Have you ever wondered why Canada has changed so drastically in the last few generations?  It once was a reliable, reasonable country but has now become a progressive, left wing socialist nation.

This has occurred, in no small part, by the creation in 1977, by an Act of Parliament, a progressive program, the brainchild of former Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau. This program is called Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC).  Its purpose is to fund research to make Canada “a world leader in innovative policies”. Although legitimate research projects have been carried out under this program, many of the grants, with its annual budget of $1 billion, have advanced bogus advocacy research to promote left wing policies. Research on conservative policies are rarely funded under the program.  In fact, the SSHRC agency was apparently established to assist the unelected far left in pushing its policies at taxpayers’ expense.

Background on the SSHRC

The SSHRC is the responsibility of the Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, François-Philippe Champagne. Its website states that the SSHRC supports “world-class research in the social science and communities to advance knowledge and understanding.”  It further states that it funds “research excellence” for 25,000 fulltime university professors, and for 65,000 graduate students in Masters and PhD programs, to “train the next generation of talented creative-thinkers and doers” and “drive innovations that address the challenges of today and tomorrow.” This is high sounding language that fails to reveal that the research it funds has a political agenda.

The SSHRC agency enables cultural, social, and economic changes in the left’s social direction, by providing huge grants to graduate students and professors to develop and justify policies that have, over the years, fundamentally changed Canada.

By funding graduate students and professors, the agency establishes “experts” in their fields, who are subsequently called upon by the mainstream media to provide “insights” and credibility to the Neo-Marxist ideology of the left.  These individuals also appear before Parliamentary Committees as “experts” to confirm left wing policies, but, when a Conservative government is in power, the “experts” aggressively criticize the latter’s policies.

In essence, recipients of these grants receive tax dollars, earn post-graduate degrees, become “experts”, and move easily across borders to teach next generations in multiple universities.  Some work within governments, media, in the education of children, medicine and commerce, to advance the woke Neo-Marxist confrontational agenda.  They are advisors and agents of change, whose aim is to transform Canada from within, using an endless series of woke interventions that disrupt institutions and families.

A prominent example of just how this program works is provided by law Professor Kathleen Lahey, Feminist Legal Studies and Gender Studies, Queen’s University.  Ms. Lahey is a hard left, extremist feminist who has received grants totalling $888 550 from the SSHRC since 2001. Ms. Lahey’s research is solely about feminist “equality rights” and, in her capacity as an established researcher, Ms. Lahey frequently speaks as a so-called “expert” on financial and legal matters relating to women and families.

For example, on November 2, 2010 Ms. Lahey appeared before the House of Commons Finance Committee, this time representing the government-financed, Feminist Alliance for International Action, to severely criticize the Conservative policy on family income splitting. After Ms. Lahey’s testimony, Liberal MP Paul Szabo stated, “It’s refreshing to finally get the women’s perspective on the table on shared income, and the importance of gender analysis in developing policies.” Ms. Lahey no more represented Canadian women than she represented Canadian men.  All her research, paid for by taxpayers, has only produced a feminist analysis of policies. Yet, she is accepted as an “authority” on “women’s” views.  Her perspective, however, is only one thread in the multicoloured fabric of Canadian women’s views. Funding for her, and other left wing extremists, has poured out support for left wing research only, with no equivalent conservative research funded, even when the Conservatives have been in power.

Bizarre Research Funded by SSHRC

Although the SSHRC has funded some legitimate, credible research not based on an advocacy perspective, its agenda was made clear on the SSHRC website under the heading “Strategic Plans 2022-2025” when it stated that priority in grants would be on social sciences research based on equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI).

Although this is very noble sounding, a review of SSHRC grants over the years indicates, without any doubt, that specifically funding feminist and LGBTQ social development goals has been prioritized.

With its $1 billion annual budget, SSHRC has established feminist journals and research chairs to mold Canadian students according to an intersecting feminist and LGBTQ future. These woke Neo-Marxist ideologies are not representative of the Canadian way of life, as indicated in the rhetoric of the research projects themselves. In their own words, progressive ambitions for a transformed society are based on “queering” (their words) Canada’s institutions.

Academics exposing Neo-Marxist ideologies claim that queer/feminist theory exists to erase privileged, “oppressive”, western norms, and thus, normalize what has previously been contrary to the established culture. Queer Theory is defined as liberation from the normal, especially “oppressive categories”, such as sex, gender, and sexuality based on biological reality.  PhD and Masters grants include the following topics:  Queer community building; Queering the mainstream media, Canadian suburbs, and museums; Queering military masculinity and international relations.  Queering folklore; Queer and Tran’s fairytales; Queering Canadian child care policies, and teacher professional learning; Queer at any age.  The goal is challenging heteronormativity, implementing a feminist vision, building a feminist culture, queering femininity, and taxation for gender equality. PhD and Masters candidates choose a like-minded professor to supervise their research.

Universities Appoint Chairs for SSHRC Research

Universities in Canada appoint “chairs” (paid from $100 to $200 thousand a year by SSHRC) to research projects funded under the program. These research chairs were established in the year 2000. There are 121 pages of research chair grants (from 2000-2022) posted on SSHRC’s website listing 6049 chair grants on a wide range of subjects such as:

  • Critical ethnicities and race studies
  • Social Justice, at several universities
  • Truth and Reconciliation Education
  • Population and Social Policy
  • Research on transgender children and their families
  • Gender and Medical History 2006-2014
  • Political Economy of Gender and Work 2010-2018

As previously mentioned, legitimate research is also funded but the majority of funding is in the leftist direction. For example, Canada’s Research Chair in Queer Theory receives $120,000 annually from SSHRC. The Canada Research Chair in Leadership and Educational Change was headed by Benjamin Levin, formerly Ontario’s deputy education minister, convicted child pornographer and pedophile, who received $1.4 million from 2006-2014. The Canada Research Chair in Comparative Indigenous Feminist Studies has received $980,000 from 2017-2022. The Canada Research Chair on Feminist and Gender Studies received $1.2 million from 2008-2022.

Queer and feminist activists attempt to move society from the traditionally established “oppressive” structures of a Western “colonial”, patriarchal civilization, such as the family and its moral supports, towards a supposedly liberated future. Accompanying this “transformational” movement is the encroachment of the state into all institutions – the family, education and now, medicine and commerce. The objective is to impose new, woke, “queer” standards, inserting tensions between generations as part of the process.

SSHRC’s list of grants yields over a thousand projects since the year 2000 specifically for feminist and LGBTQ research and promotion. Of those, over 700 are research grants exploring or advancing Queer Theory (the Q in LGBTQ). Annual grants for Queer projects have increased 22 fold since the year 2000.

SSHRC funding has smothered and extinguished the conservative voice in Canada.  This is one reason that Canada has become so unhinged and no longer represents the views of ordinary Canadians, who have become alienated from the elites now running the government and our country by way of our tax dollars.