You may know the Canadian actress for her tough-girl roles in Lost or The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. But Evangeline Lilly has a battle – besides those with orcs and island smoke monsters – to fight: the battle for Canada’s scientists.

Lilly first heard about the defunding and muzzling of Canada’s federal scientists when she was reading DeSmog Canada just over a year ago. In a spate of funding cuts, the federal government eliminated some of Canada’s most prestigious scientific institutions, to the dismay of scientists and Canadians across the country. And since the Harper government has been in power, strict communications protocols have prevented scientists from speaking with the public about their research, limiting public awareness of taxpayer-funded science.

Lilly, who now lives in the U.S., said she keeps an eye out for stories about her homeland. And it always concerns her when she stumbles across something so disheartening.

“I think it’s always a little bit scary and astounding when as a citizen of what you consider to be a free nation you discover one day for various reasons…that something awful has been going on under your nose and you didn’t know,” she told DeSmog Canada. “And that happens to me a little more often than I’m comfortable with nowadays.”

Lilly was dismayed to learn that “all over Canada right now scientists are having all their funding pulled,” she said, “especially scientists who are speaking about climate change.”

“That terrified me,” she said.

Democracy relies on science

Like experts, journalists, science advocacy groups and environmental organizations across the country, Lilly said freedom and transparency in science is ultimately an issue of democracy.

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“As a democratic nation most of us would shake our heads and say that’s terrible,” she said, adding the targeting of scientists is an affront to “human rights.”

Most importantly, she said, people need scientific information to retain their decision-making power. If Canadians are uninformed then they won’t even know when decisions are being made for them.

“People need [scientific] information. They need that base objective standard that they can test their decisions against.”

Part of the fear associated with muzzled scientists, Lilly said, is the realization that governments are making decisions on behalf of their citizens, without their input or consent.

If Canadians knew more about the decisions the Government of Canada was making, “they would disagree, I think, for the large part [with] these decisions,” she said.

Even the basic issue of defunding scientists, Lilly said, doesn’t seem to be something most Canadians would support.

“I don’t think there’s a Canadian who would say ‘yeah that’s a great idea, let’s get rid of scientists, what do we need scientists for?’” she said.

“I think we’re a nation of intelligent, rational, peaceable, harmonious people. I’m very proud to be Canadian but Canadians aren’t getting the information they need to have.”

Lilly said that she, like a lot of people, doesn’t have tons of time to devote to researching every environmental issue, or policy issue and what the facts are behind these issues. She’s a young mom, with a flourishing acting career and a new career in writing.

The truth is, she said, ordinary people have to rely on experts they can trust.

“I rely on the experts in this world, experts like scientists and journalists, to give me the information to help guide me, to help me guide the government and I think that circle is the way democracy is supposed to work,” she said.

No science, no accountability

The important thing about science, Lilly said, is it acts as evidence for decision-making. Without science to back up decisions, it becomes very difficult to hold governments accountable in their leadership.

“As soon as the government is trying to control both scientists and the media now they start to control my ability to control them,” Lilly said. “That becomes really dangerous because it takes all the power out of the hands of the people in a democratic situation.”

Lilly said that the government pulling funds from major research institutions and restricting the freedom of scientists to speak about their work without upper-level bureaucratic permission actually impedes her ability to be a productive, informed citizen.

“They’re not allowing me to have that expert provide me with the information I need in order to make educated decisions about how I vote on different issues in the country.”

Time to stand up for our scientists

Lilly believes it’s her job – just as it’s the job of every average Canadian – to support scientists.

“I really believe it’s the Canadian people’s time and responsibility to stand up on behalf of their incredible scientists who are fighting for the truth and trying to give them the facts.”

Most of us just don’t have the time to discover these facts out on our own, Lilly said. “Or maybe don’t even, in my case, have the intelligence probably to discover these facts,” she laughed.

But she said, in all seriousness, science acts as a pillar of democracy. It’s a task for all of us to ensure it remains standing strong.

“It’s my job to stand up for that scientist and fight for them and say to my government, ‘I don’t think what you’re doing is right and I’m not going to let you get away with it,’” Lilly said, adding: “’It’s not your job to regulate science, it’s science’s job to regulate you.’”

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This is Part 1 of the series "Science on the Chopping Block," an in-depth look at federal cuts to science programs in Canada and what they mean for some of the country's most important researchers.

