The Liberals' $1B DEI slush fund: Minecraft extremism study & “intersectional” virtual reality

Public Safety Canada gave the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies $177,522 in 2023-24 to study how gaming communities on Minecraft and Roblox lead to “radicalization."

Source: ChatGPT/Parliament of Canada

From funding a study on how Minecraft radicalizes people into violent extremism to virtual reality to help “intersectional” entrepreneurs practice asking investors for money, the Liberal government has spent over $1 billion on DEI programs since 2016.

Newly released federal records reveal that more than $1.04 billion in taxpayer money has been directed to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) programs across 29 departments and agencies.

Public Safety Canada gave the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies $177,522 in 2023-24 to study how gaming communities on Minecraft and Roblox lead to “radicalization” and “violent extremism.”

The study analyzed other gaming platforms such as Steam and Discord.

The documents, tabled in the House of Commons in response to an Inquiry of Ministry, outline spending on national initiatives and local community projects.

On June 3, 2023, the Canadian Women’s Chamber of Commerce received $3.2 million under the federal Women Entrepreneurship Strategy to develop virtual-reality software allowing “intersectional” and women entrepreneurs to practice asking investors for money.

The project reported that 244 “diverse/intersectional and/or underserved women” were supported by the program in the fiscal year 2024-25.

One notable example is a $32,250 grant on June 26, 2023, to Project Ploughshares for “A feminist spotlight on space insecurity: Human implications of ‘below threshold’ conflict.”

The funding supports feminist research into the sources of insecurity in outer space, purporting to reveal how a feminist stance on gender, race, and socio-economic status can be applied to Canada’s space program.

That project eventually published a report in September 2023 titled “Hidden harms: A feminist spotlight on space security.”

The report said that Western space exploration carries “colonial patterns of exploitation” and even calls phrases like “manned spaceflight” and “frontier” harmful because they “perpetuate bias and erase Indigenous knowledge.”

Author Jessica West argues space governance needs an overhaul through an “intersectional, decolonial and humanitarian perspective,” contending current programs like NASA’s Artemis mission reflect patriarchal and racial hierarchies.

The University of British Columbia received $511,595 on September 11, 2023, to operate a Pan-Canadian Parks and Protected Areas Research Network. The network will study park areas through the lens of equity, diversity, inclusion and decolonization.

Conservative MP Vincent Neil Ho, who requested the figures last spring, said the sheer scale of the spending raises questions about whether taxpayer dollars are being used effectively and transparently.

He noted the government hasn’t set clear metrics to measure the programs’ results, making it difficult to assess if the money is achieving its intended goals.

At a recent House of Commons committee hearing, Harvard cognitive scientist Steven Pinker offered an academic warning, saying DEI mandates can have a “chilling effect” on free inquiry.

Pinker told MPs that quotas and mandatory diversity statements can “chill research in two ways,” both by “excluding sectors of the population based on their sex or ethnicity or race” and by creating a climate where “people who cast doubt on the policy, who argue against it, get censured, get fired, get cancelled.”