Canada’s federal scientists have won the right to speak freely about their research and science without upper level bureaucratic control, a feature central to restrictive communications protocols under the Harper government.

The move to officially unmuzzle scientists comes after the Professional Institute of Public Service Canada (PIPSC), Canada’s largest union federal employees including 15,000 scientists, researchers and engineers, negotiated to include scientists’ right to speak in a collective agreement deal.

“This is an enormous win not only for federal scientists but for all Canadians,” PIPSC President Debi Daviau said in a statement.

“Following the defeat last year of the Harper government, we vowed that no government should ever again silence science. This new provision will help ensure that remains the case now and in the future.”

A memorandum of agreement contained in new member agreements states employees “shall have the right to express themselves on science and their research, with respecting the Values and Ethics Code for the Public Sector adopted on April 2, 2012, without being designated as an official media spokesperson.”

The language was agreed to in a tentative deal with the federal government, but Daviau said she expected it to be adopted by other federal agencies like the National Research Council, Canadian Food Inspection Agency and the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission in future negotiations.

Under the former Conservative government scientists were unable to speak with media or members of the public without first gaining approval of departmental superiors, a procedure that opened even basic interview requests up to political interference and message control.

In 2013, PIPSC released a report that found 86 per cent of federal scientists surveyed believed they could not inform the public about a departmental decision that could harm the environment or public health and safety without fear of reprisal.

Scientists also reported being unable to provide basic answers related to their research on topics as uncontroversial as snowfall pattern.

As DeSmog Canada has previously reported, media requests on potentially controversial topics like the oilsands or marine contamination were subject to significant departmental oversight. Scientists were often denied the right to give interviews or were chaperoned by bureaucratic ‘minders’ who limited interviews to pre-determined topics.

Information requests were often responded to by communications staff rather than scientists, even if the subject matter pertained to an expert federal scientist’s own research and even when that scientist was media trained.

Kathleen Walsh, executive director of Evidence for Democracy, a science advocacy group launched in 2012 to improve scientific integrity in Canada described the new policy as historic.

“We haven’t seen anything like this before,” she said. “It’s a pretty big win for Canadian scientists and Canadians.”

“In an era of post-truth and fake news I think it’s really important for Canadians to know they are hearing from experts and scientists without political interference on their research or their findings.”

Federal Scientists Officially Unmuzzled in New Collective Agreement with Federal Government https://t.co/S3xPuglyJE #cdnpoli #cdnsci

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) December 13, 2016

In March, Evidence for Democracy sent an open letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Minister of Information, Science and Economic Development Navdeep Bains and Minister of Science Kirsty Duncan, calling on the government to free federal scientists and researchers to pursue public-interest science.

Over 5,500 Canadians signed the open letter, which also called on the government to enshrine scientists’ right to speak in collective agreements.

The new language will make it harder for current and future governments to interfere with scientific communication.

“But the right to speak is only one part of scientific integrity,” Walsh added. “There are a number of things the federal government can do to bolster science integrity in federal science…like ensuring federal science is free from undue corporate influence…and ensuring there is whistleblower protection.”

“It’s not just about how federal science is created or communicated but also how it’s used,” Walsh said.

Canada recently announced the creation of a Chief Science Advisor position and is currently conducting a review of Canada’s federal environment assessment act — two moves Walsh sees as promising.

“I’m cautiously hopeful,” Walsh said.

Giving scientists the ability to freely communicate is also seen as a strong step in the right direction.

“Governments and government policies come and go, but the right of Canadians to unbiased scientific information from their own scientists should survive both,” Daviau said.

“At a time when the United States is at renewed risk of turning its back on science and evidence-based public policy, it is essential that government scientists in Canada and other countries be assured safeguards that protect their right to speak and the public’s right to know.”

Image: Stand up for science rally in Vancouver, 2013. Photo: Zack Embree

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They say the truth will set you free. But sometimes all it takes is retirement.

That’s the case for Steve Campana, a former federal scientist with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans who is using his retirement as an opportunity to speak openly about the federal government’s policies and the damage Prime Minister Stephen Harper has caused to public interest science.

“I am concerned about the bigger policy issues that are essentially leading to a death spiral for government science,” Campana told the CBC.

He said federal scientists work in a climate a fear.

“I see that is going to be a huge problem in coming years,” he said. “We are at the point where the vast majority of our senior scientists are in the process of leaving now disgusted as I am with the way things have gone, and I don’t think there is any way for it to be recovered.”

This week, three of Canada’s largest unions rallied in Ottawa, Montreal, Quebec City and Vancouver to protest the muzzling of scientists.

Debi Daviau, president of the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada (PIPSC), which represents 55,000 public sector employees including 15,000 scientists, said the federal government “has no respect whatsoever for Canada’s public scientists.”

“Right now our scientists are constrained in their ability to share their research and collaborate with their peers. They’re frequently ‘missing in action’ at international conferences. They can’t speak freely to the media and the public about their work,” she said.

