Remember the bad old days when federal scientists were muzzled by the Harper government and, even when health, safety or the environment were threatened, researchers were not allowed to talk about their findings?

A 2013 survey commissioned by the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada (PIPSC) found nine out of 10 scientists did not feel free to speak about their work, and, as public and media indignation grew, Justin Trudeau promised that would change under a Liberal government.

True to his word, after the Liberals swept to power in 2015, the restrictive communications policies of the Harper government were reversed and, in 2016 PIPSC reached a tentative collective agreement with Treasury Board that included clauses recognizing the right of federal scientists to speak about their research and requiring departments with 10 or more scientists to create scientific integrity policies.

But, according to a new survey, that message has not reached some senior public servants who continue to prevent some scientists from talking to media or the public about their work.

The new report released by PIPSC, which represents more than 16,000 federal scientists, engineers and researchers, replicates questions in the initial survey and concludes that, although there has been progress, more work needs to be done to fully remove the muzzle.

The new survey, recently conducted by Environics Research, found that five out of 10 scientists continue to feel they cannot speak freely to the media about the work they do.

Comments from respondents to the survey point more to managers than at government.

“At the mid-management level, things continue as if there had never been an election. I have a director who seems to not have gotten the memo and I am told I am not paid to have opinions and cannot speak in public,” said one respondent.

“There is still a cadre of managers who were very comfortable with the tight rules under the Harper government and are clinging to them,” said another.

In the new survey, 20 per cent of respondents said they were prevented by public relations staff or management from answering a question within their area of expertise.

Also, 40 per cent continue to believe that political interference has compromised the ability to develop policies based on scientific evidence, down from 71 per cent in 2013.

Twenty-nine per cent said they were aware of cases where their agency had suppressed or declined to release information, leading to a incomplete or inaccurate public understanding of the issue – down from 48 per cent in 2013.

The new survey, recently conducted by Environics Research, found that five out of 10 scientists continue to feel they cannot speak freely to the media about the work they do. #scicomm https://t.co/MCcSyBQxpe

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) February 25, 2018

PIPSC president Debi Daviau said there has been progress, but more needs to be done.

“What these survey results show is that the process of removing the chill imposed on federal scientists under the last government will take longer and require more deliberate efforts on the part of both the government and the public service to succeed,” Daviau said in a news release.

“We believe that should include efforts to strengthen whistle-blowing laws so that federal scientists don’t have to to risk sacrificing their careers in order to warn about concerns in the public interest.”

The survey found that 89 per cent of respondents believe whistle-blowing laws should be strengthened – a figure unchanged from 2013.

Daviau said it is now more important than ever that Canada set the right example for government science “given everything we see happening to federal science in the United States.”

In addition to enhanced whistle-blowing protection, PIPSC is recommending that all communications policies be reviewed to ensure the right to speak is included and that annual reminders of the policies be sent annually to staff and management.

Other recommendations include:

• Asking Chief Science Advisor Mona Nemer to develop concrete steps for government to include public science evidence in decision-making.
• Joint staff and management training sessions promoting the right to speak.
• Priority given to development of scientific integrity policies.
• Promote public access and dialogue by holding open houses showcasing the work of federal scientists.

Federal Science Minister Kirsty Duncan was not available to comment by time of publication.

The survey results are considered accurate plus or minus 1.8 per cent 19 times out of 20.

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A group of scientists from across North America are calling on the governments of Canada and Alberta to impose a moratorium on future development of the Alberta oilsands.

The recommendation is the result of a consensus document that surveys scientific literature related to the oilsands from across research fields. The clear outcome of the research — as it relates to climate, ecosystems, species protection and indigenous rights — is a need to end oilsands growth, the group states.

“As scientists we recognize that no one can speak with authority to all aspects of this complex topic, which is why we came together to synthesize the science from our different fields,” Wendy Palen, professor of biological sciences at Simon Fraser University, said.