As cuts to science budgets and programs continue by the federal government, former scientists and academics who’ve lost their funding say the cuts have upended their careers, compromised knowledge about Canada’s environment and undercut development of the next generation of scientists.

Since the cuts began about five years ago, the federal government has either reduced funding or shut down more than 150 science-related programs and research centres and dismissed more than 2,000 scientists.

With the recently announced cuts to Environment Canada, by 2017 the department will be operating with close to 30 per cent fewer dollars than it had in 2012.  

As the impacts of the cuts grow, DeSmog Canada has reached out to former government and university scientists to hear their stories.

Unwatched Parks?

When Dana Haggarty started at Parks Canada in 2007, her job was to take stock of the ecological integrity of Nahanni National Park Reserve in the Northwest Territories. Haggarty saw it as “a dream position” at an organization where she “saw room for growth.” [view:in_this_series=block_1]

It was an exciting time. In 2005, the auditor general had found gaps in the monitoring of parks and Parks Canada was feverishly working to improve its knowledge of regions like Nahanni National Park.

Haggarty, along with other researchers at Parks Canada, was getting ready to announce an expanded boundary for Nahanni in 2009.

Already understaffed and overworked, Haggarty and fellow scientists worked “their butts off” to complete their part of the State of Parks report. The report, produced every five years, provided decision-makers with science-based evidence to help them direct resources.

Haggarty, excited about the future, decided to go on unpaid educational leave to get a PhD in marine biology, focusing on rockfish conservation. She saw it as a career-building move and she wanted to return to Parks Canada and work on restoration efforts along the Pacific coast.

Then major cuts came in 2012. Parks Canada had $29.2-million cut from its budget and 638 jobs were deemed surplus. The cuts drastically affected Parks Canada’s regional service centres, which were consolidated across the country. For her work in the remote area of Nahanni, Haggerty depended heavily on the experienced scientists at the local regional service centre.

She was “just floored” when her mentor Phil Lee’s job was deemed surplus. Lee provided support to scientists in fields in all of the western and northwestern parks, she said.

“There was no way I could do my job without Phil,” Haggarty said. “It said they were absolutely not committed to ecological integrity or basically doing science in parks.”

After the cuts, Haggarty’s position was still available in Nahanni, but there was a lot of confusion around it, she said. On cusp of finishing her PhD, Haggarty saw all of the coastal parks positions she’d hoped to have some day eliminated, so she gave up her job.

“I had such a bad taste in my mouth over what happened to science at Parks Canada. The program that I had worked so hard on and cared so much about was just gutted,” she said.

In response to a previous criticism of its ecological integrity program, Parks Canada said the scientists were hired to develop monitoring programs, but now the agency was moving to another phase of the work.

A 2013 auditor general report stated Parks Canada “has been slow to implement systems for monitoring and reporting on ecological integrity. It has failed to meet many deadlines and targets, and information for decision making is often incomplete or has not been produced.” 

In an e-mail response to questions from DeSmog Canada, Mélissa Larose, a Parks Canada media relations officer, said: “Parks Canada will continue to undertake priority natural resource conservation actions, including species at risk recovery, in national parks and national marine conservation areas that result in tangible and measurable conservation outcomes.”

Haggarty is now considering postdoctoral research, consulting work or moving into the private sector. She would return to Parks Canada if commitments were made to fund the science, she said.

Forgotten Forests?

At one time, Philip Burton managed a multi-disciplinary team of 12 people studying the mountain pine beetle epidemic for the Pacific Forestry Centre.

During the last decade, the beetle — fuelled by climate change — went on an unprecedented tear across British Columbia, infesting and killing large swaths of lodgepole pine trees.

The beetle then expanded beyond its historical range jumping the Rockies into Alberta, the Yukon and the Northwest Territories. Today, as Saskatchewan gears up for its battle with the beetle, scientists fear the problem could jump to the boreal forest, potentially spreading across Canada.

It’s after the beetle tears through an area that the story gets interesting, Burton says. How is the forest going to recover? What needs to be done to make the forest more resilient to future pests, especially in a changing climate?

“Just as we were getting to the more interesting aspects of the problem, the plug was pulled,” Burton said.

Jacinthe Perras, spokesperson for Natural Resources Canada, said in an email response to questions that “research on mountain pine beetle is ongoing, including field study in all affected parts of British Columbia, Alberta and beyond.

