The Canadian public is the largest investor and stakeholder in Canada's research programmes. The public interest is best served through high quality research that is conducted without prejudicial influence. Ideally, universities provide a neutral space where ideas can be freely challenged by investigators. To ensure that free inquiry is maintained, research has traditionally been publicly funded. However, because of government cutbacks to higher education and public research granting programmes, universities are increasingly forced to turn to new 'matched funding' initiatives, such as the Canadian Foundation for Innovation (CFI), that merge public funds with money from private sources.

This growing reliance on private sector funding is undermining public research institutions' ability to maintain their impartiality. Private interests have taken advantage of these public/private funding models, recognising them as an opportunity to gain access to high quality publicly funded researchers and institutions for a fraction of the real cost. As research becomes increasingly reliant on private sector money, corporate interests have demonstrated a growing ability to influence the direction and publicly reporting research results.

Researchers not willing to tailor their work to the needs of private investors are increasingly becoming the targets of public smear campaigns, reprisals and academic censorship. These researchers demonstrate that academic freedom and free speech is the best guarantee of unbiased research and that quality research requires the right to share findings with colleagues and research subjects, to publish research results regardless of findings and the right of researchers to make critical observations of the institutions in which they work. The Whistleblowers' Page documents some high profile cases of whistleblowers who have fulfilled their ethical obligations as public researchers by standing up against institutional and corporate pressure to suppress research findings and curb honest academic analysis.