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House Hansard - 78

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 31, 2022 10:00AM
Context: House Hansard - 78 - May/31/22
Mr. Mario Simard (Jonquière, BQ)
  • May/31/22 1:55:40 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to mention that I will be sharing my time with the ever‑charming member for Manicouagan. This is the best time of day, right before question period, when no one is listening and we can say stupid things, although I will not do that. I would like to begin with a reflection on the issue of positive discrimination. When research chairs are being selected, should positive discrimination be applied? I would like to come back to what positive discrimination means. Sometimes, in the workplace and in access to education, there are biases that can favour certain people. Yes, men can be favoured for certain jobs, people of different ethnic identities can be favoured for certain jobs, and we have to accept that positive discrimination is a mechanism that allows us to restore some equity. Can that be done in the university framework and context? I do not think so, and I will explain why. First, we need to agree on something. University research means a university is involved. In my opinion, the simplest definition of a university, one that has been around since the Middle Ages, is a place where all knowledge is permitted. That is because people quickly tried to make a distinction between certain ideologies and the development of knowledge outside the confines of certain ideologies and religions. I want to start with that, since I think it is rather crucial. I want to tell the House about some of my first loves. I was an avid reader of Michel Foucault. In a short but very interesting book called The Archaeology of Knowledge, Foucault says that, during any given time period, there are things that we can know and things that we cannot. He called this an episteme. According to Foucault, an episteme is a form of rationality in a given time period. Knowledge of medicine could not advance in the Middle Ages because the body was considered sacred. Anyone who dissected a body would meet the same fate, but at the hands of religious authorities, so medical knowledge could not advance. Academia was created based on this idea of leaving every possible field open to various kinds of knowledge. I wanted to emphasize that because I have the impression that what is really going on here is simply an attempt to limit the advancement of certain kinds of knowledge by including criteria that ensure access to research chairs based on identity issues. Research chairs are usually awarded based on how applicants' peers view their projects and their work. Now, if another criterion is added that has to do with identity, the pool of applicants who can apply for research chairs will be seriously limited. Research chairs are not awarded based on the notion of resolving any flagrant inequity or the fact that there are fewer people from a particular group, such as the LGBTQ community or people of a certain faith or from a certain cultural community. The goal of awarding research chairs is advancing knowledge. They are not earned based on any particular identity. In chemistry, physics and all of the pure sciences, knowledge is developed by people who have the skills to advance in their particular fields. As we can imagine, there is some degree of competition involved in earning these chairs, which does not really correspond to the idea of requirements around equity, diversity and inclusion.
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