Burton agrees other aspects of the beetle’s biology are being studied however “field study in all affected parts” is “physically impossible,” he said. Furthermore, even though studies continue “field-based research has clearly decreased over the last many years, with a growing emphasis on policy support, remote sensing, and simulation modelling instead,” he said.

Burton’s position was eliminated and his office in Prince George, connected to the University of Northern British Columbia (UNBC), was consolidated with a Victoria location. He had the opportunity to re-apply as a research scientist in Victoria, but declined.

“All employees at UNBC were offered the opportunity to continue their work at the lab in Victoria,” Perras, from Natural Resources Canada, said.

After the pine beetle epidemic moved through British Columbia, the provincial government closed its forest research division and unsustainably ramped up harvest rates to capture the dying pine trees and bycatch, Burton said.

“We are back into 1890s Gold Rush mentality instead of thoughtful planning for the future,” he said.

Burton stayed in the north in Terrace, B.C., working at a satellite campus of UNBC as the regional chair of ecosystem science and management. He was hired to grow the science program, but is doing limited new science.

“In a 30-year career, this is first time where I have run out of ideas as to where to apply for research funding to support field research for graduate students,” Burton said. “The funding is really poor unless you are going to partner up with industry.”

Image Credit: DeSmog Canada

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A new survey of federal researchers and scientists reveals the startling degree to which they are limited in their ability to share their research findings with the public, including in cases of the public good, and for the first time gives a clear view of the degree to which scientists feel political interference determines how their work presented.

The study, called The Big Chill, reveals that 86 percent feel they would be reprimanded if they spoke out to the media in a situation where a decision by their department goes against what their research finds to be in the public interest.  A full 90 percent also said they are simply not allowed to freely speak to the media about their work.

In more concrete terms, 37 percent say that, within the last five years, they have been directly stopped from sharing their expertise in response to a question from the media or the public, and nearly one quarter have been forced by government officials to modify conclusions of their research for non-scientific reasons.

The study was commissioned by the Professional Institute for the Public Service of Canada (PIPSC), which represents scientists and researchers across the federal government. While it was already well-known that regulations brought in by the Conservative government had limited the ability of researchers to share their findings, PIPSC President Gary Corbett said even he was surprised by the results.

“I found it very surprising, including the degree of political interference,” he said in an interview with DeSmog Canada. As an example, Corbett pointed to the fact that 50 percent of respondents said they were aware of actual cases of political interference in the communication of scientific research.

“The findings should be very concerning to the public,” he added.

The survey was sent to 15,398 PIPSC members who are scientists, researchers and engineers in over 40 federal departments and agencies. Of these, 4,069 (26%) responded. The survey, conducted by Environics Research, is considered accurate + or – 1.6%, 19 times out of 20.

This survey is one more voice in a growing chorus calling on the Conservative government to roll back restrictions on government scientists speaking publicly. Since last year, two days of protest have taken place, and concerned scientists have launched Evidence for Democracy (E4D), a non-profit group dedicated to ensuring federal researchers and scientists are able to speak freely about their work.

Organizers with E4D say that these findings help to reinforce what observers have noticed over the past several years.

“For the past few years, we've seen different groups raising alarm bells, we've seen a number of specific cases of government scientists being muzzled,” E4D co-founder Dr. Katie Gibbs told DeSmog Canada over the phone. “But whenever the government did respond, they would usually say, 'No, there's no muzzling going on.' And people would say, maybe these are just a few isolated incidents.”

“What I think is really important about the survey is that it shows that these aren't just a few isolated incidents… It really is across the board that scientists feel that they cannot speak out.”

When reached for comment about the latest study, Minister of State for Science and Technology Greg Rickford responded with an email statement that the Conservative government has made “record” investments in Canadian science and that, “We are working to strengthen partnerships to get more ideas from the lab to the market-place and increase our wealth of knowledge. Science can power commerce, create jobs, and improve the quality of life for all Canadians.”

The Minister did not specifically acknowledge the survey, nor did his office respond when asked in a follow-up about whether he finds the results of the study concerning. Rickford was recently at the centre of some controversy after a leaked fundraising memo from his riding referred to a group of Canadian scientists as "radical ideologues."*

This lack of meaningful response from the government has been common, said Gibbs. In order to raise public awareness, E4D have launched a website to compile instances of government interference at http://scienceuncensored.ca, to present a more global look at the issue.