“These are all essential elements of performing science in the public interest and that’s how you protect our country’s environment and the health and safety of Canadians.”

According to PIPSC, by 2017 the federal government will cut over $2.6 billion from science programs and eliminate an estimated 7,500 positions from 10 major science-based departments. These cuts are expected to run deep in departments already dealing with several years of funding drawbacks.

A traditionally nonpartisan and apolitical union, PIPSC has publicly vowed to make the crisis of science in Canada a federal election issue.

PIPSC recently proposed revisions to its collective agreement, which would guarantee the right for scientists to speak about their work, as long as they clarify “they are speaking in their personal capacity and not on behalf of the Government of Canada.”

“Our members, more than anyone, acknowledge that there are issues and areas where there should be limitations,” Peter Bleyer, union consultant for PIPSC, told Global News.

“But other countries, like the U.S., have established policies to distinguish between when you’re talking on behalf of the government and when you’re talking for yourself and they do just fine.”

Bleyer said more independence is needed for Canada’s scientists and their right to that independence should be enshrined in employment agreements.

He told the CBC there are many stories of frustrated federal scientists.

"It has clearly gotten worse. There is very clear evidence of that. The problem is that it has created an atmosphere that affects not only those who are directly affected, but all of those who hear about it understand what is going on around them. That's what we call, very clearly, a chilling effect."

Campana said he thinks the chill effect is the result of the federal government’s desire for communications control.

"It's hard to fathom. It seems to be simply a control issue. You could sort of understand the rationale if you were potentially talking about a controversial subject and whoever is in government quite rightly has the right to make sure there are no critical statements about policy. But when you go to the extent of silencing just talking about facts, that just doesn't make any sense."

He added this could have serious implications for the public.

"If we don't have the system in place to deal with it, there is going to be some problem that happens in the next few years. I don't know, rising tide levels or tsunami coming in or an invasion of great white sharks, where people are concerned about what's going to happen, and we won't have the qualified people in place to answer those questions at all.

"You can't have those people in place overnight. It takes years, almost decades, to develop that capacity."

Image Credit: Tanya Stemberger

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MICHAEL HARRIS is an award-winning author, investigative journalist, and documentary filmmaker.

The Harper government knows and cares as much about science as it knows and cares about telling the truth.

That’s what the recent decision to close Canada’s world-renowned Experimental Lakes Area (ELA) tells anyone who is paying attention.

It also tells us that Environment Minister Peter Kent would have been a great witness at the Scopes Monkey Trial – for the prosecution. We shouldn’t bother jetting this guy to Earth Summits like Rio + 20 just to have him pick up the latest Fossil Award. Put the airfare into the Bev Oda VIP Transportation and Orange Juice Fund and ask the international organizers to mail in our Booby Prize.

I offer these observations after taking a close look at the decision by the federal government to shutter the ELA, yet another deconstruction and downgrading of government science in Canada.

Even Harper acolytes with a picture of Dear Leader in their wallets next to the kids should have a problem with this one. How many independent information bearers does this government have to cut down before even the Harper Moonies start worrying about the Gulag? What does it tell you about someone when they’re always telling other people to keep their mouths shut or else? Isn’t that what Edward G. Robinson does in gangster movies?

Let’s begin at the beginning, or should I say the end? On May 17th of this year, there was an emergency meeting called at the Freshwater Institute in Winnipeg. For those who have not been recently canned, these group terminations are as ritualistic as a firing squad. Before the killing shot, the boss reads from a prepared script. As soon as that script comes out, you can be pretty sure that the smell of toast in the room is your career going up in smoke.

At that meeting of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans’ Central and Arctic Division, the person reading the script to 17 hapless employees of the ELA was Michelle Wheatley. The news stories will tell you that she is the Regional Director of Science. What the news stories will not tell you is that she was crying as she broke the news.

With good reason. Her message was as bleak as the first road that was blazed into the then embryonic ELA in the winter of 1968: The installation would be shut down by March 2013; everyone would receive “affected” letters (they did within 24 hours); no new research could be started; and scientists had to get their equipment out of the lakes, all 58 of them – and the labs as soon as possible.

And then, of course, there was the cone of silence that the prime minister expects everyone to wear like a dunce cap after they are “streamlined”. All employees were explicitly warned not to speak with the media. Instead, media requests had to be forwarded to what was risibly referred to as DFO Communications. That is the branch plant of the Ministry of Truth in the PMO that casts the appropriate lights and shadows over the facts for the government and still manages to sleep well at night. You know, the Ignorance is Strength/Freedom is Slavery crowd.

How far has the government been prepared to go to smother the facts surrounding the ELA? For starters, DFO declined all requests from the media to speak with scientists. Being an equal lack-of-opportunity employer, DFO also turned down all requests from its scientists to speak about their work to Canadians. Remember, these are the same people who sent “minders” with scientists to a recent scientific conference in Montreal, lest they stray from the government line in public. I am beginning to suspect that the government line is based on believing that 10,000 years ago Brontosaurs were cropping grass in the back forty.

