Widespread criticism of B.C.’s mining rules is undeserved according to Energy and Mines Minister Bill Bennett, who has turned down a recommendation from the University of Victoria’s Environmental Law Centre for a judicial inquiry into mining regulation.

“Given the significant changes this government has made to how mining is undertaken and overseen in British Columbia, including changes to law and policy, additional resources to improve permitting processes and significantly strengthened compliance and enforcement, Government categorically disagrees that a Commission of Public Enquiry (sic) into the Province’s mining industry serves the taxpayers of B.C. Such a process would be demonstrably redundant,” Bennett wrote in a letter to the ELC.

The response has exasperated Calvin Sandborn, ELC legal director, who said the rejection is likely to cost B.C. taxpayers dearly because of immense costs of mine reclamation where environmental damage has been caused by poor government oversight and minimal enforcement of the polluter-pay principle.

“You can pay for an awful lot of public inquiries if you avoid just one disaster,” said Sandborn, who points to how previous public inquiries have improved regulatory systems and helped restore public confidence.

An ELC report, commissioned by the Fair Mining Collaborative, said the regulatory system governing B.C.’s mining industry is profoundly dysfunctional and the public has lost confidence in the province’s ability to protect the environment and communities from poor mining practices.

A Commission of Public Inquiry is needed because mining is an industry that can create “catastrophic and long-lasting threats to entire watersheds and to critical public assets such as fish, clean water, wildlife and public health,” says the report.

In the aftermath of the Mount Polley tailings dam collapse, the spotlight has been on B.C.’s mining regulations and enforcement, drawing highly critical analyses from Auditor General Carol Bellringer, Alaskan politicians and environmental groups, First Nations, Canadian not-for-profit groups such as Mining Watch Canada and communities worried about the safety of tailings ponds in their region.

In addition to the Mount Polley disaster, that saw 25-million cubic metres of sludge and toxic waste water surge into nearby lakes and rivers, public confidence has been shaken by the toxic legacy of old mines, such as Tulsequah Chief, which has leached acid mine waste into Alaska watersheds for six decades and the Sunro Mine at Jordan River where reclamation and cleanup efforts were not enforced.

Simultaneously, there is increasing public discomfort with proof that taxpayers are likely to be on the hook for more than a billion dollars in mine clean-ups because of historical problems and B.C.’s lack of financial enforcement, including the practice of allowing the Chief Inspector of Mines to unilaterally set the amount of reclamation bonds and then not demanding the full amount be paid up-front.

Unlike neighbouring Alaska, B.C. will also accept guarantees, rather than demanding cash or bonds.

B.C. Rejects Request for Inquiry into Mining Practices https://t.co/J3MaLhT2Sw #bcpoli #cdnpoli #Alaska #bcelxn17 @LavoieJudith @MiningWatch pic.twitter.com/sry5MUqZ1J

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) April 11, 2017

Independent economist Robyn Allan, in a brief presented to an Alaska State Legislature committee, underlined the difference in bonds paid by mining giant Teck Resources Ltd. in B.C. and Alaska.

Teck has posted a bond of $558-million with Alaska to fully cover reclamation costs at the Red Dog Mine, which is expected to require water treatment in perpetuity.

In contrast, just across the B.C. border, Teck is responsible for 13 mines — six operating and seven closed — and the province has estimated reclamation liability at $1.4-billion, but has required only $510-million in bonding, Allan wrote in her brief.

Teck is the largest donor to the B.C. Liberals contributing $1,502,444 to the party since 2008.

However, Bennett, in his letter to the ELC, said that, following the release of the Auditor General’s report last May, government commissioned Ernst and Young to undertake an in-depth examination of reclamation securities practice.

“Ernst and Young found that (the Ministry of Energy and Mines) has established a carefully-considered and systematic financial security approach for mine reclamation that includes elements of a risk-based approach,” he wrote.

The review suggests ways of moving forward and an amended “reclamation securities approach” will be completed in 2018, according to Bennett, who is not running for re-election in May.

Bennett wrote in the letter that government has accepted all recommendations of the Expert Panel that looked into the Mount Polley disaster and recommendations made by the Auditor General.

Sandborn disagrees.

“As our submission demonstrated, government has clearly failed to implement the prime recommendations of both the panel and the Auditor General — to move towards elimination of water impoundments and to get the Ministry of Energy and Mines out of the enforcement business,” he said.

Sandborn also dismissed Bennett’s claims that B.C.’s mining regulations are equal to, or more stringent than Montana or Alaska.

“This is demonstrably inaccurate,” he said.

“Alaska requires mine securities of 100 per cent of reclamation costs, while B.C. allows companies to fall far short of that figure. Teck Resources alone has been allowed to fall more than $700-million short in B.C.”

Bennett’s response is similar to his denials after the Mount Polley breach that there had been significant cuts in regulatory staff, Sandborn said,

“The Auditor General’s report showed that we were right and the minister was wrong about that,” he said.

Image: Energy and Mines Minister Bill Bennett. Photo: Province of B.C. via Flickr

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The ramshackle regulatory system governing B.C.’s mining industry is profoundly dysfunctional and the public has lost confidence in the province’s ability to protect the environment and communities from poor mining activities, says a new report from the University of Victoria’s Environmental Law Centre.

The wide-ranging report, released Wednesday, was commissioned for the Fair Mining Collaborative — a non-profit group that helps First Nations communities assess mining activities — and recommends that the provincial government establish a Commission of Public Inquiry to investigate B.C.’s regulation of the mining industry.

A judicial inquiry is needed because mining is a multi-billion dollar industry that can create jobs and great wealth, but can also create “catastrophic and long-lasting threats to entire watersheds and to critical public assets such as fish, clean water, wildlife and public health,” according to the report, which is signed by ELC legal director Calvin Sandborn and law student Kirsty Broadhead.

The Mount Polley tailings dam disaster, plus the toxic aftermath at old mines such as Sunro at Jordan River and the Tulsequah Chief in northeast B.C., where reclamation and cleanup regulations were not enforced, have created a profound crisis in public confidence, it says.

The mine at Jordan River operated from 1950 to 1974 and is suspected of wiping out salmon runs. The site was never adequately remediated and pollution can still be seen seeping into the Jordan River.

The Tulsequah Chief has been leaking acid mine drainage into a tributary of Alaska’s salmon-rich Taku River for 60 years and, although Energy and Mines Minister Bill Bennett has promised action and said the leakage is not harming fish, it is a constant source of worry and frustration for Alaskans.