Starting in 2010 with Environment Canada adopting a new policy of “speaking with one voice” which would go through the communications department, the timeline on the website documents several cases of what have become high-profile instances of scientists being stopped from speaking with the press. This includes Department of Fisheries and Oceans scientist Kristi Miller not being able to speak publicly about her research on salmon fisheries, even though it had been published in the journal Science in 2011.

Later that year, Environment Canada scientist David Tarasick was not allowed to speak with the media about research he did on ozone layer depletions, which was published in Nature. In 2012, federal scientists attending the Polar Year conference in Montreal saw themselves shadowed by media handlers. Most recently, US scientists working on a joint US-Canada project under the DFO refused to sign on to new, strict confidentiality measures saying it would lead to “muzzling.”

The site also contains a form letter that readers can send to all five party leaders, calling for reforms to government policy.

Both Gibbs and Corbett believe that the survey, combined with the recent history of government restrictions, points to a need for an overhaul of communications policy when it comes to scientific research. “Right now, scientists can't do the job they were hired to do,” said Corbett.

“What we've been calling for is for the government to implement a new communications policy that makes it explicit that scientists are able to communicate their research to the media,” said Gibbs, pointing to recent changes in the UK and the US along those lines. “It's not impossible.”

With a federal government that refuses to address the issue publicly, though, any change coming soon seems improbable.

* An earlier version of this post stated a memo referring to Canadian scientists as "radical ideologues" came from Minister Rickford. It was written by the president of the Kenora Electoral District Association in Minister Rickford's riding. 09/09/2014

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This is a guest post by Richard Kool, Associate Professor in the School of Environment and Sustainability at Royal Roads University in Victoria.

Back in the 1930s, the Soviet ruler Josef Stalin had a problem with genetics; as a result, geneticists were branded traitors ("Trotskyite agents of international fascism"), stripped of their positions at government laboratories and universities, sent to prison, or even executed. Soviet biological sciences were hindered for more than a generation. The story of the Soviet geneticists has a distant resonance to the story of what is happening to government-sponsored environmental science in Canada today.

Genetics, the science of inheritance, was developed in the late 19th and early 20th century by scientists such as Gregor Mendel and T.H. Morgan, who did careful experiments demonstrating, among other things, the presence of dominant and recessive genes, as well as examining how genes combine to produce a variety of traits in animals and plants. Unfortunately, in Stalin’s Soviet Union, there were a lot of things wrong with Mendelian genetics, including: Mendel was a Catholic priest (and thus stood against the atheistic Soviet regime), while Morgan was branded a capitalist (he was an American). Mendelian genetics didn’t fit the Soviet ideology.

In the 1930s, Soviet genetics fell under the sway of Trifim Lysenko, an agronomist who proposed a different grounding for genetics. Lysenko’s beliefs were that seed quality could be improved by challenging seeds with extremes of high humidity and low temperatures, and that these changes so produced would be inherited by the next generation of plants; indeed, he believed that new species of plants could be created through this process (much as the Soviet rulers believed that a new humanity could result from “challenge and struggle”). Instead of engaging in the necessarily long-term selection processes to produce the plant products that would be most valuable, Lysenko pushed Soviet plant science towards a method of crop improvement that led to crop failures and famine: genetic reality trumped Lysenkoist ideology.

The pursuit of scientific knowledge flourishes when scholars are free to pursue the best understandings they can come up with, knowing that others may come along afterwards and create more and better explanatory theories. Science can do what it does best when political systems encourage the freedom of exploration, and those systems are usually found in contexts of democratic governance.

Science, and scientists, do not always do well when states are run by rulers, especially rulers with strong authoritarian and ideological orientations that might be threatened by research findings. Rulers feel that they know what is right and what needs to be done in their domain, and see no need to compromise, to consult, to listen or to consider other opinions, all of which are essential elements of the toolkit of those who govern democratically. Rulers often see themselves as exceptional and exempt from the rules that they can impose on the ruled.

Mendelian genetics in Russia and those that practiced it were threats to the ruler’s ideology and they were removed from positions where they could do ‘harm’ to the State.

And now we have in Canada a situation where environmental scientists working for the government of Canada have been found to be doing research that is no longer in line with the ideology of our present rulers. Climate change scientists, eco-toxicologists, habitat specialists and more are not being lined up and shot as the geneticists were in Stalin’s time, but they are seeing their positions eliminated, their funding and other resources constrained, and their ability to communicate restricted.