You will be comforted to know that DFO extended the ban on ELA information to federal MPs. The department turned down MP Bruce Hyer’s request to visit ELA with an ELA scientist. When an outraged university scientist conducting research there offered to take Hyer – who was elected as an NDP MP but now sits as an independent – on a tour of the facility, DFO threatened to cancel his research privileges. Any wonder that acclaimed international scientist Ragnar Elmgren said that this was the kind of thing you would expect from the Taliban, not the government of a western democracy?

Yes, the Harper government decided that the end has come for one of the great scientific enterprises in Canadian history. Consider the record.

Forty-four years ago, a natural freshwater laboratory was created out of a pristine lake system in northwestern Ontario. It was an epical experiment. Although it was about fresh water, not the universe, it was a scientific enterprise of the magnitude of the Hubble Telescope. No other fresh water research station in the world could do what the ELA could in a “whole-environment” research setting. As David Schindler himself put it about the kind of work done at the ELA “This needs to be done in a controlled setting, not in the Athabaska garbage can.”

And what a lot was done.

When DFO itself was amongst the host of visionaries who couldn’t see acid rain, and politicians like Ronald Reagan were publicly questioning the scientific basis for the need to take action, it was the ELA under Schindler that worked to provide the irrefutable evidence that lakes were dying. The work went on from 1976 to 2004. As a result of the findings of Canadian scientists, the EPA in the U.S. took action and new international treaties were established.

The “Metallicus” experiment established a link between atmospheric mercury deposits and mercury in fish. That is a vitally important connection to understand given that 80 percent of the lakes listed in the Guide to Eating Ontario Sport Fish are currently under mercury consumption advisories. ELA research on this deadly neurotoxin and endocrine disruptor has been used by the EPA to design new regulations to control the atmospheric emissions of mercury from coal-fired plants.

Very often, it was the immense scale of the ELA’s outdoor lab that made crucial scientific breakthroughs possible.

That was the case in understanding excessive algal growth in lakes. Small scale studies suggested that carbon was responsible. ELA whole-lake experiments corrected that erroneous conclusion and identified phosphorous as the principle culprit. As a result, governments around the world now restrict phosphorous inputs into lakes. Several countries have banned outright the use of phosphorous in detergents.

Similarly, standard laboratory studies suggested that acidity was directly toxic to lake trout at a pH level of 5; whole-lake experimentation discovered that pH is indirectly toxic to lake trout at -6, or at a rate that is ten times less acidic than previously believed. Why? Because their food source, shrimp and minnows, disappear at the lower levels and the trout starve.

From investigating the role of nitrogen in promoting blue-green algae blooms to the environmental impacts of freshwater aquaculture, from the impacts of hydro reservoir development on greenhouse gases and mercury cycling, to the effects of artificial estrogen on fish populations, ELA has been there. Its scientists have been in the vanguard of original research that has benefitted companies, this country, and the world time after time after time. You don’t get the First Stockholm Water Prize and the Gerhard Herzberg Canada Gold Medal for Science and Engineering for goofing off.

So why, unless you had a fetish for killing off Canadian success stories, would the government decide to close the ELA? Why would it leave incomplete original work on the effect of Nano-silver on lakes, (Canada has no specific policies for managing nano-materials in the environment) on growth and survival of fish that escape into the wild from aquaculture facilities, or climate impacts on lakes and their watersheds? None of that work will now be completed. Some innocent souls went to Manitoba Conservative MP Joyce Bateman for the answer, since the Freshwater Institute is in her backyard.

Sadly, there was enough space behind her wide, partisan eyes to park a double-decker bus. Bateman didn’t even know the operational budget for the ELA, and wasn’t aware of its internationally acclaimed work on acid rain, reservoir studies, and nuclear contaminant pathways. Yet she asserted erroneously the facility was no longer productive, parroting lines no doubt given to her by Fisheries minister Keith Ashfield. As Diane Orihel, a PHD candidate in science and the Central Canada Leader for the Coalition to Save ELA put it after her own meeting with Bateman, “I was shocked by her complete and utter ignorance of science and what we do.”

The Opposition didn’t fare much better trying to get answers from Environment Minister Peter Kent. He tried to justify this attack on science by pretending that he just wanted to move our scientists further west “to examine acidification of lakes in western Canada.” Sounds reasonable, right? But the stuff in Kent’s political teleprompter is more head static from mission control. Like his colleague from Manitoba, Kent is operating light years beyond his competence. The research he is talking about has already largely been done and you might be able to guess where – at the ELA.

Most of what the government needs to know about acid rain in the oil sands area was discovered in the early work by David Schindler in Ontario, and reinforced by the work of those who followed him. It is interesting to note that that the original work was funded by the Alberta Oil Sands Environmental Research Program. AOSERP funded the research precisely because the water chemistry of boreal shield lakes in Northern Saskatchewan and Alberta was very similar to the ELA lakes. In other words, the research data collected in northwestern Ontario is a moveable feast. You don’t have to move the scientists.