With those types of examples, it is not surprising that public confidence is at a low ebb and a full-scale public inquiry could help set minds at ease, the ELC concludes.

“In the past, public inquiries have been established when the public had lost confidence in the regulation of an important B.C. industry — and those public inquiries have helped to improve regulatory systems and restore public confidence,” says the report, submitted Wednesday to Premier Christy Clark and cabinet.

The ELC is not the only organization to document problems with B.C.’s mining regulatory regime.

Auditor General Carol Bellringer issued a stinging audit of enforcement of mining industry regulations last year and concluded that government’s enforcement efforts were inadequate.

“Almost all of our expectations for a robust compliance and enforcement program were not met,” Bellringer said in her audit.

“The compliance and enforcement activities of both the Ministry of Energy and Mines and Ministry of Environment are not set up to protect the province from environmental risks.”

Although the government has acted on some of Bellringer’s recommendations, it has ignored the central recommendation that enforcement should be moved to an independent agency. The audit concluded that the Ministry of Energy and Mines is in a conflict of interest because it promotes mining at the same time as regulating the industry.

The ELC report points out that government has also failed to address the most important recommendation from the Mount Polley Expert Panel, which was to eliminate tailings lakes that, the Panel concluded, pose an unacceptable danger to B.C.’s environment.

“The rules on tailings facilities — and many other mining rules — remain archaic and ineffective,” the report says.

However, Sandborn remains optimistic that the government will establish a public inquiry

“I believe in facts, not alternative facts, and these facts speak for themselves,” he said.

The Energy and Mines Ministry did not return emailed questions from DeSmog Canada.

NDP leader John Horgan said in an interview that, although he is not prepared to commit to a public inquiry before seeing the ELC report, regaining public confidence in mining oversight will be near the top of his agenda if an NDP government is elected in May.

“I am going to look at this area with more intensity than others might because I was the critic for a decade and I know these issues and the players pretty well,” said Horgan who emphasized that he wants to see a robust mining industry in B.C., but that requires public confidence and social licence.

Enforcement, rather than regulation, is the biggest problem and an NDP government would separate promotion of the industry from enforcement, as recommended by the Auditor General, Horgan said.

Government’s decision to allow companies to use their own professionals, rather than government employees, to assess situations, also came under fire by Horgan.

“The move to professional reliance, rather than having independent public servants protecting and enforcing regulations, is the biggest failing of the BC Liberals,” he said.

“The public interest is always protected when you have independent public servants discharging their responsibility on behalf of all British Columbians, not just those that are promoting an economic activity.”

Public confidence and public trust was eroded following the Mount Polley disaster and government’s inaction has made the situation worse, Horgan said.

“We are three years on and there have been no consequences for anybody,” he said.

In addition to the environmental threats, the ELC report urges government to look at economic threats presented by a badly regulated industry and taxpayer liability, which is climbing because government is not demanding bonds that fully cover the cost of mine clean-ups.

Bellringer warned that unfunded taxpayer liability for mine clean-ups now exceeds $1.2 billion and other experts estimate liability at more than $3-billion.

“While some jurisdictions ban any mine that would require long-term water treatment B.C. doesn’t just allow such high-risk mines, B.C. routinely allows them to operate without full security — there’s a $730-million shortfall for these high risk operations alone,” says the report.

“By setting securities at artificially low levels, government has encouraged companies to not spend realistic amounts on environmental protection measures. Higher securities would lead to better mining practices,” it says.

Questions that the report recommends should be addressed by a public inquiry include:

*Do current standards for tailings storage facilities fall short of recommendations by the Mount Polley Expert Panel?

*Do B.C’s mining rules meet global standards for public safety and environmental protection?

*Are environmental assessment requirements adequate?

*Is enforcement of mining laws adequate?

*Should government remove enforcement of mining laws from the Ministry of Energy and Mines?

*Are closed mines being adequately monitored and reclaimed?

*Are mining companies cleaning up their own mess?

*How can the province ensure that mining companies, not taxpayers, pay to reclaim mines?

*Is placer mining being adequately regulated?

*Should the free entry mineral tenure system be reformed to protect private landowners, First Nations and the environment?

BC ramshackle regulatory system governing #BCmining is profoundly dysfunctional https://t.co/hRPrRkumWu @UVicLaw @MiningWatch @LavoieJudith pic.twitter.com/wZQdhzJNdS

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) March 13, 2017

The call for a public inquiry is being supported by many First Nations and community groups.

Ugo Lapointe, Canada program coordinator for Mining Watch Canada, in a letter of support, said “B.C.’s mining regulatory regime remains, in fact, one of the most problematic — if not the worst — in Canada when it comes to protecting the environment, communities, indigenous peoples and taxpayers.”

B.C. ranks worst in Canada for unsecured environmental liability of contaminated mine site clean-up costs and is the only large jurisdiction that has not modernized its mineral tenure system, Lapointe wrote.

The Mount Polley disaster was the worst mining spill in Canada’s history and can be attributed not only to poor technical and corporate practices, but also to poor regulatory oversight, Lapointe said.

And, with mining companies regularly showing up as generous donors to the B.C. Liberals, there is a fear of undue influence.

“B.C.’s system is subject to severe regulatory capture by the industry, a situation exacerbated by the fact that B.C. remains the only large province in Canada where there are no limits on political donations from corporate interests,” Lapointe wrote.

A letter from Bev Sellars, chair of First Nation Women Advocating Responsible Mining, says many of the group’s members have learned how promises of riches can turn into destroyed lands and limited low-paying jobs.

“It’s past time for B.C. to objectively and fully evaluate their outdated and biased mining laws and policies. We will accept nothing less,” Sellars wrote.

Image: Christy Clark at Copper Mountain mine. Photo: Province of B.C. via Flickr

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No charges will be laid against the Mount Polley Mine Corporation, owned by Imperial Metals, for the collapse of a tailings impoundment on August 4, 2014, that sent an estimated 24 million cubic metres of mining waste into the pristine waters of Quesnel Lake.

The incident, considered one of the worst mining disasters in Canadian history, was simply the result of “poor practices,” according to B.C. chief inspector of mines, Al Hoffman, and not due to “non-compliances.”

Hoffman released the results of a yearlong investigation into the tailing pond’s failure Thursday and did not recommend charges be brought against the mine or its parent company.