The group of scientists, which include 12 fellows of the Royal Society of Canada, 22 members of the U.S. National Academy of Science, five recipients of the Order of Canada and a Nobel Prize winner, released their consensus position on a website, www.oilsandsmoratorium.org, Wednesday. A ful list of the scientists supporting the moratorium can be found here.

“These decisions are complex,” Palen added, “they transcend national boundaries and national interests and they are far broader than any single scientific study or economic assessment.”

Canada’s Carbon Budget

“Within our carbon budget we have high emission sources such as oilsands and unconventional sources of oil and coal that cannot be developed,” Mark Jaccard, energy and climate economist at Simon Fraser University said.

“Therefor while the existing output of the oilsands should not be shut down tomorrow — we’re not talking about harming the Alberta economy or the jobs that are there now — what the research shows, and that’s why we’re calling for it, is that we shouldn’t be doubling down or quadrupling down on the oilsands,” he said.

The oilsands industry produced just over 2 million barrels of oil per day (bpd) in 2014. The most recent projections released this month from the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers projects oilsands production to grow to more than 4.2 million bpd by 2030.

In 2013 Canada’s National Energy Board forecasted 5 million bpd by 2035, although falling oil prices have altered most projections.

Jaccard said other forecasts see production skyrocketing to 6 or 9 million bpd.

“None of this needs to be done,” he said.

Alberta Taking on Too Much Risk

Thomas Homer-Dixon, Professor at the Balsillie School of International Affairs at the University of Waterloo said the call for a moratorium shouldn’t been see as an “attack on Alberta.”

“The risks are largest for Alberta in particular continuing on this path,” he said. “This is an ultimately economic dead end because the climate is changing and because there will be, in time, some kind of North American or global pricing regime for carbon.”

Homer-Dixon said a path to “alternative routes for economic development” would involve less risk for Alberta.

“Rather than assuming what we’re suggesting is a risky alternative fraught with uncertainty — which it is in some respects — it’s actually less risky and less fraught with uncertainty in many respects than continuing down the current pathway of doubling down on oilsands extraction.”

This week G7 leaders, including Prime Minister Stephen Harper, released a declaration calling for a total decarbonization of the global economy by 2100 and a dramatic reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

Although Canada agreed to these goals in principle, many are left wondering what concrete steps will be taken to reduce Canada’s emissions. The Alberta oilsands are the fastest growing source of greenhouse gas emissions in Canada.

“A moratorium makes a lot of sense”

Homer-Dixon said a carbon-constrained future could have severe effects on Canada and Alberta’s economy if we don’t move into low-carbon sources of energy.

“Far sooner than most Canadians expect we may have trouble selling our fossil fuels to the world,” he said.

David Keith, professor of applied physics and public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, said there’s a “there’s enormous, direct self-interest here from people who care about a sustainable Alberta economy.”

“I’ve got kids and my own interests here,” he said. “But the more we grow the harder the fall is going to be.”

“If you don’t want to see a crushing downturn and want to see some sort of gradual turn for Alberta —where there’s a healthy Albertan economy when I’m old and my kids are grown — then a moratorium makes a lot of sense, even from a purely self-interested point of view.”

Keith added he doesn’t see a moratorium as the responsibility of industry.

“The fundamental onus is not on proponents,” he said. “The onus is on the regulatory system — the government of Alberta, the government of Canada — to act in the long-term interest of the people they serve.”

Thinking the Oilsands Beyond Climate and Economy

David Schindler, professor of ecology at the University of Alberta, said the group of scientists are making arguments for a moratorium that extend beyond the scope of climate.

The group lists a total of 10 reasons that support a moratorium including broad support for alternative energy and the treaty rights of first nations.

“If you take the focus off carbon dioxide and greenhouse gasses for a minute and look at the other points among our 10, oilsands are really a poster child for unsustainable development,” Schindler said.

He added an additional major concern is the risk pipelines destined to carry diluted bitumen to the British Columbian coast pose to salmon stocks. “They cross hundreds of river channels and particularly in winter when those rivers are covered with ice, you cannot remove spilled oil from under ice.”