Not only that, but the minister didn’t understand that earlier ELA research doesn’t need to be replicated at another facility and is actually ready to be applied in the oil sands. That’s because during Schindler’s tenure, the ELA established the biological and chemical thresholds where acidification becomes problematic. The fact that we can now conduct responsible monitoring in the oil sands is a direct result of invaluable research done long ago in northwestern Ontario. The lion’s share of what governments have to do now is bring in responsible monitoring at the oil sands based on ELA research, not reinvent the wheel.

But Minister Kent did get one thing right when he was giving non-answers about this insupportable decision to kill the ELA to the Opposition in the House of Commons early in June. Under questioning from Lac-Saint-Louis Liberal MP Francis Scarpaleggia, Kent crowed that unlike the previous Liberal government, the Harper government isn’t just paying lip service to the environment. But why not use his own ringing words: “We are getting things done.”

And they are. But only if you count gutting the Fisheries Act, killing the ELA, cutting the Institut Maurice-Lamontagne (the only francophone research centre at Fisheries and Oceans), eliminating the water resources strategy group at Environment Canada, and ending groundwater modeling. Even Tory Kool-Aid drinkers would admit that this is an odd way to come up with a national water strategy.

The unkindest cut of all. The federal government talks glibly about finding another operator for the ELA, perhaps a university. Just sell them the millions of dollars worth of upgraded facilities for a dollar. There is only one problem. The major source of funding to Canadian universities that might have supported the ELA has itself been cancelled via the moratorium on NSERC Major Resources Support Program.

The death sentence the government has pronounced on the ELA has nothing to do with the reasons stated. Contrary to claims by people like Kent and Ashfield, the work of the ELA is aligned with departmental priorities in both Fisheries and Environment.

If the main priorities of DFO, for example, are: fish populations, community productivity, habitat and population linkages, climate change and variability, and ecosystem management, all of these are studied at ELA.

It is false to say there is a similar facility in the world, let alone in northern Saskatchewan. There is only one ELA.

It is false to use cost savings as the rationale for the cut. Most of the research cost of the ELA are not paid for by government.

The costs of the installation, divided between EC and DFO according to a 2007 Memorandum of Understanding, are embarrassingly modest – $2 million annually, including approximately $650K for operating costs and the balance in salaries.

And here is a truly shameful number. How much do you think each of the four ELA/DFO scientists receives annually to cover their research expenses? Two thousand bucks. Bottom line. Canadians pay ten times more for the PM’s security detail than they do for this world class science facility. They paid ten times more for the celebration of the War of 1812. For the price of a single F-35, ELA’s operational budget could be financed for the next 150 years.

That’s why there’s not a chance that the Harper government will take David Schindler up on a very reasonable request. If you are going to wipe out 44 years of work, spark a scientific diaspora from the federal government, and create a white elephant out in the wilderness that will cost untold millions to “remediate”, do the intelligent thing and conduct an audit this summer to see if the facts support that course of action.

The government won’t do that because it is all about putting independent voices out of business, voices that if heard might persuade the public that Harper doesn’t necessarily know best. The PM believes in strategic communication – the amassing of friendly facts and pseudo facts and big fat lies that advance a chosen agenda. His approach to governance is like a bad PhD thesis. Science is about applying empirical tests in controlled situations with predictive validity aimed at finding the facts. The two schools are natural enemies, as antithetical as William Jennings Bryan and Clarence Darrow.

Stephen Harper does not believe in funding any organization that might become a critic, even inadvertently, in pursuit of the facts. So he probably will look with favor on a suggestion by a Winnipeg-based money manager who has a plan to save the ELA.

Tim Burt is the chief executive officer of Cardinal Capital Management. He has written a letter to the heads of six oil companies asking that they assume the funding of the ELA previously provided by Ottawa. It turns out that he is also the riding association president for Winnipeg South Centre Conservative MP, one Joyce Bateman. Fortunately, Mr. Burt assures one and all that there is no political motive behind his suggestion.

Of course not, Tim. What could be political about handing over the funding for an independent scientific institution to the very private sector owners whose industries would be most affected by its investigations?

Now if only Suncor, Cenovus, and Imperial see the light.

Image Credit: PMO Image Gallery.

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“If people don’t speak out there will never be any change,” says the University of Victoria’s award-winning climate scientist Andrew Weaver. 

And the need for change in Canada, says Weaver, has never been more pressing.

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When the Harper government announced deep funding cuts to science programs across the country, the Institute of Ocean Sciences, one of Canada's largest marine institutes located in Sidney, B.C., was among those research outfits hurt as a result. Lead research scientist Peter Ross is one of more than one thousand Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) employees who discovered their position had been terminated.

