A few hours after our last post was up, NSERC produced a reply to the letter of the chair of the Math/NSERC Liaison committee regarding term limits. All what I can say for now,  is that if the staffer had applied correctly the logic on which she thought she was basing her arguments, she would have arrived to exactly the opposite conclusion, without having to break 4 times NSERC’s own term limits rules (see below). Then, I saw this. 

courtesy of “Fantasy on high”.

We did learn however NSERC’s “rules” on term limits:

“…. with respect to your advice on the duration of terms for members on the Executive Committee and on the EG, while we do normally have three year appointments on the EG and one year for Section Chairs, we have extended terms as a means of providing stability during the implementation of the revised peer review process. We do not see this practice as becoming the norm, however it could still occur from time to time depending on the circumstances in a given year.”

To be applied “from time to time depending on the circumstances,” … such as in the event of a perfect storm?