Last year, Canadian scientists and their supporters mourned the “Death of Evidence” in Ottawa. This year, though, they are being asked to stand up and be heard.

On Monday, “Stand Up for Science” rallies will be held in 14 cities across Canada, calling on the federal government to better support science done in the public interest.

“Many of the problems that were impetus of the Death of Evidence rally last year are still there, and if anything, things have continued to get worse,” said Dr. Katie Gibbs, one of the organizers of both Monday's rally and last year's Death of Evidence protest, in an interview with DeSmog. “This rally, we're focusing more on making suggestions for how the government could start to restore public science.”

Those suggestions include: supporting the open communication of publicly funded science to the public; using the best available science and evidence to make the best decisions; and funding scientific research from basic science through to applied.

Scientists have been increasingly critical of the Harper government's stance on publicly-funded research since they came into power in 2006.

By placing burdensome communications restrictions on employees, the Harper government has been criticized of muzzling or censoring scientists unable to openly discuss their research with the public. A movement away from basic forms of data collection – such as the axing of the mandatory long-form census in 2010 – has scientists increasingly concerned about Canada's ability to make evidence-based decisions. 

The result was the “Death of Evidence” rally that gathered 2,000 scientists and supporters in Ottawa last July. Following that success, Gibbs, a biologist, and fellow scientist Dr. Scott Findlay, a professor at the University of Ottawa in the Department of Biology, established Evidence for Democracy, a non-partisan NGO who's goal is to inform the population about the importance of what they call “public interest science.”

Despite what was seen as a successful rally last year, though, Gibbs says the situation has continued to worsen.

Restrictions on the ability of government scientists to speak publicly, for example, have continued to grow, says Gibbs who points to new policies implemented in the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans.

Last winter the DFO instituted new policies requiring scientists to obtain upper-level bureaucratic approval before submitting research for publication in a journal. Gibbs said that this policy goes even further, requiring additional approval once a journal accepts an article for publication. “It's an additional new sign-off that people worry could be used to stifle science that [the government doesn't] want released,” she said.

These policies counter the trend in other countries, such as the US and the UK, where scientists are allowed to speak out against government policy, so long as they preface it by saying that they are not speaking on behalf of the government, said Gibbs.

The ability to speak out is crucial, Findlay told DeSmog, since scientists have a crucial role to play in policy-making. “There is a real place for scientists in political debate and in public policy for the simple reason that all public policy is really just science,” he explained.

Also worsening is the situation around science funding, said Gibbs. While total public funding for science and technology has dropped by 12 per cent in the past four years, according to a recent Statistics Canada report, that isn't Gibbs and Findlay's primary concern. The issue is where the money is going.

Of the $454-million in new research and development funding announced by the federal government for 2013, nearly all of it was slotted for public-private partnerships, in large part for commercialization, wrote Findlay in the National Post last April.

Science and technology funding in increasingly directed away from basic research, where ideas are explored regardless of their profit-making potential. The government's current approach is short-sighted, said Findlay, since cutting funding for basic research will reduce the amount of new ideas that could be marketable in the long-run.

While government actions are of great concern, the primary target for the rally is the public at large, say the organizers.

Their hope is to draw the public's attention to the importance of scientific research for government policy-making, including the social sciences.

Gibbs points to the Conservative government’s decision to implement mandatory minimum sentences in order to reduce crime rates. Reviewing the research on the impact of mandatory minimum sentences in other jurisdictions, she says the clear result is that crime rates do not drop. Adopting mandatory minimum sentences in Canada as a way to reduce crime rates goes against evidence-based decision-making and demonstrates the need to pressure the government to change its approach, said Gibbs.

“I think we've got to restore the health of Canadian science and that we need to take preventative measures, and that will only happen if we convince people of the importance of public interest science,” said Findlay. “I would consider this a success even if the federal government does nothing, if Canadians started to say, 'Oh, I didn't realize that public interest science was so important to me and my welfare.'

“I want people to not only stand up for science, but to actually start to take a bit of ownership of public interest science.”

Information on the Stand Up For Science rallies, taking place across Canada on Monday, Sept. 16, can be found at https://evidencefordemocracy.ca/.

Image Credit: Richard Webster via Death of Evidence.

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In 2011, Toronto-based writer, artist and environmental activist Franke James was asked by Croatian non-profit Nektarina to feature her artwork on an European tour. Unsurprisingly, James agreed, only to have the tour cancelled when the Canadian embassy in Croatia withdrew funding that it denied ever giving Nektarina, and made the non-profit aware that James “speaks against the Canadian government.”

James was not one to be silenced, as her new book reveals. Banned on the Hill: A True Story about Dirty Oil and Government Censorship catalogues the entire ordeal of being blacklisted by Harper’s government for speaking out against the tar sands, and puts the paper trail Canadian diplomats left of their censoring ways on display.

DeSmog: You’ve been spreading a message of environmental awareness that runs counter to the Harper government’s pro-oil stance since 2003. Did you have any inkling that something like the government’s squashing of your European tour might eventually happen?