Peter Ross is no lab coat-wearing, science nerd. At least, not entirely. He’s an oceanic adventurer and Canada’s preeminent orca expert. He discovered things about West Coast orcas that have transformed common marine mammal knowledge around the globe.  

Orcas on the west coast of British Columbia will no longer be monitored for contamination once Peter Ross' research concludes this spring. Come April Canada will no longer have a federal marine contaminants research program anywhere in the nation. Photo credit: Brian Grisborne, used with permission.

When you dismantle science and research programs, says Ross, you are doing much more than limiting your capacity for science and research: you restrict your capacity to engage with your environment, the source of social well-being and a flourishing economy. And you cripple your decision-making capabilities by disregarding the line that separates fact-driven, science-based decision-making from ideology or profit.

And that’s what bothers Ross so much about the Harper government’s recent decision to shutter many of Canada’s prestigious scientific institutions. It’s not simply a matter of budgetary restraint or the restructuring of federal bodies. It limits science pursued in the public interest.

This is part 1 of an interview with Peter Ross. Part 2 available here.

Carol Linnitt: Hello, Peter. So, let me jump right in. The reason I’m calling is because I’d like to talk to you about the cancelled funding for the Institute of Ocean Sciences.

Peter Ross: Yes, so the Institute will still be open, it's a large Institute, but the marine contaminants program has been axed.

CL: And has that already happened?

[view:in_this_series=block_1]

PR: We're still here, but we're winding down, so, in effect, probably by the springtime we'll be shut down.

CL: And how many employees will that be? I know that you’re heralded as Canada’s only marine mammal toxicologist, but is there a team that you work with?

PR: Yes, there are 55 full time staff nationally that consist of scientists, technicians and chemists, and they’re scattered across the country. There’s nine of us here in Sidney, B.C., probably the same number in Winnipeg for the Arctic, and then a number in Rimouski, Quebec, and a few in a couple of spots in the Maritimes.

CL: And so by the time the spring hits, all of those . . .

PR: Will be gone. Probably one quarter are already gone.

CL: So what happens when these positions get cut? Are scientists fired? Are they moved into new positions?

PR: That will vary. Essentially you get a letter saying that your services are no longer required, and you have three choices. One is to resign, and you've got 120 days to do so. Another is to take educational leave, which gives you two years of leave without pay, to go to school again and retrain, and then you can come back and re-apply for a new position. The third is you can apply for a position that may be open in the government right now. But you would have to work on something other than what you trained for.

CL: And what positions are coming open right now?

PR: Well there's a fair bit of downsizing in the government right now, so there aren’t a lot of jobs coming open. And for some, like myself, who are trained as research scientists, there are really no jobs coming open. I've been told that my expertise is not wanted within the government. So that’s sort of a mixed answer. I think some of the technical staff will be more likely to find success regaining employment within government because they’re a bit more versatile in terms of training. But for someone like me, no, there’s very little hope that there will be any position for me, unless I want to go into management.

CL: What’s the difference between a technician and a research scientist?

PR: Training. A research scientist has a Ph.D., and within the government your job is to do ground breaking research, which you publish in international journals. You become the government’s expert in that field, so you are appraised every year in terms of your performance, And your performance is based on the number of publications you appear in and their impact on public policy. A technician may be someone working in a laboratory or in the field, but in a supporting role for a research program, led by the research scientist.

CL: Does that mean that if there’s an overall reduction in research positions, Canada is taking a step back as a country within the international scientific community?

PR: Well, you know science is a funny thing, and it’s often hard to do justice in defining it or describing it to a lay-audience. I think science is different things to different people. When I look at the kind of research that I do, I work for the government. I work for the Crown. I work for the taxpayer. I work on projects for which I have to raise and attract money. These are projects that ultimately help us to manage and protect our oceans. So when I look at the work that I am interested in getting involved in, or that I’ve attracted funds to support. I’m ultimately asking, ‘Does it help me to better understand the ocean? Will it empower us to manage or protect our ocean resources?’

If I were at a university I might do similar research, but I’m less likely to be wed to the idea that I have to protect Canada or Canadian natural resources. Or that I have to work within the confines of a mission, a mandate, and legislative framework such as the Oceans Act, Species at Risk Act or Fisheries Act. So the way I go about science will be similar to an academic, but the context and the implications of my work will differ quite a bit, because I am on the hook and responsible for a certain file. If it emerges as an issue in Canada, if there is a public outcry about a certain chemical, process or industry, and the minister’s office calls down for advice from us, or need answers fast, I would be one of those people that would have to jump. If I was at university, I wouldn’t be compelled to do the same

CL: So your position is where the scientific rubber meets the policy road?

PR: I think so, yes. Ultimately, the government isn’t in the position of just spending money on research and development for the sake of spending money on science and knowledge. It likes to know what kind of research gets done and that it will improve the government’s ability to protect Canadians, wildlife, natural resources, Canadian sovereignty, all of those things. And that would be different for a faculty member at a university. They might have such aims, but they are not required to think in those terms.

