This article compares how faculty members from British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec perceive the influence of federal and provincial policy instruments on the level of academic research production in their province. Mean scores, and a MANOVA followed by Dunnett C post-hoc tests based on a questionnaire completed by 786 participants reveal that professors perceived federal instruments as being more influential than provincial instruments, but also that there is a significant difference in the average score given by Quebec professors to provincial instruments, when compared to their counter parts in the other provinces.