He said small spills have caused major problems in the Athabasca River. “The technology for removing that oil from under ice doesn’t exist.”

He said caribou are also disappearing from the oilsands region and expansion of development and pipelines will further exacerbate their recovery.

Ken Lertzman, professor at the school of resource and environmental management at Simon Fraser University, said social justice is yet another reason to support the moratorium.

Lertzman said the production of oil in Alberta and its transit across North America “violates the treaty rights of many indigenous peoples.” He added much of the oilsands development occurs on the traditional territory of First Nations, many of which are still dealing with unresolved land claims.

Both the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation and the Beaver Lake Cree First Nation have been involved in protracted battles with the Alberta and federal governments to protect their treaty rights and territorial lands from the cumulative impacts of oilsands development.

“Indigenous peoples live on the frontlines of energy development; it’s their rights, livelihoods, health and cultures that are most at risk,” he said.

Image Credit: Kris Krug

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Documents obtained by DeSmog Canada reveal that Canada’s Ministry of Environment vetoed an interview request on toxins in fur-bearing animals in the oilsands, even though the federal scientist was “media trained and interested in doing the interview.”

The Environment Canada scientist in question, Philippe Thomas, had asked members of the Alberta Trappers Association to send him samples of fur-bearing animals caught across Alberta in 2012. Thomas needed a broad range of samples to gain deeper insight into the contaminant load in animals living near the oilsands.

In late 2012, DeSmog Canada submitted a request to interview Thomas, and provided several written questions to Environment Canada to review.

Documents obtained via Access to Information legislation show that pre-scripted responses were prepared for Thomas should the interview be approved at the upper levels. The request was approved at the deputy general level, but denied in the office of former Environment Minister Peter Kent.

The request was also sent to the Privy Council Office for review, but was denied by the minister before requiring a decision by the prime minister’s top-level advisors.

Media requests involving controversial subjects such as the Alberta oilsands, climate change or species at risk are often subject to upper level political review and are routinely approved or denied at the ministerial level or in the Privy Council Office.

Information Commissioner Suzanne Legault is currently investigating the 'muzzling of scientists' after a formal request was made by the Environmental Law Centre at the University of Victoria and citizen advocacy group Democracy Watch. The groups asked the commissioner to investigate “the systematic efforts by the Government of Canada to obstruct the right of the media — and through them, the Canadian public — to timely access to government scientists.” That investigation is ongoing. 

Sean Holman, founder of Public Eye and professor of journalism at Mount Royal University in Calgary, said denied requests of this kind remind Canadians just how frustrated and undemocratic our access to information process really is.

“We have a Father Knows Best approach to government in Canada,” Holman told DeSmog Canada.

“Our elected and unelected officials have vast powers to withhold information from the citizenry — whether it’s because they feel that’s in the public interest or their partisan interest.”

“That’s undemocratic,” he said, adding, “but that’s why they feel they have the right to violate our right to know – frustrating access to information we have paid for.”

The internal documents from Environment Canada also show personnel were asked to keep DeSmog Canada’s previous reporting on oilsands’ science “in mind when preparing” responses to questions.

According to Holman, “it’s understandable communications staff would want to know who is asking for information from the government…from a public relations standpoint.”

“But,” he added, “from a democratic standpoint, do we want communications staff to be providing different or better access to that information depending on the requester?”

In doing so, what Environment Canada staff appear to be saying, Holman said, “is that not everyone has the same right to hold government to account since knowledge is a necessary precursor to that process.”

The research, carried out as part of the Joint Canada-Alberta Plan for Oil Sands Monitoring, is the first of its kind, and brings to light the lack of data to date regarding contaminants in fur-bearing animals — some of which are a source of food for communities and First Nations — in the oilsands area.

Environment Canada told DeSmog Canada the request to speak with Thomas “could not be accommodated.”

When pressed for a reason why, Environment Canada staff responded, “due to the nature of your request, a written response was more appropriate.”

The written responses provided to DeSmog Canada were not attributed to Thomas, however. In response to questions regarding the authorship of the answers, Environment Canada said “a number of Environment Canada staff contributed.”

Environment Canada confirmed beavers, fishers, martens, lynx and river otters have been tested for naphthenic acid, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and a suite of approximately 28 metals and inorganic compounds, pollutants that “have been identified as contaminants produced as a result of industrial activity in the Oil Sands region.”

Data collected in the samples will be “compared to existing guidelines for human consumption.”

DeSmog Canada is partnering with the Politics of Evidence Working Group to promote Write2Know Week from March 23-27. If you would like to write a letter to Environment Canada regarding the monitoring of contaminants in the oilsands area, and to let scientists know you value their work, visit Write2Know for an easy guide. 

Image Credit: Brandon T. Brown Nature Photography

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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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It took a solid year of outrage from Canadian researchers, the international science community and the public to force the Harper government to finally agree to transfer the world-renowned Experimental Lakes Area (ELA) to a non-profit organization.

And then the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans tried to take credit for today's announced signing of a crucial Memorandum of Understanding with the Winnipeg-based International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD).

“The Harper government was being hammered on this from every conceivable angle before they finally buckled,” said Diane Orihel, PhD student at University of Alberta and founder of the Coalition to Save ELA.

The ELA is 45 year old freshwater research facility in northern Ontario considered unique in the world. It was there that Canadian scientists discovered the dangers of acid rain as well as mercury and phosphorus pollution. Regulations that protect the health of the environment in Canada many countries are based on the work done at the ELA.

Claiming a need for austerity the Harper government slashed the budgets of Fisheries and Oceans and Environment Canada last year. The ELA cost the federal government just $2 million a year to operate but it was shuttered March 31st.

For comparison, it cost Canadians $1 million to ship Stephen Harper's armoured limo and SUV to India for a state visit last November.

“This transfer is only happening because independent scientists asked the IISD to try and convince the government to make it happen,” Orihel told DeSmog.

Only a few days ago scientists called on the Harper government to allow access to the ELA to continue world’s longest, whole-lake eutrophication experiment. That experiment is fully funded and crucial to understand the causes of economically devastating algal blooms in freshwater lakes such as Lake Erie she said.

The transfer is not a done deal, many issues remain outstanding however.

“It's a big step forward. The ELA does critically important science for Canada and the rest of the world,” Scott Vaughan, CEO and president of IISD, an internationally respected public policy research institute.

“Saving the ELA is the right thing to do,” Vaughan told DeSmog.

The best part of today's MOU is an agreement to allow scientists back into the ELA to continue their research for balance of the year. Present and future liability, staffing, remediation responsibilities and other legal matters still need to be negotiated. However Fisheries and Oceans are working to address a number of issues with the intent of turning over the ELA to IISD in good shape he said.

Finding $2 million to run the ELA is “a big challenge” for the non-profit IISD that has to fundraise for its core operations. “We didn't take this on lightly,” he acknowledged.

Freshwater and climate change is major part of IISD's work but the organization can't provide good policy advice without good science such as that provided by researchers at the ELA he said.

While Orihel is happy she'll be back at the ELA continuing her research this year, she is disappointed no new research programs will be permitted. One of those ready to go was designed to investigate the environmental impacts of nanosilver particles found in products like food containers, socks, shoe inserts, sports clothing and towels. Nanosilver particles are smaller than a virus and lab research has shown they can mutate fish embryos.

It says a lot about what is happening in Canada that in order to save an invaluable scientific resource it has to be taken out of the hands of government she said.

“A year ago I would never believed I would say I'm delighted the ELA will soon be freed from the shackles of our federal government.”

Image Credit: Diane Orihel via twitter @DianeOrihel.

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Blame Canada is a four part series revealing how Canada has become a wealthy, fossil-fuelled energy superpower and an international climate pariah. Part 1 reveals Canada's emergence as a Petrostate, part 2 outlines Canada's climate crimes, and part 3 shows how energy 'wealth' contributes to the nation's poverty.

Canada's opposition to anything that might help developing countries is “mind-boggling” a delegate from Mali told me during a UN conference to slow the widespread extinction of species. “Canadians are known to protect the environment, I cannot understand why they are pushing policies that are clearly unsustainable," he said.

Only a few days before Prime Minister Stephen Harper told delegates that losing wildlife was an urgent and alarming issue. Then as nearly 190 nations made plans to take action, Canadian delegates blocked those plans with legal and technical manoeuvres.

“Do Canadians know what their government is doing here? You must tell them.”

That was in 2008. Since then at environmental or development gatherings around the world I've been asked dozens of times “what has happened to Canada?” And it's not just me.

“Wherever I travel in Africa people ask me, ‘what happened to Canada?” Joanna Kerr told the Globe and Mail March 30. Kerr, a Canadian, heads the global anti-poverty organization ActionAid.

It's no secret what's happened to Canada.

"Oil wealth has changed the culture of Canada, but there is no discussion about any of this,” says Alberta journalist Andrew Nikiforuk, author of the award winning book, Tar Sands: Dirty Oil and the Future of a Continent. His latest book is The Energy of Slaves: Oil and the New Servitude.

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Canada's media have avoided the issue or acted as cheerleaders of the energy sector. The tar sands are already too big and have had enormous impacts on Canada's politics, economy and environment, Nikiforuk says.

Energy Prosperity? Canadians earn only $100 for every $165 spent

All of Canada's newfound oil and gas wealth has ended up hurting most Canadians as documented in Part 3: The Bigger Canada's Energy Sector Gets the Poorer People Become. Canadians are poorer – one in seven children live in poverty – and hold enormous personal debts. Last year for every $100 earned, Canadian households spent $165. This is highest debt ratio in Canadian history.

While Canada's GDP has nearly tripled in the last 15 years, more than half a million manufacturing jobs vanished largely due to the high Canadian dollar amped up by energy revenues.

The huge amounts of money generated by the energy sector don't seem to stay in Canada given the evidence of huge governments deficits. Even oil-rich Alberta has had deficits the last six years. The federal and Alberta government response has been to make major cuts in public services like health care, education and environmental protection.

What's happening in Canada is the sacrifice of forests, rivers, wetlands and wildlife so one industry can profit by selling products that are polluting the global climate. In a mock trial at the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, the CEOs of oil companies operating in the Alberta tar sands were found guilty of the international crime of ecocide for deliberate and extensive damage to the environment.

That verdict should not be surprising. As documented in Part Two: Canada's Plan to Get Rich by Trashing the Climate, the world's new energy superpower is betting its future on profiting from dumping two billion tonnes of climate-wrecking carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere by 2020 (Total emissions from extraction, processing and burning).

That's two billion tonnes of CO2 from Canada's energy sector alone. Add in emissions from all other sources of roughly 500 million tonnes and that's far more than India's total emissions, a country with 1.2 billion people and the world's third largest emitter.

You'd think it'd be hard to claim Canada takes climate change seriously.

“Canada is a global environmental leader … and yes, that includes the oil sands,” said Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver last March in address in Chicago.

The Alberta and Federal government seem to think no one reads George Orwell's 1984 any more

What Canada has actually become a leader in is gutting environmental protections and muzzling scientists. Stuffing gags in the mouths of government scientists was among the first things a Stephen Harper minority government did when they were elected in 2006. Scientists and other experts were told they had to get permission from the Prime Minister’s communications office to talk to media. Even when studies by Environment Canada scientists are publicly available in scientific journals, reporters have to file their science questions with the communications office who decide if scientists will answer.  The process takes days and sometimes weeks.

By 2010 media coverage of climate change in Canada declined by over 80% according to internal government documents obtained by the Climate Action Network (Canada), a coalition of 80 non-governmental organizations. Incidentally only weeks after Harper's election the coalition's funding was eliminated.

