By Tristin Hopper
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Excerpt from a Dalhousie University job posting limited only to women with a disability. Photo by Dalhousie UniversityArticle contentFirst Reading is a Canadian politics newsletter curated by the National Post’s own Tristin Hopper. To get an early version sent directly to your inbox, sign up here.Sign In or Create an Accountor View more offersArticle contentTOP STORYArticle contentWe apologize, but this video has failed to load.Try refreshing your browser, ortap here to see other videos from our team.We apologize, but this video has failed to load.Try refreshing your browser, ortap here to see other videos from our team.Article contentAs part of the Carney government’s push to pour money into A.I. research, Dalhousie University has announced that it will soon be hiring a new federally funded Canada Research Chair in artificial intelligence.Article contentArticle contentThere’s just one major caveat: The position is barred to applicants who are men or able-bodied.Article contentPlatformedThis newsletter tackles hot topics with boldness, verve and wit. (Subscriber-exclusive edition on Fridays)By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc.Thanks for signing up!A welcome email is on its way. If you don’t see it, please check your junk folder.The next issue of Platformed will soon be in your inbox.We encountered an issue signing you up. Please try againInterested in more newsletters? Browse here.Article contentAs a posting for the $100,000-per-year position puts it, the job is “designated to candidates who self-identify as women with a disability or gender equity-seeking persons with a disability.”Article contentThe government-funded position is looking for a researcher to apply artificial intelligence to “healthy aging,” and falls within a broader federal push to encourage artificial intelligence research and development.Article contentIf you’re wondering why Canada isn’t a world leader in AI…@DalhousieU is hiring a tenured professor of Artificial Intelligence, but only disabled women can apply’This position is designated to candidates who self-identify as gender equity-seeking persons with a disability.’ pic.twitter.com/0Sb6XCIox6— Chris Brunet (@chrisbrunet) September 28, 2025Article contentArticle contentThe cabinet of Prime Minister Mark Carney, for instance, is the first to contain a minister of artificial intelligence, a role currently being served by former CBC broadcaster Evan Solomon.Article contentRead More Witness says victim tried to run from killers at golf course near UBC J.K. Rowling criticizes ‘ignorant’ Harry Potter actress Emma Watson over transgender views Advertisement 1Story continues belowThis advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.Article contentScreening for candidates based on colour or sex is standard practice not only at Dalhousie, but at universities across Canada.Article contentA January report by the Aristotle Foundation for Public Policy reviewed 489 Canadian academic job postings across a set time period. Of those, the foundation determined that 98 per cent contained some condition that “directly or indirectly discriminated against candidates.”Article contentStill, Aristotle fingered Dalhousie as one of the heaviest users of identity quotas in its hiring.Article contentIn just the last 12 months, Dalhousie has advertised multiple positions explicitly turning away candidates based on their race, gender or sexual identity.Article contentThe school’s Canada Research Chair in marine carbon transformation was limited to applicants who were “racialized,” “women” or “gender equity-seeking.”Advertisement 1This advertisement has not loaded yet.Trending WestJet seats in economy will no longer recline, to ‘preserve personal space’ News J.K. Rowling criticizes ‘ignorant’ Harry Potter actress Emma Watson over transgender views News Advertisement 2Story continues belowThis advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Vivian Bercovici: Carney dives into the shark pool that is Palestinian diplomacy NP Comment Former Ontario hockey player fatally shot in U.S. shortly after trying to get a ride to his hotel: reports Canada Majority of Canadians continue to oppose new immigration: poll News
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Article contentA Canada Research Chair in Indigenous prosperity and economic reconciliation was limited to “applicants Indigenous to Turtle Island. The term Turtle Island, in this instance, serves as a “decolonized” moniker for North America.Article contentA Canada Research Chair in observational chemical oceanography was open only to “women,” “gender minorities,” and “persons Indigenous to Turtle Island.”Article contentAn engineering-based Canada Research Chair at Dalhousie required applicants to generate new technologies to work in deepwater ocean environments. That is, if they were Indigenous, “racialized women” or “racialized gender minorities.”Article contentRacial and gender quotas are a condition for most forms of Canadian federal science funding, and Dalhousie would risk losing government support if it wasn’t screening at least some of its hires based on immutable characteristics.Article contentThe $310 million in federal funding handed out each year for Canada Research Chairs is bound by strict quotas on the colour and gender of researchers allowed to receive it. By December 2029, 50.9 per cent of all Canada Research Chairs must be comprised of women and gender minorities, 22 per cent must be visible minorities; 7.5 per cent must be people with disabilities and 4.9 per cent must be Indigenous.Article contentArticle contentThe program maintains a database cataloguing minute details on the various identity characteristics of its funding recipients. As of the most recent count, for instance, the program’s payroll contained precisely 36 Black women, 41 West Asian men and 16 researchers from “gender equity-seeking groups.”Article contentArticle content Table showing the “equity targets” for the Canada Research Chairs program.Article contentArticle contentCross-table data noted that none of the “gender equity” cohort were “racialized.”Article contentThe issue of identity quotas in Canadian science is currently being studied by the House of Commons Standing Committee on Science and Research.Article contentLast week, the body heard from Concordia University’s Gad Saad, an outspoken critic of equity policies at Canadian universities.Article contentSaad’s presentation included three examples of Canadian academic positions that screened applicants by race.Article contentOne, an artificial intelligence position at the University of Waterloo, was open only to candidates “who self-identify as “women, transgender, gender-fluid, non-binary or two-spirit.”Article contentArticle contentAnother, an oral cancer research position at the University of British Columbia, was restricted to “people with disabilities, Indigenous people, racialized people, women and people from minoritized gender identity groups.”Article contentWe apologize, but this video has failed to load.Try refreshing your browser, ortap here to see other videos from our team.