Franke James: No! Who would ever think you could get into trouble for writing to the Prime Minister asking that we make polluters pay? Is this Canada or the Kremlin?

I've been very openly criticizing the Conservatives for their short-sighted 'economy versus the environment' stance for years now. But I never expected them to lash out at me as an individual citizen because we live in a democratic country where free expression is protected under the Canadian charter. When I discovered what they were secretly doing behind-the-scenes I realized I needed to dig for evidence.

And that led me on a two year journey of collecting evidence, applying for access to information documents, and writing Banned on the Hill. This story needs to be told. It's shocking and it's very undemocratic. Canadians need to know the extreme message control that the Harper government is exerting over ordinary, law-abiding citizens. Our fundamental right to speak up and disagree with the government is at risk – and that is so wrong.

DeSmog: You won a big victory against censorship by successfully crowdfunding a campaign to bring your “Do Not Talk About Climate Change: It Is Against Government Policy” posters to the streets of Ottawa, and you’re on your way to achieving stretch goals to bring the posters to other cities. Could you tell us a bit about the posters?

FJ: Thanks! Yes, it's very exciting to see my  posters up on the streets of Ottawa – and the animated online ads on The Hill Times. That is the government’s favourite “insider-news” website. So it was a real kick to buy space there and use the government spokesperson’s own very chilling words in the ads, “the artist’s work dealt mostly with climate change, and was advocating a message that was contrary to the government's policies on the subject.”

I’m sure the visual of the Parliament Buildings dropped into the tar sands caused a few Cheerios to be spat out. I made that image to emphasize an important point – if that really was the surroundings for the Parliament Buildings, it would not be tolerated. They would not permit the air and water to be polluted that way because it would endanger the health of the Prime Minister and the MPs.

DeSmog: How do you think crowdfunding changes the face of arts/media resistance to government censorship?

FJ: The opportunity for activists to fight government censorship – and communicate positive social messages – through crowdfunding media space is tremendous.

It's essentially a judo-flip on Big Brother message control.

Our voices joined together have the power to change governments – and by that I mean we can leverage mass media to speak up and tell the government what issues are important to us and why. If we make a big noise that climate change is an issue that voters care about, then our so-called “leaders” will follow and bring in laws to put a price on carbon. That would be a game-changer for every business because it would send a message that they can no longer pollute the atmosphere for free.

And on an individual level, crowdfunding is transformative. People who contribute to a crowdfunded campaign can see that by taking action they can make change happen.

So, crowdfunding is a tremendous activist tool. It gives power to anyone with a message to take it out to the world. It is a very democratic system. The catch is you have to be able to persuade people that your message is worth funding. Before “crowdfunding” existed artists and activists had to rely on funding from government, non-profits and corporations. But censorship is a problem with all of those entities.

DeSmog: On a related note, did you face any government-related intimidation or resistance to the crowdfunding campaign and the outdoor posters in Ottawa?

FJ: The Indiegogo campaign running now in Ottawa is the second crowdfunded show I've done and in both cases I’ve taken measures so that the shows did not get blocked or censored. (I know of climate activist media campaigns in the US which have been censored.)

I did not announce publicly where or when the show was going live. This was a good strategy because I am sure if the government had known the show was going up on November 2, 2011 in Ottawa, they never would have released the first batch of Access-to-Information documents on Halloween, 2011. Those initial 165 pages were extremely advantageous to me when I was speaking to the media, because they proved that the government was not telling the truth about the funding. The funding had been approved internally, but was killed by the Deputy Director of the Climate Change office, Jeremy Wallace. The 2 documents are in Banned on the Hill on pages 174-175 (pictured below).

Also, in my November 2011 outdoor show in Ottawa, I had the creative of six posters pre-approved by senior executives at the outdoor company before I put any money down. This was necessary because they had a clause in their contract that said they could pull the artwork, and you’d still have to pay for the space. For the new show in May-June 2013, there was only one poster design, and that was pre-approved too.

DeSmog: Has their been a positive response to the campaign from the public?

FJ: Excellent response. Lots of people are concerned as I am with the silencing of environmental voices and the erosion of our democratic rights. As of today, 206 people have contributed over $12,300.

DeSmog: Do you have any further plans for the use of crowdsourced funds, aside from putting the posters on the streets of other cities?

FJ: Yes! Some fun stuff is being planned! But right now we don’t know which city is next. Vancouver or Calgary is within reach – and possibly Washington, D.C. if we raise enough money.

There will definitely be fun new ways for people to participate and see their impact. We need to get the message out that it is essential to talk about climate change – and take immediate action.

People can help make it happen by contributing. The Banned on the Hill campaign ends on Indiegogo Friday afternoon, June 28, at 11:59pm PST.

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“A wish list of the 1%, a worldwide corporate power grab of enormous proportions,” “undemocratic and patently unfair,” “the biggest global threat to the Internet.”