The Mount Polley mine was operating within existing regulation, Hoffman found, but failed to use best available practices. Hoffman made 19 recommendations to the B.C. government and the mining industry to prevent a similar event from occurring in the future. The recommendations include introducing a “designated mine dam safety manager” to monitor tailings facilities as well as improving records management and transparency around design, construction and operation of mining facilities.

B.C.’s Ministry of Mines currently has no rule in place for levying administrative penalties against mining operators. Upon release of the report, B.C. Minister of Energy and Mines Bill Bennett said he hopes to introduce new legislation this spring that will give his ministry the power to impose fines to encourage compliance.

Despite the promises for stronger mine management and future legislation, the current lack of consequences for the Mount Polley Mine Corporation and Imperial Metals has critics outraged.

“How can so many things be done so poorly, sloppily or haphazardly and result in massive damage without someone being ‘at fault?’” Ugo Lapoint, Canadian program manager with MiningWatch Canada, stated in a press release.

The catastrophic failure of the tailings impoundment, which sent contaminated waste into a major source of drinking water and spawning grounds for, at high times, up to 60 per cent of the province’s sockeye salmon stocks, was “not an ‘Act of God,’” Lapointe said.

“It was poor design, poor practices, poor oversight and misconducts on the part of Mount Polley Mine Corporation.” 

“It makes no sense. Either there were political reasons for the chief inspector to not lay charges against [Mount Polley], or the regulatory system is even more broken then we all thought. Either way, it’s not reassuring for any of the mines currently operating in B.C.,” Lapointe added.

MiningWatch Canada found that although the chief inspector did not lay charges, he made numerous incriminating statements in his recent report.

“It does not add up,” Lapointe said.

Richard Holmes, environmental biologist and resident of Likely, B.C., where the spill took place, said the report is a damning indictment of the province’s regulatory system.

“I think this reflects the weak regulations we have in B.C.,” he said

He added the lack of charges against the company does not come as a surprise.

“I didn’t think the chief inspector of mines would condemn his own ministers too much,” he said.

Holmes said the disaster is the outcome of “a bad combination of weak regulations, no oversight and a company that was hell bent on walking a very fine line in doing what was right and making a profit.”

The province’s push for more mines is troubling given the Mount Polley incident reflects poorly on the government’s ability to manage resources and watersheds, Holmes said.

There are currently 10 new mines planned for northwestern B.C., threatening transboundary watersheds flowing into Alaska. The proposed mines include the Red Chris Mine, owned by Imperial Metals, the same operator of Mount Polley.

“The Alaskans and others have every right to be concerned about transboundary rivers,” Holmes said. “Alaska has its own mining concerns that don’t need to be compounded by a weak B.C. regulatory system.”

Calvin Sandborn, legal director of the Environmental Law Centre at the University of Victoria, said a previous B.C. report put together by a panel of experts found management failures contributed to the collapse of the tailings impoundment.

“We sure would like to see someone held to account for this incident,” Sandborn said.

“B.C. government officials have been telling us for years they have world-class laws, world–class standards when it comes to mining,” Sandborn said. In 2012, Premier Christy Clark told a Calgary audience B.C. has the “highest standard of sustainable mining in the world.”

“So do those laws really provide a remedy when you have one of the biggest mining disasters in the world?” Sandborn said. “The jury is still out on that.”

Sandborn said there are still two Mount Polley investigations pending — one conducted by the B.C. Conservation Office Service and another by the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans.

Sandborn said in January a panel of independent experts brought together by B.C. recommended the province eliminate the use of wet tailings impoundments altogether and opt for safer dry stacked tailings — a tailings management technique used in many other mining jurisdictions.

“Most importantly we need to look to the future and accept the recommendations of the government’s own experts and stop ignoring that advice,” he said.

After the Mount Polley incident it was revealed Murray Edwards, owner of Imperial Metals, raised $1 million at a private fundraiser for Clarks’ re-election. The Mount Polley Mining Corporation has donated $46,720 to the B.C. Liberals and mining giant Teck Resources has donated $1.7 million over the last nine years.

“You have to wonder if the B.C. government is constrained because they get so many political contributions from the mining industry, if that is a factor in their policy,” Sandborn said.

Image: Global News 

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The release of a University of Victoria study calling for updates to Canadian charitable law created quite a stir last week.

The study, prepared for DeSmog Canada, was covered by the Toronto Star, Vancouver Sun, Victoria Times Colonist, Canadian Press, Macleans, The Tyee, Yahoo! News and CFAX.

The report called for the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) to clarify rules around “political activities” — defined as any activity that seeks to change, oppose or retain laws or policies — and to provide a more generous limit on allowable policy advocacy in line with other common law jurisdictions such as Australia and New Zealand. It also called for the creation of a politically independent charities commission to remove the potential for political interference in audits.

The findings were raised in the House of Commons by Victoria NDP MP Murray Rankin, who stated the report “analyzes the alarming lack of clarity in the rules governing political activities for charities.”

Tim Gray, executive director of Environmental Defence, said the recommendations put “what’s going on in Canada in the context of what’s going on in other common law and western countries … It gives a sense of how far Canada is behind on these things.”

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Environmental Defence was one of 18 Canadian charities that called on the country’s politicians to enhance the ability for charities to engage in public policy debates earlier this month.

“The lack of a level playing field between business and citizens around public policy is particularly evident in the debate around climate and tar sands,” Gray told DeSmog Canada. “There’s massive spending going on by the oil sector to influence public policy and every dollar they spend on lobbyists in Ottawa or on television ads, they deduct from their gross income and therefore reduce the income tax that they pay to build roads and run hospitals.”[view:in_this_series=block_1]

Citizens who donate money to a charity only receive a 17 per cent tax benefit and charities are limited to spending 10 per cent of their resources on policy advocacy work, described as “political activity” by the CRA.

Fifity-two charities have been audited for their “political activities” under a $13.4 million audit program launched by the federal government in the 2012 budget.

“It’s already unfair and the rhetoric that’s out there right now is to say that that level of unfairness should be enhanced,” Gray said. “It would be a huge move to favouring involvement by corporations in public policy at the expense of citizens.”

Gray also said citizens are confused by the current talk around “political activities,” which many assume to mean “partisan activities,” which charities are banned from taking part in.

Bill Schaper, director of public policy and community engagement for Imagine Canada — which advocates for the charitable sector — said his group has been hearing more and more about re-thinking how we define charity over the last couple of years.

