers have lost due to the US cuts, similar to support for industries impacted by Trump's tariffs.
The $57 million in US funding is about three per cent as much as the $1.8 billion allocated annually by Canada's three federal academic research grant agencies.
Beyond the immediate funding gaps, Trump's actions are drawing calls for longer-term solutions to ensure Canadian scholars can keep working, while transforming the country into an academic powerhouse.
"We need to avoid dependency wherever we can," said Chad Gaffield, CEO of the U-15 Group of Canadian Research Universities, whose members comprise Canada's largest research schools. Canada's investments in research since the 1990s bolstered the country's economic security and national sovereignty, but Trump's actions show there is an urgent need for more support.
"We really want to eliminate any sense that we can be put at risk quickly," he said. "The amount of external funding for our research enterprise is a small proportion [of total funding], but I think it's a reminder that we have to scale up this whole approach to meet the changing geopolitics of the 21st century."
Even before Trump's cuts, Canada was moving to bolster its support for researchers, he noted. For instance, in the 2024 budget, the federal government significantly increased masters' and doctoral scholarships, which had not risen in over 20 years. It also joined the EU's Horizon Europe, giving Canadian scholars equal access to that funding scheme — the world's largest.
Trump's decision to curtail US science could trigger a boom in Canada's global standing and economic clout if the government steps up to support scholars — including American experts exiling themselves to Canada, said Gaffield. Supporting research is a "means to achieve the kind of national objectives that we're hearing about all the time," like stronger domestic economic activity.
An American brain drain could already be happening: last week, three professors at Yale University announced they were moving to the University of Toronto because of the Trump administration's pressure on US schools.
Still, Trump's cuts are leaving Canadian researchers anxious about the future of their jobs and our knowledge of climate change and the other global problems they're studying, said the researcher who spoke to Canada's National Observer.
"We keep going and we keep working, because that's what we do — but it's just kind of looming over all of us."
Comments
Not good news and our fear is that if Poilievre is elected PM he will attack science with even more vigour than Stephen Harper. By the way, as a scientist, we are typically referred to as researchers or scientists not scholars.
Universities are underfunded. Every federal political parties are promising tax cuts. International students who were subsidizing Canadian universities ( to the delight of provincial governments) have seen their numbers reduced dramatically. Who do you think is going to fill the gap?
Students who want to go to universities will end up with higher fees and a higher debt load they will carry with them for a long time unless they are lucky and find a well paying job.
I'm recalling Harper muzzling scientists in a shocking first, one among many with these wannabe revolutionary evangelicals, which also emboldened him to say (albeit a tad furtively, knowing how American it was) "God Bless Canada." It was a declaration of the war on science this article refers to, but these warning winds of sea change started in 2006!
So there's an adjacent phenomenon taking place over the last two decades as the right wing devolved into a massive cult, religion being the wind beneath it.
That phenomenon has been a pathologically steadfast denial of progressives to the reality of a political change that has only further enabled it, but can also be attributed to the left being hamstrung by religion permeating their OWN ranks.
So if no one can confront the controlling myth of religion despite the current context of destructive LIES, that leaves its natural arch-enemy, i.e. science, specifically the science of climate change.
That should work because it's as fear-based as religion? Right?