The Harper conservatives won on a platform promising governmental transparency.To date this commitment has not been honored. In fact, the Harperites are probably the most secretive, paranoid, control freaks this country has ever elected. Obviously, all such generalizations are, at best, approximate. Still, the general trends are there for all to see and, at this late date, have become unequivocal if not notorious.
Having eyes, see ye not? and having ears, hear ye not? and do ye not remember? Mark 8: 18
Thus environmental science as it impacts the federal government's jurisdiction is, to varying degrees, "muzzled": research centers, libraries are closed, defunded. The excuse, of course, is provided by the neocon / Free Market idiotology: cut social services (education, aid to the poor or disempowered, the environment..) in order to "stimulate economic growth" which will then "trickle down" to lower socio-economic classes. The problem is that despite decades of following neocon economic gurus, the wealth she just ain't a trickled down no where, folks. In fact, the gap between rich and poor both within and between nations has, contrary to predictions, continually increased. Normally, when one tries a policy (or tests a hypothesis in science) and it produces results more or less contrary to those predicted, one scraps the policy (or hypothesis). This has not happened with the neocon / Free Market idiotology. Why?
http://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-may-20-2015-1.3080098/canadian-scientist-steve-campana-quits-over-government-muzzling-1.3080114
Check out the audio link - the "Listen" button. The interview with recently retired Dept of Fisheries and Oceans scientist Steve Campana begins at about minute 2 of the audioclip. (Campana, be it noted, is not "retired" for reasons of age. In fact, he seems hale and hearty and is working in Iceland where the air, apparently, is a bit freer.)
internal blog links: keywords: censorship
This link gives numerous internal blog links to suppression of environmental science by the Harper government
http://transparencycanada.blogspot.ca/2013/04/the-imperial-prime-minister-wither.html
Sometimes the neocon government spending cut mania leads to tragedy, for example when deregulated industries - left to "self-regulate" - prove to be menaces to public health and safety.
http://transparencycanada.blogspot.ca/2013/09/regulations-violated-in-alberta-tarsands.html
A series of 6 articles on Lac Mégantic train wreck of July 2013 is accessible using the keyword: accident. On that terrible night, 47 Friday night partiers were burned alive when a runaway, driverless train carrying shale oil careened into the town center, overturned and burst into a sea of burning oil. The deregulated rail industry (and the government who took part in that deregulation) are, in very large part to blame for this mass collective homicide (not intentional murder but literally "homi-cide" = "man killing"). Also to blame, more indirectly, our collective failure to develop green energy when we still had cheap energy to burn. Wind towers if they fail do not envelope people in seas of flame..
http://transparencycanada.blogspot.ca/2014/05/canada-new-face-of-authoritarianism.html
http://transparencycanada.blogspot.ca/2013/03/blow-open-doors-and-let-real-world-in.html
This one goes back 3 years, so the policy of muzzling science that is inconvenient for a "business-as-usual" economic, social and technological agenda goes back quite a way!
http://transparencycanada.blogspot.ca/2012/04/decline-and-fall-of-canadian-science.html
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