CL: I see. I was speaking with Andrew Weaver from the university of Victoria recently, and he broke the nature of science production into three categories: industry-funded science, academic curiosity-driven science, and government taxpayer-funded science in the interest of the public good. He said that if we’re seeing reductions in science being pursued for the public good, then science really gets left to industry and the academy, and neither of those have the same obligation to the public and to taxpayers.

PR: Well that’s right. Industry is not going to say, “I want to look at all ninety thousand chemicals on the Canadian market, and every problem in the ocean.”  What industrial sector is going to pick up that file? None. What industry can be very good at is monitoring certain effluents, or a pipe that’s discharging contaminants within a certain sector – something that’s really focused on a certain activity. Otherwise why would they pay for it? They’re only going to pay for the kind of monitoring or research that has a direct bearing on the performance of their specific economic sector.

That’s where government science is very different. I am, for example, looking at marine mammals and marine mammals aren’t being contaminated because of a single sector. They are getting contaminated because of thousands of different sources of thousands of different chemicals in Canada, the United States, and internationally. And so, all these chemicals are essentially accidents or mistakes or processes that are leading to contamination of the ocean, and some of these chemicals build up in food webs and mammals.

Someone like me comes along and says, “Okay, that’s what I’m finding, now what does that mean? Is it affecting the health of the population? And if so, where is this chemical or that chemical, or that other chemical coming from? Is it banned in Canada? Is it used as a pesticide in agriculture? Has it come from pulp mills? Does it come from sewage effluents?” And then we track these things down and work with regulators in Ottawa and Washington, D.C. We would also potentially work with the industry that is producing the compound, or releasing it. We work with regional governments, and the province. So ultimately, what we try to do within government is that kind of 'ecosystem' approach to science, or habitat-based approach to science. That approach would be of little interest to an industrial sector. It’s highly focused.

CL: So if we’re talking about something like research into contaminants in marine species, and we see a large reduction in research scientist positions, what will happen? Does it get dropped? Does it mean that we’ll no longer be studying this issue?

PR: That’s correct.

CL: So, no one is studying the contamination of marine environments and mammals once you close up?

PR: Well it’s up to whomever to do whatever they want right now. There is no leadership, there’s no guidance, there’s no instruction, there’s no requirement. The only thing that’s going to make somebody interested in working on this is going to be money. Who’s going provide the money?  This kind of work is very expensive. You can’t go out in the ocean and understand what’s going on without access to boats, expensive sampling gear and partners in multiple sectors to help you understand all the other processes that are important from the perspective of pollution. This applies whether it's ocean currents, ocean productivity, or the life history of different species or food web structures.

The lab work is very expensive. We have two lines of research that we have been applying routinely in our study designs. One is, what are the health implications of the chemicals to which they're exposed? That’s toxicology. That’s looking at the health of salmon, the health of seals, the health of killer whales, and it is very difficult, very expensive work. The other involves what chemicals they are exposed to. That’s chemistry. We have to get samples from animals, measure those chemicals, and it can cost two thousand dollars to measure a single sample. So if we eliminate these programs, the work is going to be left up to people other than government, which means universities or industry. Somebody might do something, but are they going to be compelled to be responsible for everything? No.

CL: It’s not just your outfit that’s had its funding cut and positions lost. This is happening all across Canada, with similar research. What is the significance of that for Canada?

PR: Well I think that it’s easy to ignore research and science when one is operating in the mainstream of Canadian public life or society.  We often don’t see the immediate benefits or applications of science. I think we forget that the well being of our human population, our quality of life, is largely dependent on a healthy environment. And I think we often forget that it’s scientific research that has led us to discover and uncover a lot of that wealth and to harness it. But we ignore it when that same science also identifies limits to our wealth generation, development, or ways in which we can channel development so that it’s constructive and not negatively impacting aspects of society or the economy.

I think we often forget the inherent and intrinsic value of science and how it does, and has, contributed to the Canada we know today. If we start to ignore scientists and the expertise within the Canadian scientific establishment, we will be losing the ability to manage our future success, the ability to understand threats to the Canadian way and the ability to adapt and grow. We will, I think, lose a little bit of control over our future. It’s by having our finger on the pulse of what’s happening in the ocean, the freshwater environment or terrestrial habitats that allows us to provide advice that will help us manage those things and to maintain vibrant economies associated with the coastal waters, the oceans, freshwater ecosystems, or terrestrial environments. So I think it’s diminishing our ability to adapt, to manage, to predict, and to maintain the investment that we have in the Canadian way of life.

Read Part 2 of Retreat from Science.

Cover Image Credit: Lizzy Moss, used with permission.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

If you ask an Environment Canada media spokesperson about contamination resulting from tar sands operations, they will not tell you the federal government has failed to adequately monitor the mega-project's effects on water.

They most certainly will not say outright that the federal government has failed to monitor the long term or cumulative environmental effects of the world's largest industrial project. They won't say it, but not because it isn't the case. 

