Poilievre's plans for "woke" research spook Canadian academics

National Observer

24-04-2025

Pierre Poilievre is vowing to eliminate "woke ideology" from public university research funding, echoing rhetoric used by US President Donald Trump to make massive funding cuts to that country's climate research and alarming researchers.
The Conservative Party will end public funding for university research on topics that address "woke" topics, according to the Quebec section of the party platform. The platform doesn't define what is considered "woke," and Poilievre hasn't given a clear answer when asked by reporters.
However, in recent years, the party has increasingly used the term 'woke' in speeches, petitions and policy statements to attack the Canadian government's climate policy.
'This bill is just another step in Trudeau's woke anti-energy agenda to end Canadian oil and gas,' reads one party statement on Bill C-50, a sustainable jobs act; 'Justin Trudeau is attempting to impose a global woke agenda on Canadians,' reads a separate petition titled 'We WON'T Eat Bugs.'
Following Trump's moves to gut research in the US, the language is rattling Canadian researchers.
"I'm seriously concerned that if Poilievre is elected prime minister in Canada, global climate research here will also be in the crosshairs — subject to cuts, defunding, or political interference," said Tanner Mirrlees, a political economist at Ontario Tech University, in an email. "In this mess, "woke" continues to be weaponized by far right politicians and activists against their opponents."
The right uses the threat of "wokeism" to invoke fear that liberal elites are "remaking the world" and will curtail people's liberties and status, said Imre Szeman, director of the Institute for Environment, Conservation and Sustainability at the University of Toronto.
Pierre Poilievre is vowing to eliminate "woke ideology" from public university research funding, echoing rhetoric used by US President Donald Trump to make massive funding cuts to that country's climate research and alarming researchers.
One of the most worrisome parts of the Conservatives' pledge is that "woke" is a category that it can fill with whatever it wants, he said. "This is why "woke" is an adjective that is able to link up all kinds of unrelated practices, beliefs, opinions, and outlooks. What's 'woke' is, in the end, anything and everything that bothers them."
A 'problematic' path
Trump has "set the stage" for drastic cuts to Canadian climate research if the Conservatives are elected and it is problematic that Canada may follow if so, said Villy Christensen, a professor of ecosystem modelling at the University of British Columbia (UBC).
Canadians are already feeling the impact of those Trump policies. 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, the Canadian Association of University Teachers estimates. That's about three per cent as much as the $1.8 billion allocated annually by Canada's three federal academic research grant agencies.
Moreover, the Trump administration also recently let funding for six of the US's 10 climate research centres lapse for several days, before temporarily restoring their funds this week. And earlier this month, it proposed to cut almost all the climate research conducted by the US National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and NASA, according to an internal budget document first reported by US outlets. Many of their public databases are also going dark.
"This isn't just about hurting a bunch of climate scientists. This would just hurt Americans," said Simon Donner, a climate scientist and professor at the UBC. "It shows ignorance, not just about science, but about how the government works."
"It's absolutely horrible. It's beyond belief that anyone can even suggest making cuts of this kind," said Christensen.
Trump's latest proposed cuts would eliminate all funding for NOAA's 10 research labs across the country, eliminate funding for cooperative institutes affiliated with universities and cut the agency's competitive climate research grants for academics. The cuts would also impact key modelling labs essential for accurate weather forecasting in the US and beyond.
At NASA, the proposal would roughly halve the agency's research budget, ending a host of earth science satellites, the Goddard Space Flight Centre, the return of current missions to Mars and Venus, and stall the nearly-completed Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. Thousands of researchers and lab staff would lose their jobs across the two agencies.
The proposal could likely change before it is sent to Congress for approval later this month, but even a scaled-back version would be devastating for climate research — including in Canada.
Weather systems and climate don't take note of international borders, and the quality of Canadian weather forecasts depends — in part — on US data, and vice versa, Donner said. While the proposal only targets research facilities, not the US National Weather Service, eliminating them would destabilize the entire infrastructure used to make weather forecasts, with impacts on Canada.
'The bottom of the Jenga stack'
"It's like, going to the bottom of the Jenga stack and pulling a bunch of sticks out. At some point, the whole thing's gonna fall down apart," he said. "[Canada] can't realistically replace what they're doing."
In a statement, Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) said that its work, including weather forecasting and climate research, includes longstanding collaborations with NOAA on water monitoring, satellites, weather and climate research. It has not been "officially informed of any changes in its collaboration with NOAA."
ECCC scientists have also developed mitigation and contingency plans to minimize the impact of any data disruptions from the US, and are exploring collaborations with other national governments, the World Meteorological Organization and "other partners" to add to the data it already collects in Canada for weather forecasting and climate modelling.