“It’s something that’s been percolating,” Schaper told DeSmog Canada.

But he also noted that there are risks associated with opening up charitable law for major changes. National Post columnist Andrew Coyne, for instance, has argued that we should get rid of charitable status altogether.

“As much as the grey zones are causing issues right now, sometimes grey zones are better than too much clarity because you might not like the clarity you get,” Schaper said.  

He noted that the charitable sector can do a better job of educating itself in terms of what constitutes “political activity” and said there would need to be much more discussion before Imagine Canada would push for specific changes to the law.

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A report released today by the University of Victoria’s Environmental Law Centre calls for sweeping reform of Canadian charitable law in line with other jurisdictions such as the U.S., Australia, New Zealand and England.

Current rules around “political activity” — defined by the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) as any activity that seeks to change, oppose or retain laws or policies — are confusing and create an “intolerable state of uncertainty,” the report says.

“This has created a confused and anxious charitable sector and detracts from them carrying out their important work,” Calvin Sandborn, legal director of the Environmental Law Centre, said.

The report — prepared for DeSmog Canada — comes as 52 charities are being targeted in a $13.4 million audit program launched by the federal government in 2012 to determine whether any are violating a rule that limits spending on political activities to 10 per cent of resources. Those charities include Environmental Defence, the David Suzuki Foundation, Canada Without Poverty, Ecology Action Centre and Equiterre.

Australia and New Zealand, also common law jurisdictions, have modernized their laws in recent years to allow charities to conduct more policy advocacy in carrying out their missions.

The report, Tax Audits of Environmental Groups: The Pressing Need for Law Reform, calls for Canada to establish clearer rules about what constitutes “political activity” and provide a more generous limit on allowable “political activity.”

Canada’s Charities Law Urgently Needs Update: New @ELC_UVic report http://t.co/EUj828Va94 #UpdateCharitiesLaw #cdnpoli

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) March 25, 2015

“U.S. charity regulation is superior to current Canadian law because it is less vague and more respectful of the value that charities bring to public policy debates,” the report states.

Many European countries place no limit at all on a charity’s political activities.

Earlier this month, 18 Canadian charities called on the country’s politicians to enhance the ability for charities to engage in public policy debates.

“Our society has evolved and our legislation hasn’t,” said Eric Hebert Daly, executive director of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, a group that signed on to the letter.

The new University of Victoria report calls on Canada to modernize the definition of what qualifies as charitable to rectify instances such as the CRA’s ruling that Oxfam can not have a charitable goal of “prevention of poverty.”

“In modern society the law should recognize that a poverty-relief organization can often relieve poverty more effectively by lobbying for affordable housing laws than by operating a soup kitchen,” the report says.

In October 2014, the Broadbent Institute released a report, which raised questions about whether the recent audits have been targeted at charities critical of the Harper government. The report said several right-leaning charities are reporting zero “political” activity while engaging in work that appears to meet the CRA’s definition.

There is a direct structural chain of command from the Minister of National Revenue to the charities directorate (which audits charities), the University of Victoria report notes before calling for the removal of any potential for political interference by establishing a politically independent Charities Commission like the one in England and Wales.

“Regardless of whether the audits are targeted or not, an obvious way to address this issue would be to reform the law to eliminate the potential for political control over CRA audits,” the report reads.  “This has been done in other jurisdictions.”

“The perception that audits may be targeted at charities critical of government policies creates a chilling effect,” the report says — adding that with such vague rules, charities can end up spending an “inordinate amount of energy and resources protecting themselves from an audit.”

The report also notes the contrasting treatment of business and charities under the Income Tax Act:

Since businesses can deduct advertising expenses from their income, they can lobby the public through advertising without any imposed statutory restrictions. A recent example has been the omnipresence of the multimillion-dollar [Enbridge] Northern Gateway radio, television, internet and newspaper ad campaign favouring the project. All of these advertisements would presumably be tax deductible and therefore subsidized by general taxpayers.

In contrast to companies’ tax-deductible political advertising campaigns, charities must carefully ensure that all activities of a political nature are kept within the 10 per cent limit. This contrasting treatment of business and charities under the Income Tax Act has the effect of encouraging businesses to take political action in support of commercial and private interests — while hindering the counterbalancing efforts of charities working to protect public interests.

The report provides the example of cigarette companies fighting smoking laws to defend profits while cancer societies advocated smoking laws for the public good (to prevent cancer). The “political activities” of the cigarette companies would have been tax deductible, whereas the charities advocating tougher smoking laws would have had to follow the ten per cent rule.

“This impairment of charities’ pursuit of the public interest has been magnified by the recent spate of audits and their repercussions on the charitable sector,” the report says.

Policy advocacy by Canadian charities has resulted in measures addressing acid rain, regulations on smoking, laws against drunk driving and regulations on toxic chemicals.

Canadian charities and non-profit organizations account for more than eight per cent of Canada’s GDP. As of the end of 2013, there were more than 86,000 registered charities in Canada.

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An open letter to Environment Canada staff from Deputy Minister Bob Hamilton and Associate Deputy Minister Andrea Lyon says science done at the department has become an “issue…receiv[ing] attention recently,” prompting the letter to provide official “perspective” on the matter.

Throughout 2013 22 per cent of media requests for interviews with scientists were denied while requests in the past five months have increased by 50 per cent, the letter states. In total Environment Canada received just 316 media requests in 2013, of which 246 (78 per cent) were approved.

Climate scientist at the University of Victoria and Green party MLA Andrew Weaver says the fact that Environment Canada is giving such a small amount of interviews is “shameful.”

“If a federal organization, comprising thousands of scientists across the country is giving 246 media interview in a year, that’s not too dissimilar to what I was doing as an individual faculty member at the University of Victoria,” he said. “It’s unbelievable. That’s way down from what it used to be.”

Communication Lockdown

Weaver says media no longer expect to be granted interviews from federal departments like Environment Canada, so overall requests are lower than in previous years.

What is more troubling, says Weaver, are the kinds of interview requests being denied. He said a journalist looking for answers regarding toxicology research in the Lake Athabasca is unlikely to find support at Environment Canada.

“It’s really troubling. It’s essentially message management and we have to realize these scientists are civil servants, they are public servants….They are there working on behalf of the public and the public has a right to the information and the science results that they are actually looking at. And they have a right to an interpretation of those results.”