These are just a few of the disconcerting phrases legal experts and digital rights advocates are employing to describe the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) — a highly secretive, contentious, and perpetually undemocratic multinational trade agreement currently being negotiated between 600-plus industry advisors and unelected trade representatives on behalf of 11 different national governments including Canada.   While the devious, closed-room nature of the discussions have made it difficult to determine how exactly the TPP will infringe on freedoms of speech, rights to privacy, and peoples’ abilities to innovate on the Internet, a leaked draft from February of 2011 reveals that concerned citizens have every reason to be alarmed by the many copyright enforcement provisions buried deep within this trade deal.

    As the above introductory video emphasises, what we do know for certain is this — thanks largely to relentless lobbying on the part of multinational telecom giants, the TPP endeavours to turn the Internet into a highly regulated and increasingly scrutinised digital environment through the reconfiguring of international rules concerning the enforcement of intellectual property (IP) laws in a way that favours profit-focused private interests and state-focused surveillance over public and shared information.   If established — ratification is scheduled for October of this year — the TPP will effectively create what amounts to a secretive and criminalising “Internet Trap” that will challenge digital freedom as we know it in 4 particularly distressing ways.   First, the TPP will dramatically regulate the sharing of digital content on social and search platforms by prohibiting the use of temporary copies — files automatically copied by computers into their random access memory (RAM). According to experts at InternetNZ, these temporary copies are critical for the routine operation of social media platforms because they allow videos to be smoothly buffered in memory, browser cache files to be stored on servers to speed up the loading of websites, and copies of visited pages to be stored in a temporary Internet files folder on your hard drive.   Second, the TPP will eradicate privacy safeguards by requiring all Internet service providers (ISPs) to systematically filter, collect, and surrender customer information to government monitors and corporate regulators upon request — eradicating any remaining vestiges of the online anonymity that once protected digital interactions.   Third, the TPP will allow media conglomerates to circumvent national legal systems by unilaterally fining users, removing undesirable content, deleting entire websites, and terminating Internet access under the guise of vague and inauspicious “three-strikes” mechanisms which would heavily favour media firms over individual users.   Fourth, the TPP will force all signatories to harmonise their domestic policies and laws with the restrictive US-directed provisions of the agreement. This means all parties would have to abandon any efforts to learn from the mistakes of notoriously stifling US copyright laws such as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), and instead adopt even the most controversial aspects of US legislation in their entirety.   In Canada alone, the forceful adaptation of coercive US-based TPP regulations would mean a ban on unlocking private digital devices such as mobile phones, 20-year increases to posthumous patents for written and recorded works, the criminalising of all petty copyright infringement for non-profit, non-commercial and educational purposes, the disclosure of personal information without privacy safeguards, and harsher criminal penalties for instances of non-compliance on takedown orders.   In short, the TPP in Canada would make already repressive and controversial domestic copyright legislations such as Bill C-11 seem light-hearted in comparison.   What’s more, the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) — one of the principle architects of the TPP’s authoritarian IP chapter, has recently released a report directly criticising Canada for its data security policies. Arguing that the government’s strategy of protecting private data from being subjected to often-invasive surveillance and retention regimes offshore puts our economy at risk of being “left behind” in today’s private-interest-first, public-interest-second system.   If only we could be so lucky.   Perhaps even more disturbing than the TPP’s relentless pressure to conform relatively lenient Canadian IP standards to exploitative and manipulative US-inspired policies — contradicting nearly every principle on which the Internet was founded — is the fact that the negotiations are being completed by unelected trade representatives in utter secrecy without any public or journalistic consultation.   And make no mistake — this closed-door approach is a dangerous new trend. Before 2006, most international IP negotiations were conducted through a multilateral process that publicised all proposals and let NGOs, intellectuals, and public interest groups weigh in. But due to high-profile defeats like Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and increased public outcry, the emphasis has shifted to clandestine bi-lateral talks in the hopes that confidentiality will deter concerned citizens from asking questions.   Ironically, all this confidentiality only serves to further highlight the fact that all parties involved know just how much public recoil they would face if the TPP’s policies — which put at risk some of the most fundamental rights that enable access to knowledge for the world’s citizens — were to be exposed before they are finalised.   Even though concerned citizens, public interest groups, academics, and NGOs alike are forbidden from taking part in a process that will drastically restrict the way Canadians — and millions of other peoples — access, share, and communicate online, the very Internet that the TPP seeks to regulate is a powerful tool to fight back with.   So email, post, call, or tweet at your MP or local media outlet voicing your discontent regarding the TPP’s Internet-muzzling vision, sign OpenMedia.ca’s “Stop the Trap” petition currently being circulated to key government leaders and corporate trade representatives on Parliament Hill, and most of all, talk openly about the TPP.   Talk about it with your family, your friends, your co-workers, and with strangers in public spaces on and off the Web. By confronting secrecy with awareness we can shift the TPP into the public square and restore accountability to Internet policies.   Image Credit: Wonderlane/Flickr

 

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