Research Ethics
Research Ethics: Overview of the Issues

In Canada, as in other countries, a set of rules and institutions have been put in place to safeguard individuals who are studied by researchers. These ethics regimes (to use the legal sense of regime, meaning formal and informal rules and institutions) have been motivated by extremely serious abuses, such as the notorious "Tuskegee Syphilis Study," in which, a US Public Health Service study denied treatment to 399 poor African-Americans with syphilis in order to observe the effects of the disease until it was terminated amid public outrage in 1972. However there is growing concern in Canada and the United States that rules put in place to address very legitimate concerns about vulnerable participants in biomedical research have been extended to cover research in the social sciences and humanities in ways that are problematic due to the lack of sensitivity to the differences in the two types of research.

The most important features of the Canadian ethics regime have included the Tri-Council Policy Statement (TCPS), which was adopted jointly by the three federal granting agencies (SSRHC, NSERC, CIHR) in 1998, and Research Ethics Boards (REBs) which have been set up at universities to vet scholarly research. As noted in the historical page of this website, even back in 2002 concerns were being expressed about the bio-medical bias of the ethics regime, including the inappropriateness of written consent in some situations, the difficulty of specifying lists of questions in advance, instances of apparent excessive REB attention to methodology, timing problems for graduate students, the concern about the deterrent effect on graduate students of doing empirical research, and the inappropriateness of the procedures for aboriginal communities.

In response to such concerns the Interagency Advisory Panel on Research Ethics (PRE), a body of external experts established in November 2001 to support the development of the TCPS, created a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Ethics Special Working Committee (SSHWC) in May 2003. The SSHWC issued a report in June 2004, “Giving Voice to the Spectrum”, which quite forcefully set out concerns that had been raised about the insensitivity of the ethics regime to qualitative researchers in the humanities and social sciences. As the report noted “stated simply, the TCPS does not ‘speak’ to their experience, leaving REBs that may lack appropriate breadth of expertise free to impose default assumptions that threaten free inquiry for no ethical gain. The further one’s research gets from the paradigmatic/positivist/experimentalist assumptions and understandings that permeate the TCPS, the more ill fitting the TCPS’s application becomes.” After consultations the SSHWC issued a second document, Qualitative Research in the Context of the TCPS, for which the consultative period ended in April 2007. As of late 2007 the SSHWC was working on a proposal for specific revisions of the TCPS, with the goal of seeking public feedback during 2008. While the SSHWC reports are a valuable contribution it isn’t clear whether they sufficiently address some concerns that are especially relevant to political science research, such as the requirement to apply procedures designed to protect vulnerable subjects to senior officials and other elite interviewees.

At a meeting in June 2007 the CPSA Board decided to constitute a working group to assist it in considering whether it should take any actions with regard to the Canadian research ethics regime. The working group includes four professors: Jacqueline Best, its chair, as well as Hélène Pellerin, Tony Porter, and Claire Turenne-Sjolander. At its December 2007 meeting the CPSA Board decided to circulate a memo about research ethics issues to its membership and to approve the creation of research ethics webpages on its website. It should be noted, however, that the CPSA Board does not necessarily endorse the views expressed on its research ethics webpages. Rather, these webpages are intended to assist CPSA members and others to obtain more information about these issues.

In the fall of 2007 a call for feedback on a proposal (Moving Ahead) for a further major reworking of the Canadian ethics regime was issued by the Sponsors’ Table for Human Research Participant Protection. This Sponsors' Table, with members such as the Alberta Ministry of Health and Wellness and the Association of Canadian Academic Healthcare Organizations in Canada, is chaired by Dr. Michel Brazeau former CEO of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada, and it works with an Experts Committee. The consultation period ended November 30, 2007. The changes proposed would dramatically strengthen compliance measures in the ethics regime, extend the regime to non-funded research, introduce a system of accreditation, and create a costly new national body to manage the regime. There is a danger, then, that the problems that have been identified with the TCPS will be exacerbated.

CPSA members are encouraged to provide feedback on proposals to change the Canadian research ethics regime. Feedback to the CPSA working group on research ethics and the CPSA Board can be provided by emailing cpsa[at]csse.ca. Please note that time constraints make individualized responses to emailed feedback unlikely, but all feedback received will be carefully reviewed and will be very useful in informing the CPSA’s position on these issues.