Article contentThe practice of “equity quotas” in academic hiring was largely pioneered in the United States, a point that that was made earlier this month in committee testimony by Canadian-born Harvard professor Steven Pinker.Article contentBut in the U.S., the widespread use of identity-based quotas has begun running up against legal challenges conducted under the terms of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination in any program that receives federal funding.Article contentIn 2023, for instance, Harvard University was forced to back off much of its “race-conscious” admissions practices following the U.S. Supreme Court decision Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard.Article contentNo similar challenge is possible in Canada given that discriminatory hiring is explicitly permitted under the terms of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.Article contentSection 15 of the Charter enshrines “equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination,” before immediately providing an exception if the discrimination is being done to ameliorate the “conditions of disadvantaged individuals.”Article contentArticle contentAlthough Canadian universities now routinely apply identity-based quotas to admissions, grants and hiring, the categories very rarely need any kind of verification.Article contentIn the case of Dalhousie, the university has a policy of “affirming” the self-identified characteristics of its faculty on everything from race to gender to ability. As stated in the school’s intake forms, “the preference given to equity-deserving groups in recruitment processes is based on self-identification.”Article contentAnd within that, some of the “equity-deserving” groups are defined quite broadly.Article contentTo qualified as “racialized,” applicants need only identify as “non-white.”Article contentMembers of an “gender equity-seeking” group need only confirm that they “identify as anything not fitting cultural norms around gender identity, expression, and/ or sexuality.”Article contentAnd “disabled” applicants include anyone who self-identifies as having “a chronic, long-term or recurring physical, sensory, mental, learning or intellectual impairment.”Article contentArticle contentArticle contentIN OTHER NEWSArticle contentArticle content Some news from the King of Canada. According to The Telegraph, King Charles III was instrumental in convincing U.S. President Donald Trump to adopt a dramatic about-turn on the Russia-Ukraine War. Although Trump has spent months pressuring Ukraine into accepting a deal that would surrender territory to Moscow, last week Trump issued a call for European nations to rally behind an all-out Ukrainian push to completely evict Russian troops from its territory.Article contentArticle contentCanada has a new interim Parliamentary Budget Officer, Jason Jacques, and in his first major public appearance he warned that everything is very, very bad.Article contentThe PBO is always a bit of a downer in their public statements, but in committee testimony and various media appearances, Jacques occasional veered into the catastrophic.Article contentHe told CTV that Canada’s finances are “looking out over the cliff,” and he told CPAC that Canada may only be a few years away from a full-blown debt crisis. “If left unchanged, the fiscal path that the government’s currently on will definitely result in us being a quite a bit of trouble and having to make some hard decisions,” he said.Article contentBut it was before a House of Commons committee in which Jacques said the government’s fiscal outlook was “shocking,” “stupefying” and “not funny.” “We don’t lightly use the word unsustainable, right?” he said.Article contentJacques expected the federal government to post a $68.5 billion deficit this year, and warned that Canadian debt accumulation is now moving faster than economic growth. Although high deficits have been a thing for quite a while in Canada, prior governments could at least point to the fact that Canada’s “debt-to-GDP” ratio was relatively stable.Article contentFirst Reading is a Canadian politics newsletter curated by the National Post’s own Tristin Hopper. To get an early version sent directly to your inbox, sign up here.Article content
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