McGill University will appear before Quebec's access to information commission Tuesday in an attempt to avoid releasing documents about military research undertaken by a research lab in its mechanical engineering department.

The move is a response to a request filed by the student group Demilitarize McGill under provincial access to information legislation.

UPDATE ON THIS STORY: McGill University hands over documents to Demilitarize McGill

Demilitarize McGill is seeking access to emails exchanged between an aerospace research laboratory, the Computational Fluid Dynamics Lab (CFD lab), and four companies with ties to the defence industry.

Demilitarize McGill member Cadence O'Neal has been pushing for documentation on military research undertaken at the university for the past four years, but with limited success.

"It's really important for me to not allow McGill to set a precedent for public institutions, and universities in particular, to refuse to give information of any sort," said O'Neal.

McGill billed $100K annually

The director of McGill University's Computational Fluid Dynamics Lab, Wagdi Habashi, is an internationally recognized expert in his field. He runs his private firm, Newmerical Technologies International, out of his McGill office. (CFD Lab/McGill University)

Through McGill's public-tender database, she recently obtained a 2013 agreement between the CFD Lab, Newmerical Technologies International – a private company run by the lab's director – and American aerospace giant Lockheed Martin.

The agreement suggests that Lockheed Martin has contracted the McGill lab and Newmerical Technologies International to build a safe mechanism "capable of simulating the entire trajectory of a re-entry spacecraft."

Newmerical Technologies International (NTI) is run by a McGill professor of mechanical engineering, Wagdi Habashi, and its address is on the seventh floor of the building housing some offices of the mechanical engineering department on the McGill campus - on the same floor as the CFD lab that Habashi runs.

Under the terms of the agreement, the cost of NTI's contribution to the project is $500,000, and NTI is to bill McGill $100,000 annually for an unspecified period of time.

Demilitarize McGill seeks full contract details

Demilitarize McGill is concerned the contract will develop technology that could be used for missiles, jets or drones.

Obtaining access to more university documents is necessary in order to investigate those suspicions, said O'Neal.

"We can't know, without the full contract details, what model of what kind of technology this research is actually applicable to," said O'Neal.

An older document obtained by Demilitarize McGill through access to information legislation shows a November 2012 agreement between Lockheed Martin and McGill University. It also mentions Habashi's name, but not his private company.

That document is redacted and does not indicate the nature of the work undertaken by McGill on Lockheed's behalf, other than mentioning a "Hypersonic Orbit to Atmosphere." The amount of money McGill would receive from Lockheed is blacked out.

It is unclear what the connections may be between that document and the one a year later involving Habashi's company, NTI.

Asked for comment on both the 2012 agreement with McGill and the 2013 document naming N.T.I., Lockheed Martin wrote its "Near-Space Plane is a project aimed at creating a new class of satellites for classified missions."

A spokeswoman for Lockheed Martin, Cindy Tessier, said McGill is to develop a "user-friendly interface" that should extend the re-entry mechanism's use "beyond a small cadre of specialists to a more general engineering workforce."

She added Lockheed Martin would be looking forward to incorporating some data into "related fields of research."

Habashi did not return requests for comment, while a spokesman for McGill declined to address the issues to be discussed at Tuesday's access to information hearing.

A group of Demilitarize McGill activists blocked access to the lab in McGill's Macdonald engineering building in Feb. 2014. (demilitarizemcgill.com)

Private money from public purse

Demilitarize McGill maintains it is inappropriate for a private company to receive money from a university for military research.

"It's concerning to me that this is happening behind closed doors," said O'Neal. "It's concerning to me that this flow of money is happening like this, without anyone knowing."

Another university document obtained by Demilitarize McGill, dated May 27, 2014, outlines how Habashi's activities as the majority shareholder of NTI are not supposed to interfere with his position in the mechanical engineering department.

The "conflict of interest management plan" asks Habashi to provide information on any potential conflicts to "all co-investigators on funded grants, students, postdoctoral fellows, trainees and other research workers whom he collaborates with or supervises."

It also asks Habashi to disclose to the chairman of the mechanical engineering department the names of any McGill staff or students involved.

The plan states that anyone with "significant financial interests" in NTI must report them annually to the department chairman, as well.

Also by Raffy Boudjikanian: