Environment Canada scientist Phil Thomas recently texted me a photo of him working in the field. The image shows him gloved, crouched before a strip of bloodied flesh that is hanging from a thin rope. From the top of the creaturely thing protrudes a strange-looking tail.

“What IS this?” I texted back.

“Lmao,” he replied. “Trappers usually bring me their carcasses to skin … I skin them for them. They keep the hide, I keep the tissues. This is an otter … Or was an otter.”

The profundity of this interaction, while not apparent on its head, can’t be overstated.

Here I am, a journalist, chatting freely and casually via text message with a federal scientist about his work.

Two years ago Thomas and I were having what felt like cloak and dagger conversations, entirely off the record and at his occupational peril.

Back in Canada’s Harper days, before the “Great Unmuzzling,” it was next to impossible to conduct a real-deal interview with a federal scientist. The idea of having casual, on-the-record conversations that were entirely un-chaperoned seemed like a fairy tale.

Phil Thomas with what "was an otter." Photo provided by Phil Thomas.

In fact, after Thomas and I first connected in late 2012 about his work testing toxicity levels in fur-bearing mammals in the Alberta oilsands region, we secretly hatched a plan to beat the system.

In a series of confidential phone calls, Thomas coached me on how to approach Environment Canada communications staff and gave me advice for sending in technical questions only he could answer.

Our hope was that it would become clear that Thomas was the only expert who could answer my questions, and that my interview request would be granted.

How wrong we were.

Months after I submitted my interview request, it was officially denied. About one year and two Access to Information requests later, I learned the interview request was sent all the way up to the Privy Council Office and eventually denied at the ministerial level. You can read all about that story, and what the Access to Information documents revealed, here.

So now, well on the other side of a new government that has very different ideas about transparency, Thomas and I are free to talk and discuss his work like … two normal people.

Thomas said the massive change to federal science communications protocols is, strangely enough, hardly noticeable on the ground.

“People are happy they can speak to media, which is important, but in terms of our relationship with management or our work, nothing has really changed,” he said, saying the important research he was doing then, continues on.

“We’re out there doing work with the people.”

Thomas spearheaded a first-ever contaminants monitoring program to determine what effects industrial development, including mining and extraction in the Alberta oilsands, is having on fur-bearing mammals.

Phil Thomas at a makeshift lab in the field. Photo provided by Phil Thomas.

“Contaminants in furbearers have never been done before in Northern Alberta. So I really had no baseline to compare it to,” he said.

“Furbearers have been studied before but never in the context that we’ve studied in Northern Alberta and never for a broad contaminants monitoring program.”

Thomas is working with local trappers and First Nations communities to collect samples of beavers, martens, fishers and other animals for the creation of a national specimen databank.

His work, he said, has really relied on the help and expertise of local stakeholders and especially First Nations.

Together with over 50 trappers from five different communities in Alberta, Thomas has collected over 1700 samples that are examined for hydrocarbons and heavy metals.

Hydrocarbons, he said, are an especially challenging group of compounds to work with.

“The thing with hydrocarbons is they’re metabolized,” he explained. “They have short half lives, they are volatile.”

“They’re activated by your own body into a more toxic form. These intermediary metabolites will bind with DNA and create cancers and tumors and stuff like that.”

Phil Thomas in the field. Photo provided by Phil Thomas.

He said a contaminated tissue sample won’t necessarily contain high levels of hydrocarbons.

“So what you really need to be screening it for is fingerprints,” he said.

“We look at health effects and try to correlate these to residual hydrocarbon signatures in the tissues and hydrocarbon signatures that we’re obtaining from water, sediment, air and stuff like that.”

Thomas said working with the community has strengthened his research.

“We’ve been really good at working on the ground with people and listening to the people and involving them in our decision-making,” he said.

While working in the field, Thomas said locals not only aided his research but fed and housed him. He was invited to stay in homes and remote cabins.

“I’ve been incredibly lucky to work with these guys,” he said.

One of the cabins Phil Thomas stayed in while conducting research. Photo provided by Phil Thomas.