Even scientists in universities and independent research institutes hesitate to speak out. Thomas Duck, an atmospheric scientist at Halifax's Dalhousie University said he'd never again get federal funding for his research after speaking to me about the recent gutting of Environment Canada.

In 2011 the Harper government claimed financial hardship and slashed $200 million from Environment Canada's budget. The programmes targeted were those informing Canadians about the state of the environment and will have a direct impact on the health and welfare of Canadians, said Duck.

"I'm speaking out because these cuts will be very bad for my children," he added.

The muzzling of Canada's scientists has been widely criticized by international science organizations. This week Canada's Information Commissioner launched a formal investigation.

It may now be risky for ordinary Canadians to speak out in one of the world's most lauded democracies. The Harper government considers environmental activists potential threats to national security. Tar sands, gas wells, coal trains and pipelines are now conflated as essential to national security based on analysis of documents obtained by the Surveillance Studies Centre at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario

Those documents show that the RCMP and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) view activist activities such as blocking access to roads or buildings as "forms of attack" and depict those involved as national security threats

It's the “new normal” for Canada's security agencies to keep a close eye on the activities of environmental organisations. Greenpeace Canada's executive director Bruce Cox, has had recent meetings with the head of the RCMP but Cox insists that it is “governments and fossil fuel industry who are the extremists, threatening the prosperity of future generations."

The world is finally figuring out what's happening to Canada.

“The Harper government's decisions reflect the narrow interests of Canada’s fossil fuel industry,” said Christoph Bals, policy director of Germanwatch, a German NGO focused on development and global equity.

Bals was referring to decisions to pull Canada out of the Kyoto Protocol, the only international climate treaty and last week's decision to abandon the UN organization fight to reduce drought and land degradation (UNCCD).

“That decision and the UNCCD decision do not reflect the majority of Canadians, in my opinion,” said Bals.

Perhaps the growing concerns by people outside of Canada will finally force more Canadians to cut through the curtains of corporate and government propaganda and ask themselves: “What has happened to my country?”

Image Credit: Tar sands refineries in Fort McMurray by Kris Krug, used with permission.

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

Sunday marked the beginning of Freedom to Read week, an annual event reminding Canadian citizens of the intellectual freedom they are constitutionally guaranteed. It also reminds us we are governed by other citizens with the capacity to permit or limit that freedom. These are citizens that we can hold accountable only to the extent that we know how they make their decisions and what consequences those decisions have.

The event this year stands out on the Canadian political landscape, an uncomfortable reminder of just how frustrated the free flow of information has become in this country.

The timing is significant, as the event arrives on the heels of a University of Victoria study that highlights the Harper government’s efforts to restrict media access to federal scientists.

The study, called Muzzling Civil Servants: a Threat to Democracy and conducted by the university’s Environmental Law Clinic, found that new federal communications policies require government scientists to receive consent and coaching from media relations officers before speaking with reporters. The report also found that Environment Canada scientists are prevented from publicly commenting on such matters as “climate change or the protection of polar bear and caribou until the Privy Council gives approval.”

Such restrictive policies mean federal scientists are unable to respond to media requests within a short timeframe. With increasing regularity, interviews with scientists are grossly delayed or simply denied.

The government’s role in severing the ties between scientists and the media has been seen as integrally tied to the government’s role in streamlining industrial development in Canada, a plan in which tar sands expansion, increased levels of fracking, pipelines and supertankers are all implicated.

Now, more than ever, is not the time to scale back on or suppress the communication of the one thing that – in the world of heavy industry – stands between responsibility and recklessness: science.

Environment Minister Peter Kent recently praised Canada for the nation’s increased transparency and accountability in environmental decision-making, while outside the bureaucratic chambers journalists, academics and environmental organizations decried the government’s role in obscuring or misrepresenting inconvenient facts about Canada’s flagging environmental stewardship.