The Environment Canada message explains media contact with department scientists “needs to be well coordinated” because “issues in the media, including environmental issues, are often complex, have an impact beyond the scope of one person’s work or even one department, and can have important policy implications for the Government.”

The letter goes on to state “the role of a public servant in this context is to provide technical information, not to express personal views or comment on policy issues.”

For Weaver there is a difference between discussing science and voicing one’s opinion on policy and a more effective communications regime wouldn’t try to prevent scientists from doing either. He points to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in the U.S.

There is a long history of scientists discussing their research without going into the policy realm implications of their work, he says. To protect the independence and freedom of scientists, groups like NOAA take “the very bold step of saying their scientists can even talk about policy provided that they say these view are my own views, not the views of the government.”

He adds, “in an open and democratic society that is exactly the type of policy we should be aiming for.”

A Pattern of Muzzling

In June 2013, the University of Victoria’s Environmental Law Centre and Democracy Watch released a report cataloguing “systematic efforts by the Government of Canada to obstruct the right of the media – and through them, the Canadian public – to timely access to government scientists.” The 128-page report, entitled "Muzzling Civil Servants: A Threat to Democracy," led to a federal investigation launched by Information Commissioner Suzanne Legault. That investigation is still ongoing.

According to the authors “the report shows that the federal government is preventing the media and the Canadian public from speaking to government scientists for news stories – especially when the scientists’ research or point of view runs counter to current Government policies on matters such as environmental protection, oil sands development, and climate change.”

At the time of the report’s release, UVic’s Environmental Law Centre director Calvin Sandborn said “it’s indefensible to conceal publicly financed government science from the public. Citizens need to know what the facts are so they can decide on critical issues like climate science, the tar sands development and pipelines and all sorts of other issues.”

The message to Environment Canada scientists states the Communications Policy of the Government of Canada, which prevents government scientists from speaking to the media without following certain communications protocols, underscores the government’s “responsibility to respond to the interests of Canadians, and of media in our science.”

Yet for Sandborn, these burdensome policies can be what gets in the way of transparent science communication. “Those restrictive policies…indicate a 

clear pattern of political control over anyone talking about science,” he said.

Sandborn also claimed that muzzling doesn’t occur across the board, but tends to coincide with politically unfavourable topics.

“It is interesting to see that topics that require the highest level of ministerial control are topics related to tar sands, climate change, polar bears, caribou and the oil and gas industry. Those are all terms used in federal government politics and on those topics the rules are the strictest. The scientists have to get the highest level of ministerial approval to talk about those topics. I’ll leave it to you to decide whether that’s a coincidence,” he said.

This past fall a report released by the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada (PIPSC) called “The Big Chill” found 90 per cent of federal scientists felt they were prevented from speaking openly about their work. The study also found 86 per cent felt they would be reprimanded for criticizing departmental decisions they felt detrimental to public interest. 

PIPSC president Gary Corbett told DeSmog Canada that he found the results “very surprising” especially revelations about “the degree of political interference.”

“Right now scientists can’t do the job they were hired to do.”

Here is the full text of the Environment Canada letter: 

Communicating our Science

The issue of the science done at EC and how it is communicated externally has received attention recently and we would like to take this opportunity to provide our perspective on this issue.

Environment Canada (EC) is a science-based department with a history of scientific accomplishment and rigour that is recognized nationally and internationally. We are extremely proud of the excellent work we are doing together as a department, and we appreciate the dedication and expertise of our scientists and of all of our staff.

Every day, staff at EC conduct a wide range of environmental monitoring, research and other scientific activities in fields such as atmospheric sciences, meteorology, physics, biology, chemistry, toxicology, hydrology, ecology, engineering, and informatics. The information and knowledge is used to inform our programs, policies and services. We know that sharing our science is important.

We recognize that we have a responsibility to respond to the interest of Canadians, and of media in our science. The Communications Policy of the Government of Canada underscores this point. Since January 2013, we received 316 media requests for interviews with scientists, 246 (or 78%) of which resulted in completed interviews. Interestingly, we are witnessing an upward trend in the number of media interviews being completed by EC scientists: the average number of scientist media interviews per month for the last five months is 50% higher than in the previous five months.

That said, access by media to departmental officials, including scientists, needs to be well coordinated in the context of a fast-paced 24/7 media environment. Issues in the media, including environmental issues, are often complex, have an impact beyond the scope of one person’s work or even one department, and can have important policy implications for the Government. This is why media outreach is achieved in accordance with the Communications Policy, with which all public servants must comply. While Ministers are clearly the principal spokespersons of the Government, public servants, including scientists, may be designated as spokespeople, typically as an expert on a specific issue. The role of a public servant in this context is to provide technical information, not to express personal views or comment on policy issues.

EC scientists have our support, and the support of the senior management team, in communicating their research through many channels, such as presenting at conferences, publishing in journals, and, with approvals, discussing with the media. Our scientists are encouraged to publish and, in 2012, for example, our scientists published more than 700 articles, a level of productivity that has been relatively constant since 2006.

With one of the largest science programs in the federal government, EC is a national and global-leader in advancing, connecting and applying scientific understanding of the environment to anticipate and address pressing environmental issues.

The strength and credibility of our science helps Canadians to be confident that EC’s policies, regulations, programs and services are based on the best available scientific evidence.

We are proud of the world-class science that we are doing together as a Department, and the services that we provide every day to Canadians. In the context of Blueprint 2020, we will be exploring channels such as webinars to further this discussion. We are committed to hearing your concerns and look forward to working with you to improve how EC science is communicated, both internally and to the public.

Bob Hamilton, Deputy Minister

Andrea Lyon, Associate Deputy Minister

Image Credit: Screenshot from The Big Chill report.

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This is a DeSmog Canada post originally commissioned for the Academic Matters: The Journal of Higher Education May edition "The War on Knowledge."

Science—and the culture of evidence and inquiry it supports—has a long relationship with democracy. Widely available facts have long served as a check on political power. Attacks on science, and on the ability of scientists to communicate freely, are ultimately attacks on democratic governance.

It’s no secret the Harper government has a problem with science. In fact, Canada’s scientists are so frustrated with this government’s recent overhaul of scientific communications policies and cuts to research programs they took to the streets, marching on Parliament Hill last summer to decry the “Death of Evidence.” Their concerns— expressed on their protest banners—followed a precise logic: “no science, no evidence, no truth, no democracy.”