The tar sands are contaminating hundreds of kilometres of land in northern Alberta with cancer-causing contaminants and neurotoxins.

And although federal scientists have confirmed this, they are prevented from sharing information about their research with the media. 

The result is an overly-monitored process that causes burdensome delays in media-scientist interactions. The overwhelming consequence is that the media has stopped talking to the country's national scientists.

No federal studies have researched contamination in furbearing mammals living near the tar sands, although species decline – as is evident in the disappearance of caribou – is becoming an increasing problem.

The Alberta Cancer Board confirmed in 2008 that higher than normal rates of rare cancer were present in the small community. The government refused to remove the charge of alarmism from O'Connor's file until late 2009, despite express wishes from the residents of Fort Chipewyan to have the accusation dropped.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

Today federal scientists from Environment Canada presented research at an international toxicology conference in the U.S. that indicates contaminants from the Alberta tar sands are polluting the landscape on a scale much larger than previously thought.

A team lead by federal scientist Jane Kirk discovered contaminants in lakes as far as 100 kilometers away from tar sands operations. The federal research confirms and expands upon the hotly contested findings of aquatic scientist David Schindler who, in 2010, found pollution from the tar sands accumulating on the landscape up to 50 kilometers away.

"That means the footprint is four times bigger than we found," Schindler told Postmedia News.

Senior scientist Derek Muir, who presented some of the findings at Wednesday's conference, said the contaminated region is "potentially larger than we might have anticipated." The 'legacy' of chemicals in lake sediment gives evidence that tar sands pollution has been traveling long distances for decades. Samples show the build up of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs, known to cause cancer in humans and to be toxic to aquatic animals, in 6 remote and undisturbed lakes up to 100 kilometers away from tar sands operations.

The pollutants are "petrogenic" in nature, meaning they are petroleum derived, and have steadily and dramatically increased since the 1970s, showing the contaminant levels "seem to parallel the development of the oilsands industry," Muir said.

After the release of Schindler's groundbreaking research on tar sands pollution in 2010 the Alberta government claimed the contaminants were naturally occurring and posed no risk to aquatic life.

However at today's conference, the annual meeting of the North American Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, Kirk discussed the long list of 'priority pollutants' that accumulate in the region's snow. Within 50 kilometers of the tar sands, snowpack contains numerous contaminants including dangerous neurotoxins, such as methyl mercury, that bioaccumulate in food webs. Kirk found priority pollutants in the air were 1.5 to 13 times higher at test sites within 50 kilometers of tar sands refineries, and highest within 10 kilometers.

Abstracts for Kirk, Parrott and Muir's presentations can be found on pages 103 and 104 of the conference programme (pdf).

"We don't really know the fate of the various metals including mercury as they go from snow, to melt water to run-off and then into the aquatic environment," Muir told Postmedia.

The toxicity of melt water from snow falling in the tar sands region was researched by federal scientist Joanne Parrott, who also presented at the conference. Studying snow samples taken in 2011 and 2012 along the Athabasca River, Parrott found that the melt water was toxic to minnow larvae, even when diluted down to 25 percent. "The larval fish don't do very well in that snow at all," she said.

Parrott suggests melt water, once mixed with water from the Athabasca River, will no longer be toxic to minnows.

Snow melt, however, provides a significant amount of water to tributaries where fish hatch in the spring, says Schindler. "My big concern is that slowly because of mortalities at spring melt, that this will erode the fishery, killing off the embryos," he told Postmedia, pointing to the abnormally low numbers of fish in the Muskeg River as a possible occurrence.

Parrott plans to expand her research to consider whether young fish in tributaries that feed the Athabasca River are affected by the pollution.

Schindler's research has already highlighted the increasing incidence of fish deformity in areas downstream of tar sands operations, like Lake Athabasca. "I think what could happen is that the few embryos that manage to survive, deformed as they are, struggle down to Lake Athabasca," he said, adding the fish look "so horrible" the First Nations who depend on them for survival will not eat them, even if they don't have confirmed high levels of contaminants.

"I think that's fair enough, they wouldn't sell in Safeway," Schindler commented.

The scientists' presence at the conference is significant given the Harper government's strict control of scientific communications surrounding the tar sands. Federal scientists were prevented from speaking with the media at the same conference in Boston last year.

An internal document uncovered by Postmedia instructed federal scientists to avoid answering media questions, saying "if scientists are approached for interviews at the conference, the EC communications policy will be followed by referring the journalist to the media relations…phone number. An appropriate spokesperson will then be identified depending on journalist questions."

After Postmedia's Mike De Souza released the internal document last week, Environment Canada made arrangements for the news agency to speak with both Muir and Parrott.

Postmedia's Margaret Munro explains: "Environment Canada earlier this month said scientists were not available to comment on their findings of contamination around the oilsands. The department’s media office arranged this week’s interviews with Muir and Parrott after Postmedia News obtained details of the reports the scientists will present at the U.S. conference on Wednesday."

