OTTAWA--A federal court judge has stalled a former graduate student's attempts to have an investigation into a drinking water experiment the University of Toronto conducted in Wiarton, Ontario under contract to a private chemical company.

The Wiarton experiment was terminated prematurely after citizen complaints of foul taste, odour, and laundry bleaching were reported by the national news media, but publications authored by those involved claimed that "no odour or taste complaints were received during the study period". This information was thus unavailable to Health Canada when it subsequently proposed updates to federal drinking water guidelines.

"The federal government agency entrusted with nearly one billion dollars for university research shrugs and says that it has a limited role in ensuring research integrity," said Chris Radziminski, who submitted his concerns about Wiarton with evidence obtained through freedom of information requests to the federal Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC). "Somehow the federal court accepted this unbelievable position."

After NSERC had refused repeatedly to order an investigation by the University, the Canadian Federation of Students took NSERC to federal court, but Justice O'Keefe ruled that NSERC did not act improperly by dismissing students' concerns. The Court further ruled that NSERC acted reasonably in accepting the University's treatment of the allegations pertaining to the Wiarton research-despite the University's failure to address the allegations.

NSERC has provided over half a million dollars of direct funding to the principal University researcher, including a prestigious industry-university partnership award for his work in drinking water with the corporate partner involved in Wiarton. Even while the federal court case was in progress, NSERC awarded the professor an Industrial Research Chair.

"Although the federal government spends billions of dollars on university research, the Canadian public and the international community have very little guarantee that our research is conducted ethically or professionally," said Angela Regnier, former National Deputy Chairperson of the Canadian Federation of Students and affiant in the case. "Federal guidelines are meaningless if they are not enforced."

"This ruling exposes a major hole in Canadian research oversight. Unlike other countries, Canada apparently has no watchdog organisation to intervene when substantial allegations of corporate interference in university research are uncovered," concluded Regnier, "With significant accelerations to commercialisation in universities in Canada, research integrity is at serious risk."

The Canadian Federation of Students is Canada's largest national students' organisation. It is composed of more than 80 university and college students' associations in ten provinces with a combined membership of over one-half million students.