“No Science”

Since 2006, the Harper government has made bold moves to control or prevent the free flow of scientific information across Canada, particularly when that information highlights the undesirable consequences of industrial development. The free flow of information is controlled in two ways: through the muzzling of scientists who might communicate scientific information, and through the elimination of research programs that might participate in the creation of scientific information or evidence.

Federal scientists, academics, journalists, and environmental organizations across Canada have complained of increasingly strict communications policies that prevent researchers from relaying crucial scientific information to the media or the public. Such suppression of communication ranges from the laughable—such as Environment Canada scientist Mark Tushingham being prevented from attending the launch of his own book, a novel that explored a future world catastrophically altered by global warming—to the systemic—such as federal scientists with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans being required to obtain permission from high-level bureaucrats to discuss peer-reviewed research with the media. The problem of muzzling is widespread in federal departments, agencies, and organizations tasked with scientific research. The problem has been endemic since the election of the Harper Conservatives nearly seven years ago.

In 2007, the Harper government established new rules that controlled Environment Canada scientists’ interactions with the media. Under this new protocol, senior scientists are required to obtain permission from the government before speaking with reporters. A leaked internal Environment Canada document revealed the new policy had reduced the department’s engagement with media on climate change by 80 per cent. That same document also revealed Environment Canada employees felt the intended design of the new procedure was to silence climate scientists.

In 2008, the Harper government eliminated the position of National Science Advisor, a role that created an important link between the scientific community and top political leaders, including the Prime Minister. Since then, ministerial directives have trickled down throughout federal departments, including the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and Natural Resources Canada, to further limit unmonitored interactions between scientists and the press. These directives usually involve burdensome administrative delays that inhibit the ability of scientists to engage freely with journalists.

Examples of the impact of these directives are not difficult to find. In 2010, for example, Scott Dallimore, a scientist with Natural Resources Canada, was not allowed to comment on his research concerning a northern Canadian flood that occurred 13,000 years ago without permission from then Natural Resources Minister Christian Paradis. In early 2011, Kristi Miller, a scientist with the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans, was prevented from responding to media inquiries regarding her important research into declining salmon stocks. Orders to keep Miller from speaking with journalists came from the Privy Council Office in Ottawa.

And the list goes on.

In the aftermath of the March 2011 Japanese earthquake and nuclear disaster in Fukushima, Postmedia journalist Margaret Munro was denied access to information regarding Canada’s radiation detectors and was prevented from speaking with experts working with those detectors. The information was eventually made public by an Austrian research team working with data from global radiation monitors— including Canada’s.

In April 2011, a group of scientists from Environment Canada were prevented from speaking with the media about their paper recently published in Geophysical Research Letters. The paper concluded that a two-degree Celsius increase in temperatures worldwide might be unavoidable in the next century. Six months later, Environment Canada scientist David Tarasick was denied the opportunity to speak with the media about his research concerning an “unprecedented” loss of ozone over the Arctic. He told Postmedia News: “I’m available when Media Relations say I’m available.”

That November, scientists from Environment Canada were restricted from talking to mediaabout the results of a study confirming that snowfall near Alberta’s tar sands was contaminated with petroleum-based pollutants. These scientists were directed to either shunt media inquiries to a government spokesperson or refer to a list of scripted statements that claimed a 2010 government study found no toxins in the Athabasca River and, further, that no definitive link had been made between tar sands contaminants and the region’s mutated and cancerous fish—a statement in direct contradiction to Environment Canada’s emerging research.

Last spring, the Harper government sent media relations chaperones to shadow Environment Canada scientists at the International Polar Year Conference in Montreal. Conference participants were ordered to ensure media liaison personnel were present to record all interactions between federal scientists and the media.

In early 2013, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans introduced a new policy that characterized all department research as ‘confidential’ unless released by high-ranking officials, leaving the fate of scientific communication in the hands of bureaucrats rather than scientists.

“No Evidence”

Beyond tight communications controls, the Harper Government has also constrained or eliminated several high-profile research labs, scientific institutions, and other data-gathering organizations. The effect of these closures is that the very building block of science—evidence—is cut off at its roots.

In 2010, the Harper government cut the mandatory long-form census, the country’s most robust and consistent point of data collection on everything from language to household purchases. Without this type of comprehensive data, there is no reliable and transparent way to monitor government, to demand democratic accountability, or to argue for evidence-based decision-making, according to former Chief Statistician Munir A. Sheikh.

In August 2011, the government announced 700 Environment Canada positions would be terminated in order to pursue “government-wide fiscal restraint.”

By February 2012, only five of Canada’s ten LiDAR (light detection and ranging) observation stations, part of the Global Atmosphere Watch Aerosol LiDAR Observation Network, were still in operation. These ten observation stations had been conducting weekly ozone and fossil fuel pollution measurements since 1966. The closure of the research stations followed the removal of Canada’s CORALnet website which distributed crucial ozone and pollution data to research laboratories and scientific organizations across the globe.

Around the same time, the Harper government announced a forced closure of the Polar Environment Atmosphere Research Laboratory (PEARL) in Nunavut. PEARL participated in groundbreaking climate research and played a pivotal role in discovering an enormous hole in the ozone layer over the Arctic. The closure of PEARL was largely a result of the failure of the federal government to renew funding for the Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Studies, which expired in 2011. The agency awarded $118 million of federal funding to specific climate research endeavours between 2000 and 2011.

In May 2012, the Harper government announced that funding would be cut in 2013 for the National Roundtable on the Environment and Economy (NRTEE), a body seeking to regulate Canada’s carbon emissions. Just recently, NRTEE was prevented from making its documents and research available on a non-governmental website because of government restrictions on information. Also in May, Vancouver Island’s Institute of Ocean Sciences was informed that it would no longer receive funding from the federal government. Peter Ross, the country’s only marine mammal toxicologist, lost his research position along with 1,074 other Department of Fisheries and Ocean employees.

These cuts to funding for environmental research were followed by the infamously anti-science Omnibus Budget Bill C-38 in June 2012. The Bill effectively cut funding to, dismantled, or weakened the following environmental bodies or pieces of legislation: The Canadian Environmental Assessment Act; The Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency; Canadian Environmental Protection Act; Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act; Fisheries Act; Navigable Waters Protection Act; Energy Board Act; Species at Risk Act; Parks Canada Agency Act; Canadian Oil and Gas Operations Act; Coasting Trade Act; Nuclear Safety Control Act; and the Canada Seeds Act. In addition, money was granted to investigate the charitable status of environmental groups while water programs, wastewater surveys and emissions monitoring programs were cut.