The one thing these recent events have made clear is the federal government’s willingness to prioritize public relations over public access to information.

Last week’s Muzzling report was addressed to Canada’s embattled Information Commissioner, Suzanne Legault.

Legault, referring to immense delays in access to information processing and dwindling percentage of disclosed information, told the CBC the Harper government is “not the most transparent.”

Unlike other Commonwealth countries, such as Great Britain and Australia, our Information Commissioner only has the power to suggest how requests should be handled, and cannot order departments to expedite responses or the release of information.

As Elizabeth Renzetti recently reminded us, this government’s transparency problem is not going away. Scientists will become more aggravated, like the hundreds who gathered on Parliament hill last July to make their frustration known. And they will likely become more empowered, with respected voices rallying them to fight back.

Canada has dropped ten places in the World Press Freedom Index since last year. We now sit at number twenty out of ninety – not even first in the Americas.

A sorry state of affairs when one must ‘celebrate’ the Freedom to Read in a country with no Freedom of the Press.

But we can also look upon this as good news. Because the only truly bad news is the kind that is withheld.

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What a difference a decade makes – especially when it comes to government-directed communications policies regarding science, and especially when you're in Canada. 

In 2003 a Canadian-American research collaboration, involving scientists from US universities and Canada's Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO), began in the Eastern Arctic to track oceanic conditions and ice flow in the Nares Strait.

During its early stages, government rules regarding communication and publication about the project were meant to encourage scientific and academic freedom: "Data and any other project-related information shall be freely available to all Parties to this Agreement and may be used, disseminated or published, at any time," the agreement reads.

Now, under new restrictions imposed by DFO officials, scientists are prevented from sharing any information with a third party without the explicit consent of a high-ranking bureaucrat. According to the 2013 agreement, all technology and information related to DFO research, even if conducted in collaboration with outside parties, is "deemed to be confidential and neither party may release such information to others in any way whatsoever without prior written authorization of the other party."

For one American academic currently collaborating with DFO in the Arctic, this type of policy suppresses the free flow of scientific information and is a "potential muzzle." Andreas Muenchow of the University of Delaware is the avid blogger behind "Icy Seas: Scientific Musings of a Sailor in a Changing Climate" and fears the strict new policy will prevent him and other scientists from publishing about their project.

Under the new guidelines DFO managers decide how scientists like Muenchow use the scientific information they gather in their work, leaving the fate of scientific communication regarding the project in the hands of bureaucrats and not scientists.

After the January 29 memo outlining the new communications protocol was highlighted yesterday by Postmedia's Margaret Munro scientists like Muenchow were informed their work – if conducted in partnership with DFO scientists – is also subject to the new guidelines.

Any material prepared for publication must be approved by a DFO Division Manager before being submitted to an external source like a journal.

This document, released by an anonymous DFO insider on the blog Unmuzzled Science, details the new publication procedure:

DFO Communications Advisor Melanie Carkner originally denied any changes had been made to the department's publication policy after journalist Michael Harris originally reported on the story. Yesterday Postmedia's Munro reported Frank Stanek, manager of media relations for DFO, said the department was not prepared to comment on the rules.

Muenchow, in the meantime told Postmedia's Munro he will not be signing the new agreement that threatens his "freedom to speak, publish, educate, learn and share." He is currently working with the University of Delaware and DFO to renegotiate the agreement and today gave this statement to DeSmog Canada: 

"This is a very delicate situation for me to be in at the moment, because the proposed Confidentiality Rules as reported by Margaret Munro in the Ottawa Citizen, Vancouver Sun, and other Canadian papers are being negotiated between the University of Delaware and the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans as part of a Collaborative Agreement.

As such, for now, I would not want to inject myself any further into a public debate over policy, even if these policies have the potential to impact my work. I think it is in my best (scientific) interest to let the negotiations process play itself out."

Muenchow, like so many other scientists in his shoes will have to be extra cautious from now on in, to ensure his academic freedom escapes Canada intact. 

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

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

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