“With all this muzzling I feel like this is the saddest part: all those positive collaborative relationships are not being spoken about.”

The research is “near and dear to a lot of people’s hearts,” he said.

Remote First Nations like the Athabasca Chipewyan, Mikisew Cree and Metis locals live more closely with the land, offering long-term insights into the species that end up in his laboratory in Ottawa.

“For a lot of these First Nations communities I work with like Fort Chipewyan, they’re not serviced by a main highway. They have their ice road in the winter time but for the main part a lot of these First Nations communities are living traditional lifestyles, living of the land.”

Concerns about the safety of consuming animals and water from the region are ever present, he said. “They’re always asking us, is this safe to eat, is this water good to drink?”

“This is where monitoring programs such as this are important because they can provide the context to frame these answers or at least a launching point to address these human consumption issues.”

Many of those questions can’t be answered yet, Thomas said.

“You can look at levels all you want and compare them to guidelines. But more importantly is monitoring these levels, seeing if they’re going up or down. That’s the important question.”

Thomas said he takes his responsibility to the public seriously.

“I’m a scientists but I’m also a public servant,” he said.

“Without sounding too corny, I feel like I answer to the government, my employer, but I work for the taxpayer.”

“What this project has really accomplished is working closely with interested parties and answering common questions that are of concern to these people. And these are legitimate concerns.”

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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.

Like what you're reading? Help us bring you more. Click here to support DeSmog Canada's Kickstarter campaign to clean up the climate and energy debate in Canada.

“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 article is part of DeSmog Canada's ongoing series "Science on the Chopping Block."

Last week, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper made a strong case for parents to accept scientific evidence about the effectiveness of vaccines.

“We do have scientists and medical professionals who do great work and verify this and I just think its a tragedy when people start to go off on their own theories and not listen to the scientific evidence,” he told the CBC in an exclusive interview.

“Don’t indulge your theories, think of your children and listen to the experts.”

Within his own government, scientists and professionals who do research and gather evidence, are urging the prime minister to take a second look at his own theories.

A major survey, conducted by Environics Research and sponsored by the labour union, the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada, collected dozens of quotes from scientists who believe the Harper government doesn’t know how to use evidence. They allege the government is muzzling them, interfering with their research and ignoring their findings – particularly when it comes to evidence that covers issues such as climate change and other impacts of unsustainable industrial development.[view:in_this_series=block_1]

Here’s a list of ten significant quotes from that survey:

Quote 10: The “Banana Republic”

“I am a surplused employee at DFO (Department of Fisheries and Oceans). I will be leaving my position and the civil service soon. What has been done to environmental legislation and Regulatory Authority in Canada in the last year+ is CRIMINAL! This now also includes a complete lack of capacity and funding. The Public are being grossly misled by Gov’t as to the state of the environment, especially the aquatic ecosystems and likely future negative consequences. The face of DFO is now virtually gone from communities and especially in the North where all the development is occurring. We are becoming a ‘Banana Republic’ when it comes to environmental legislation and regulations. These ‘wholesale’ changes are being led by ideology and not cost savings or common sense. The list of threatened and endangered species continues to grow. Salmon stocks are struggling all along the west coast of NA (North America). The number of contaminated sites continues to grow and clean up efforts are tied up in politicized bureaucracy. We have tens of millions of dollars for The War of 1812 and Canada’s Action Plan but cannot even respond in a timely fashion to the Cohen Report (inquiry into the plight of salmon) that cost $26 million. Canada has also lost significant environmental and scientific credibility internationally b/c of the muzzling of scientists and inaction on climate change. Continually making decisions and policies based on politics and the economy only will continue to degrade the environment around us.”

Quote 9: “Systematic dismantling”

“In my 31 years with the federal public service, I’ve never seen such a systematic dismantling of science capacity. My only hope of ever seeing a scientifically viable and credible public service again is a change in government.”

Quote 8: “Set aside and ignored”

“Because of changes in regulations and shifts in departmental mandates, science disciplines aimed at environmental and human protection have been set aside and ignored, without taking the real risks into consideration (e.g. environmental assessment, toxicology research on freshwater systems, aircraft inspection, food inspection).”