Also last summer, the government announced it would cut $3 million in funding to the Experimental Lakes Area, effectively shutting down Canada’s most unique natural laboratory where researchers studied the effects of industrial chemicals and pollutants on waterways, fish, and other aquatic life. [Editor’s note: It now appears that an NGO, the International Institute of Sustainable Development (IISD) will be taking over operations at the ELA. As we go to press, discussions between IISD, the Ontario government and the federal government are ongoing to finalize the details of this arrangement.]

“No Truth”

In the absence of rigorous, scientific information— and an informed public—decision-making becomes an exercise in upholding the preferences of those in power.

In Canada today, as in most of the developed world, power has become increasingly concentrated in fewer hands— hands which are inevitably attached to the bodies of big business and the state. And in light of Prime Minister Harper’s agenda to rebrand Canada as the next energy superpower, it would seem that both the corporate interests and the state are focused on the expansion of the resource extraction industry in Canada.

And yet, scientists around the world have made clear that large industrial states have an urgent responsibility to scale back their carbon emissions if catastrophic global warming is to be avoided. Major scientific organizations have voiced similar concerns regarding atmospheric and oceanic pollution, suggesting contaminants related to the production and consumption of fossil fuels are endangering the health and well-being of human, plant, and animal life.

Yet despite the scientific community’s appeal for a wholesale switch from carbon-based fuels to alternative and renewable energy, the growth of resource-based economies like Canada prolong our dependence on costly and unsustainable energy sources like oil and gas. The long-term viability of these resources is becoming increasingly threatened as oil and gas supplies become harder and more costly to access, both in economic and environmental terms.

Demand for these resources—including oil from the Alberta tar sands—depends on our ability to justify their development in environmental and economic terms. The costs associated with developing oil in the tar sands, while only marginally defensible economically, are much more difficult to justify on an ecological scale. And this is where the work of scientists runs counter to the agenda of industrialists.

Despite evidence to the contrary, industry supporters such as Canada’s Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver and Alberta Premier Alison Redford promote Alberta’s tar sands as ‘environmentally friendly’ and ‘green.’ And it is likely because such claims contradict a growing scientific consensus that there is a formal effort to suppress scientific opinion.

Calvin Sandborn, legal director at the University of Victoria’s Environmental Law Centre, has reviewed the government’s role in the muzzling of scientists. He says there is some consistency across the board when you consider what scientific information is regularly silenced.

“It is interesting to see that the topics that require the highest level of ministerial control are topics related to the tar sands, climate change, polar bears, caribou, and the oil and gas industry. Those are all terms used in the federal government policies and on those topics the rules are the strictest. The scientists have to get the highest level of ministerial approval to talk about those topics. I’ll leave it to you to decide whether that’s a coincidence.”

Scientific research plays a crucial role in our ability to knowledgably engage with the natural world. In many ways, scientists act as interpreters for nature, and for the species, waterways, and ecosystems that cannot speak for themselves. When we sever the link between science and society, we effectively sever the link between society and the natural world. There are facts about our environment that we simply would not know had scientific inquiry not revealed them.

Consider global warming. Without rigorous, long-term scientific observation, we would be ignorant of the massive impact the burning of fossil fuels is having on the atmosphere and geophysical features like the polar ice caps.

Without science, we’re walking blind.

Blindness can have a serious impact when it comes to public opinion and decision-making. When we limit the production of scientific evidence, it creates a knowledge vacuum that inflates the power of political influence. If politicians can’t point to facts in defense of their arguments then there is little left but ideology to rely upon.

A functioning democracy relies upon the interplay of fact, rationality, and a well-informed public. Within that context, good arguments are incisive political instruments: precise, clear, and informative. But good arguments require evidence, which can only be produced through scientific inquiry. Science, and the evidence-based discourse it enables, is the foundation upon which the whole democratic mechanism turns.

“No Democracy”

The relationship between science and democracy is thus an intimate one. And to the extent that we tolerate the suppression of science in Canada, we can expect a correlative suppression of democracy.

In Canada we are witnessing the muzzling of scientists and the elimination of federal funding that enables scientific research. When scientists are prevented from providing the public with information, there is a reduction in the capacity for democracy.

Without science neither the public nor its leaders can be sufficiently knowledgeable to make informed decisions. Decision-making becomes little more than an exercise in ideology and the use of power.

Nobel Prize-winning climate scientist Andrew Weaver argues that “we have a crisis in Canada.” This crisis, he says, “is in terms of the development of information and science to inform decision-making. What we have replaced that with is an ideological approach to decision-making.”

For Weaver, science doesn’t dictate what policy should be. Science isn’t prescriptive.“But what science is there to do is to inform policy discussions. You make the policy based on evidence as well as opinions of people around you. What you cannot do in a democratic society is suppress evidence because then you’re into propaganda and ideology. And this is what is happening in Canada. The evidence used to actually inform society, to actually determine whether or not they are in favour of a policy, is suppressed.”

“So,” he says, “we have a problem. [Muzzling] throws a wedge into our democratic process.” He adds, “This is a crisis of democracy. We need to actually, as citizens, reclaim democracy and there are many ways of doing it. But the first thing we have to demand is access to information because without information we’re ignorant and ignorance actually leads to the rise of these autocratic systems.”

So, when a nation’s preeminent scientists take to the streets, wielding placards that say “No science. No evidence. No truth. No democracy” there is much more than a research institution’s budget at stake. If Canada is to recover from the serious dismantling of scientific institutions and practices across the country, it will require a sustained effort by scientists, citizens, and policymakers. It is much easier, after all, to tear down than to rebuild.

Image Credit: Academic Matters

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Calvin Sandborn, the Environmental Law Centre’s (ELC) legal director, is “tickled pink” over the Information Commissioner’s decision to investigate allegations that Canada’s federal scientists are being muzzled.

“We’re very happy because this is the kind of thing that just by the Commissioner looking into it and bringing the fact to the public, I think the policies with change. Because these things just don’t withstand scrutiny if they are out in the open and the public knows what’s going on. It’s indefensible to conceal publicly financed government science from the public. It makes no sense from a democratic point of view. Citizens need to know what the facts are so they can decide on critical issues like climate science, the tar sands development and pipelines and all sorts of other issues,” he said.

