Newsletter

September 2010

Excellence, Not ‘Equity’

Here we go again: Another day, another trumped-up controversy about Stephen
Harper’s supposedly retrograde agenda.

On
Tuesday, the Toronto Star breathlessly informed its readers that "not one woman"
could be found among a new batch of academic grant recipients.

"Of
the 19 people who were selected to be the first of the ‘prestigious’ Canada
Excellence Research Chairs, receiving up to $10-million in total in federal
money over the next seven years, all were men," reported the Star. "’I felt
kicked in the stomach,’ says Wendy Robbins, co-ordinator of women’s studies at
the University of New Brunswick and one of a group of academics who mounted a
successful human-rights challenge to the gender imbalance in a previous, federal
research-chair program … Robbins says that she’s in discussions now to see
whether a new human-rights complaint may be necessary."

Ah
yes — kicked in the stomach. Where does the Star find all these women, gays and
visible minorities who supposedly spend day and night enduring endless blows in
the midsection from Stephen Harper’s Conservatives?

It’s a wonder half the country isn’t writhing around on the pavement, gasping
for breath.

But
here’s a question for Ms. Robbins, and the Toronto Star reporter who went
running to her for a reaction quote: How many men teach women’s studies? Has an
effort been made to recruit male academics to balance the faculty in women’s
studies departments? Or are there just too few qualified men who apply? What
about other traditionally "female-dominated" fields of study, like nursing? Have
women launched "human rights complaints" to get men into those areas? If not,
why not? Shouldn’t gender equity be the priority in the hiring practices of
every department?

The
answer to this last question, of course, is no, it shouldn’t be. This is
especially true at the highest level of academia, which is the stratum being
targeted by the Canada Excellence Research Chairs, a program that aims to lure
world-class academic talent to Canada in environmental sciences and
technologies; natural resources and energy; health and related life sciences and
technologies; and information and co-mmunications technologies. Excellence, not
political correctness, should be the deciding factor when apportioning taxpayer
money in this way.

According to Suzanne Fortier, head of the Natural Sciences and Engineering
Research Council (NSERC), the reason for the lack of female appointees is a
paucity of female applicants. Women aren’t heavily represented at senior levels
in the fields of research involved.

If
Ms. Robbins and her colleagues want to encourage equity, then encourage
qualified women to apply for positions. But if those women don’t exist, or don’t
want to apply, you can’t invent them or force them to do so. And you shouldn’t
appoint less qualified women simply because they are female. Not only would such
a move be a waste of taxpayer dollars, it would also stigmatize those female
scientists who do happen to operate at the elite levels of scientific research
as if they were affirmative-action cases.

As
for the charge of gender bias against Mr. Harper’s government, it is bunk. This
government desperately wants to appoint women to all sorts of places. To take
but one example of many: From 2006-2008, a member of this editorial board served
on the Judicial Appointments Committee for the Tax Court of Canada. The
committee was told at the start of its mandate that the government wanted to
appoint more women to the bench. But the body faced the same issue as the
Research Council: Fewer women than men applied; most were not qualified; and, as
a result, the majority of the recommendations ended up being men.

What was the government’s reaction? The committee was asked to re-examine a
number of female applicants who’d initially been rejected, to make sure it
hadn’t missed something that would entitle them to a recommendation. These
applications were rejected again — because they simply weren’t up to par.
Eventually, other women did make the grade, and were appointed to the court, but
they got there based on their ability, not their gender.

Which is as it should be. Whether in a science lab, or in a courtroom, Canada’s
elite talent should be picked on the basis of merit, not identity politics.

National Post, May 20, 2010.