Quote 7: Using funds to equip companies

“I am a researcher in AAFC (Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada) and I have witnessed a strong research branch, which contributed immensely to Canada’s Agriculture and food sector getting dismantled under the guise of ‘transferring’ this activity to the private sector. The new research activities are narrow and serve short-term profit objectives. Funds are used to equip and run individual companies. These are business subsidies and not research programs benefitting all Canadians… I fear the public does not yet realize that within 10 years there will be no one acting in their interests.”

Quote 6: “Political interference”

“The current government’s positions have led to fundamental changes in environmental laws and regulations. Government scientists are as professional as ever but have to do their best in the current political context. Government interference is pervasive in our work, sometimes subtly (communications approval process, muzzling of the public, transparency towards the public) and sometimes very explicitly (changes to laws and regulations). Muzzling, lack of transparency, abandonment of Canadian environmental values for economic values at the expense of the environment, and political interference for economic purposes are the defining characteristics of the current government when it comes to the environment. It is harder to work in the environmental sciences under this government which is trying to do everything it can to avoid answering questions on the environment and serving as a world leader in environmental protection.”

Quote 5: “Orwellian”

“I am outraged by the Orwellian restriction of information under the current government… I am sure that I did not sign a confidentiality agreement designed to protect elected officials from minor embarrassment or surprise. If the public service is truly non-partisan, then our results should not be repressed to serve the interests of one political party over another. Furthermore, every time we have to ask permission to speak to the media, even if that permission is ultimately granted, it reduces the appearance of independence and transparency of government science.”

Quote 4: “Hate every day of my job”

“Despite what the scientists think, we are told what to say and that we have to put a positive spin on everything and to support economic development at all costs. Our role as both stewards and advisors has been silenced. We are tasked with work that we ethically do not agree with and must support. If we do not, they simply bring in project people who are non scientists who will write what senior management wants to hear. I am over worked, disrespected, undervalued, and I hate every day of my job where I used to love coming to work.”

Quote 3: “Minders”

“Up until the Harper govt., when the media called for an interview with me as a research scientist I simply gave the interview and wrote up a media report thereafter. Now managers decide if whoever gets the call is the appropriate contact for the specific topic; the process of waiting for approval is slow (days), and onerous (lots of email, phone calls) and involves minders, therefore I have given up doing media interviews bc it takes so much time from my work. I refer reporters to NGOs that might be involved. I believe other research scientists and biologists do the same based on conversations with them.”

Quote 2:

“Help”

Quote 1:

“I’m probably quitting. Harper wins.”

This article originally appeared on mikedesouza.com and is republished here with permission.

Image Credit: The Professional Institute of the Public Services of Canada report The Big Chill

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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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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.

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.

“We are not muzzling scientists.” – Peter Kent, Canada’s Environment Minister.

I shook my head reading Margaret Munro’s Weekend Vancouver Sun article on freedom of information documents that caught Canada’s Minister of the Environment lying about muzzling scientists.

Kent has repeatedly denied that the government is muzzling scientists. But according to the documents, Kent’s office clearly muzzled Environment Canada researcher David Tarasick, preventing him from speaking to a number of media outlets about an unprecedented hole that appeared in the ozone layer above the Arctic in 2011.

According to Munro, “the documents also say Kent’s office and the Privy Council Office, which reports to the prime minister, decide when and if Environment Canada scientists are allowed to brief the media about anything from wildlife to water quality."

Why would the Minister of the Environment block public discussion of scientific work that may be important for the health and safety of Canadians and their environment?

Shouldn’t a minister of the environment be working to inform the public about environmental threats, encouraging the free flow of scientific knowledge and inviting informed citizens to participate in the decision-making process?

OK, it may be a bit naïve expecting politicians to tell the truth. Most Canadians have an idea who benefits when scientists are muzzled and the free exchange of scientific knowledge about environmental threats is constrained.

The real question, then, is why Minister Kent seems so comfortable lying to Canadians about muzzling scientists when he knows that we know what he is doing?

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.