On February 20th the University of Victoria’s ELC and Democracy Watch released a report detailing several cases of muzzling and requested the Office of the Information Commissioner (OIC) launch a formal investigation. Just over one month later, on March 27th, Information Commissioner Suzanne Legault’s office announced the complaint fell within its mandate.

The OIC announced it will investigate a number of federal departments, including Environment Canada, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and Natural Resources Canada, in regards to the development and implementation of their policies.

Is Canada Loosing Grip of its Democracy?

For Calvin Sandborn, the investigation is about the principles at root in government policy, about the principles of democracy. If you look back to the Enlightenment, says Sandborn, you can see the relationship between democracy and a rational, scientific approach to the world.

It was during the French Revolution and with Enlightenment thinkers like Voltaire and Rousseau that the Greek principles of democracy were recovered and reintroduced to society. Democracy offered up as a radical alternative to the absolutism of the monarchy, which, at the time, was the most centralized power Europe had ever seen.

It was at the time of an incredible power imbalance, when democratic institutions were really thought out – the division of power, the checks and balances, the democratization of the system.

The root of democracy, says Sandborn, lies in its inclusion of diverse perspectives and ideas, which provide the base for decision making through reason and the weighing of evidence.

“It’s in the non-democracies where decisions are made for ideological purposes or are made pursuant to the divine right of the king. But democracies rely on trying to make rational decisions for the good of the people,” he says.

“Most reasonable people would agree that we should act on the basis of facts, on the basis of evidence and science and that it’s simply indefensible for the government to withhold facts from the public who paid for those facts to be researched.”

Canada, the Great Petrostate

But what were seeing in Canada is not the growth and development of a democracy, but the emergence of a petrostate.

“Andrew Nikiforuk has written about this,” says Sandborn, “that when countries become petrostates, when they become dependent on the oil and gas industry, they tend to become more autocratic. We certainly saw this tendency in the US. Bush was heavily influenced by the oil and gas industry."

"And what the Canadian government is doing today is certainly very similar to what we saw happening with George W. Bush in promoting the interest of the oil industry and suppressing the science on the environmental impacts of the oil industry. George W. Bush got into a lot of trouble because of his administration’s manipulation of science on climate change and suppression of scientific information.”

It was to Bush’s ultimate disadvantage, according to Sandborn, because scientific freedom became a campaign issue in the 2008 election and eventually led to the Obama Administration reversing many of the former administration’s rules.

What we see happening now in the US is very different than what we see in Canada, he says. “Now we see the US with these rules that are totally the opposite of what is happening in Canada, where the American government is saying to scientists that they can share science and facts with citizens. In fact, it is their obligation to and government encourages them to.”

Just like in the US, says Sandborn, the suppression of information appears to be in relation to Canada’s petrostate agenda.

“It is interesting to see that topics that require the highest level of ministerial control are topics related to tar sands, climate change, polar bears, caribou and the oil and gas industry. Those are all terms used in the federal government policies and on those topics the rules are the strictest. The scientists have to get the highest level of ministerial approval to talk about those topics. I’ll leave it to you to decide whether that’s a coincidence.”

Brave New Canada

As Sandborn sees it, Canadians really care about democracy – and maybe moreso now that it feels threatened.

“I think people are really sensitive when they feel the democratic process may be getting distorted. People have a visceral dislike of hearing of government manipulation the facts and reusing to be straight with the public.”

What is happening in Canada feels like a bad case of historic deja-vu, as Sandborn puts it, and Canadians are not supportive of this political backslide.

“We went through the 20th century and dealt with all sorts of autocracies and autocracies do that sort of thing – they manipulate information and they mislead the public about science and they suppress scientific information. We’re used to autocratic dictatorial regimes doing it, we’re used to reading in Brave New World and 1984 about regimes that manipulate information.

People don’t want to see that happen here – and I’m not saying it’s Brave New World or 1984 here – but people recognize the issue, they recognize it’s important to maintain a vibrant democracy and that the principle is important, that scientists need to be free to talk to the public about the facts.”

“I mean, it’s only the facts,” Sandborn says, “these are not dangerous things. It’s just scientific research, it’s not some radical thing.”

The reasonableness of it all, says Sandborn, can be seen in past scientific protests in Canada. In one of the demonstrations scientists took to the streets holding signs that read:“ What do we want? Science! When do we want it? After peer review!”

These aren’t radical political dissidents of any sort, Sandborn laughs.

The Outcry

“I think it’s kind of reassuring that citizen are so concerned when it comes to matters of democracy,” Sandborn adds. “People are riled up about this thing.”

News that Information Commissioner Suzanne Legault had initiated an investigation was warmly received at the Environmental Law Centre. For Sandborn, the announcement meant that the meaning of muzzling hasn’t been lost on Canadians and, perhaps more importantly, that Canadians felt they could do something about it.

The real meaning of the investigation has yet to be seen, but Sandborn is hopeful.

“I think all is well that ends well. I think that scientists will hopefully no longer be muzzled at the end of the day. And I think that the fact that the Information Commissioner is launching an investigation may create a dynamic of its own in that scientists will feel much freer now to contact her office and talk about the instances that they’ve seen.

We know that there are many, many scientists who are concerned about this and we know there are professional organizations that have taken a very strong position on this. We’ve heard all sorts of stories of people who were afraid of being fired for talking about the issue and so as a result of the fact that there will be some protection for scientists now who come forward, I think the commissioner is likely to get to the bottom of it and the situation is likely to change.”

The government policies, says Sandborn, really speak for themselves. “Those restrictive policies, they indicate a clear pattern of political control over anyone talking about science.” 

Those policies – appended in the ELC report, authored by UVic law student Clayton Greenwood – are exactly where Commissioner Legault should start, Sandborn notes.

As for the scientists, their prospects might be better than others facing muzzling in the country. “The Commissioner can issue a public report and she can issue a report to Parliament. Hopefully people in Parliament can talk about this too. Although I understand people are being muzzled in Parliament too, as well as the historians and the archivists.”

This investigation is likely the first step in a long uphill march. But for Sandborn, a small but crucial victory lies in the nation’s changing public awareness.


“I think the main thing is that the public is coming aware of this now.”

Image Credit: Busts of Voltaire and Rousseau via Wikipedia. 1984 book cover by gray318.

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