The ghost of Trofim Lysenko stalks Canadian government science. Science that produces results that fit with the Harperian science doctrine of “utility to corporations and industry above all else” seem to get the resources. Those government scientists engaging in the exploration of the major global issues of our time but whose pursuits fall outside of Harperian ideology today are, either literally or metaphorically, being shown the door.

Image Credit: Zack Embree

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This is a guest post by David Schindler, Killam Memorial Professor of Ecology emeritus at the University of Alberta. His 50-year scientific career has included 22 years as a federal government scientist. 

Most scientists are by nature introverts, happiest in the field or the laboratory, willing to talk about their work if asked but not inclined to be self-promoters. But on Monday, they demonstrated in public in several Canadian cities to protest the muzzling of government scientists and the de-emphasis of government environmental science.

That scientists would take the time and effort to demonstrate publicly should be deeply disturbing to Canadians. It indicates some dramatic and important changes in the purpose of government science departments.

In the 1960s and 1970s, government scientists were encouraged to speak publicly about their work. The resulting science-based policies were the envy of scientists and policy-makers around the world. Canada was the first country to regulate phosphorus in sewage and detergents, leading to the recovery of many lakes from algal blooms. Much of the science behind that decision was done by government scientists. It was welcomed by policy-makers eager to anchor their policies in solid science. Canada also led global efforts to decrease emissions of ozone-depleting chemicals, resulting in the Montreal Protocol.

A decade later, the transparency in government science began showing the first signs of weakening. Scientists were no longer encouraged to speak publicly on their work, but they were not prevented from doing so. They were warned to avoid directly criticizing government policies, even environmentally harmful ones. Rebukes were mild for a scientist who challenged his political masters. At worst, a scolding letter was “put on your file.”

Such tightening of public communication was one reason I left government science for academia. In ensuing years, control over science and scientists has been slowly tightened by politicians and bureaucrats under both Conservative and Liberal governments, who feared that science would challenge their ideology and their policies.

Even so, there were successes, such as policies to control acid rain, based largely on science from government departments. But there were also failures, as bureaucrats and politicians ignored science and silenced government scientists to make weak policies that collapsed the cod fishery and compromised the salmon runs of the Nechako River. Despite repeated budget cuts, government science staggered on, doing sometimes remarkable work, using clever liaisons with scientists in universities and other countries to make important work publicly known. During this period, I gave many lectures warning that government science was on a dangerous path. No one seemed to notice.

It remained for the Harper Government to deliver the coup de grâce to government science. Shortly after it took office, scientists were told they must have permission from bureaucrats to speak publicly. Bureaucrats and communications officers issued “speaking lines” that must be used to avoid criticism of policies. The permitted lines were often so inane that most scientists chose to remain silent rather be embarrassed by using them.

Often, obtaining permission took so long that the opportunity to speak had passed. On issues of particular international sensitivity such as greenhouse gases, scientists were accompanied to public meetings by communications “handlers” to ensure that they did not utter any words that would embarrass policy-makers. Scientists were advised to avoid the media if possible, using tactics copied from training in bear avoidance “walk slowly away, maintaining eye contact.” Similar tactics were used by the Soviet Union to suppress scientific communication during the Cold War, when KGB agents shadowed scientists participating in international meetings.

Other actions were taken to ensure there would be less pesky science done by government departments to challenge the Conservatives’ pro-development agenda. The government divested itself of the Experimental Lakes Project, government contaminants programs, climate projects and the Arctic PEARL project. The Fisheries Act and the Navigable Waters Act were changed to provide less protection, while expediting large industrial developments.

The Canadian public is beginning to see the problem, as scientifically misleading and downright fallacious statements are made by ministers on issues from greenhouse gas emissions to oilsands and protection of fisheries. Most people are aware that a functioning democracy depends on an informed electorate. Most also know that we, the taxpayers, pay the bills for government science and endure the consequences of the environmental policies, whether they are grounded in good science or not. We deserve to know what we are paying for.

We must take government science back from politicians who would twist or hide science that reveals flaws in their policies. We deserve to know the truth about the impacts of proposed developments on our environment, in order to avoid mistakes that will be costly to future generations.

Government science once provided this information, and it must be changed to do so again. The health of not only our environment, but of Canadian democracy, depends on it.

Originally published in the Toronto Star.

Image Credit: Zack Embree

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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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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

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 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.

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.