As DeSmog covered in an earlier post, the Harper government's heavy-handed treatment of federal scientists led to a mass demonstration this summer, where scientists and academics mourned the "Death of Evidence," claiming "Stephen Harper Hates Science." 

The government's strict communications policy is seen by some as an attempt to silence critics voicing science-based opposition to development of the tar sands.

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The Canadian government is working hard behind the scenes to cover up the negative effects that tar sands extraction is having on the local environment, wildlife, communities and the global climate. According to Access to Information documents obtained by Postmedia's Mike De Souza, the Stephen Harper government has actively suppressed the release of vital information regarding the spread of tar sands contamination by muzzling federal scientists.

The gag order, according to De Souza, came on the heels of a newly researched government report in November 2011 which confirmed the findings of University of Alberta scientists Erin N. Kelly and David Schindler. The scientists discovered concentrations of toxics such as heavy metals were higher near tar sands operations, showing a positive correlation between tar sands activity and the spread of contaminants in the local environment.

The government of Canada and the government of Alberta denied the correlation, saying local waterways tested showed no signs of toxic contamination and reports of mutated and cancerous fish downstream from the tar sands were unfounded.

The document uncovered by De Souza shows that federal scientists who could confirm the University of Alberta results were restricted from speaking to the media: "If scientists are approached for interviews at the conference, the [Environment Canada] communications policy will be followed by referring the journalist to the media relations…phone number. An appropriate spokesperson will then be identified depending on journalist questions."

Federal scientists were also given a list of scripted responses, explaining government tests in the spring of 2010 showed no toxics in the Athabasca River and established no links between contaminants and abnormal and sick fish.

Scientists were also directed to avoid questions regarding environmental monitoring of the tar sands and the role Environment Canada plays in the region with this scripted line: "I am a scientist. I'm not in a position to answer that question but I'd be happy to refer you to an appropriate spokesperson."

David Schindler, co-author of the 2010 University of Alberta study commented, "it is a good study, and [the author] is a very fine young scientist, who should be trusted to comment on her own results."

"Similarly, Derek Muir, her supervisor and co-author, is one of the world's top contamination experts, and Canadians should be ashamed that he cannot discuss results directly with the public, but must go through an official spokesperson."

In 2010, the results of Kelly and Schindler's contaminant analysis caused an uproar in Alberta and federal governments. Eager to promote expansion in the tar sands, the Canadian government failed to install a sound and independent monitoring system for the region.

Any data used to support the government's official position, that no contamination had occurred, was supplied by the oil and gas industry.

Schindler conducted a basic analysis of waterways in the region, sampling water both upstream from tar sands operations, and downstream. What Schindler and his team discovered was a considerable accumulation of pollutants in water downstream from tar sands development which includes open-pit mining and refining.

Most notably, Schindler discovered that airborne pollutants were being deposited on land, far from contaminated waterways like the Athabasca River. It was Schindler who first recognized the role snow was playing in the transportation and depositing of tar sands pollution.

These land-based pollutants mirrored contamination of waterways. Schindler found that "embryos of fish exposed to oilsands' water and sediment have very high rates of mortality, and among the survivors, there are very high rates of deformities."

His research confirmed the concerns of local communities, First Nations and environmental groups that the fast-tracking of tar sands expansion without careful monitoring was having negative effects on the environment and those living downstream.

The findings also contradicted research conducted by the industry/government group Regional Aquatics Monitoring Program (RAMP), a group Schindler claims "violated every rule" of long-term study.

In perhaps one of Canada's most scandalous moments in recent history, Dr. Schindler was publicly discredited by the provincial and federal government. His research and his credibility were called into question when the Alberta government went on record to say his study – which was published in the prestigious Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences – was biased and that contaminants in the region's watershed occur naturally and not as a result of industrial activities.

The treatment Schindler received as a result of his research concerned scientists across Canada, many of whom felt the federal government was conduction a 'witch hunt' to silence information that might fuel opposition to the tar sands.

Schindler's experience was just one of many reasons why scientists from across Canada held a mock memorial this summer on Parliament Hill, mourning the "Death of Evidence," caused by the muzzling of scientists by the federal government.

The motto of the event was clear: "Stephen Harper Hates Science."

To this day no clear environmental monitoring program is in place to track and analyze the effects that tar sands extraction and refining has on the local environment. Last month the Alberta government announced the creation of a new scientific body to monitor the impacts of development, which Diana McQueen, the province's Environment Minister, suggests will be 'credible' and operate at an 'arms-length' from industry and government. The plan, however, has yet to take any real shape.

"This is yet another plan to develop a plan," said Greenpeace energy and climate campaigner Mike Hudema. "There is still no funding commitment and no clear governance model to ensure independence. The province should stop approving new projects based on flawed data and incomplete information until this gets sorted out."

Image credit: Jodi Stark

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.