The Harper Regime's Contempt For Science

Those who follow the depredations of the Harper regime will know of the terrible attacks that science and research have undergone these past several years. Cuts to funding, closing of research centres, and muzzling of scientists are common occurrences. Indeed, not even the recent news of the early success of the Ebola vaccine was enough to lift, even temporarily, the government stranglehold on researchers.

Now the scientific community is fighting back.

Evidence for Democracy (E4D), a non-profit organization that advocates on behalf of the scientific community, has created a website that calls out the federal government for actions the group says have sabotaged Canadian progress and prosperity.

“We’re really trying to get across the sort of idea that science and government making smart, informed decisions is part of what made Canada such a great country,” the group’s executive director Dr. Katie Gibbs said in an interview with The Huffington Post Canada.

A great website whose database offers access to heartbreaking stories of countless closings, cutbacks and restrictions on communications, True North Smart + Free, created by Evidence For Democracy is a must to visit to get a sense of the breadth and depth of the Harper regime's contempt for science.

The closure of seven research libraries and an internal government memo accusing an oil sands researcher of “bias” are among cases the website highlights.

Visitors to the website are asked to take the “science pledge” — a non-binding declaration condemning “restrictive rules,” promising support for actions that champion a transparent, evidence-based political system that serves in the public interest.

I hope you will visit the website, take the pledge and, most importantly, help spread the word.

King Stephen's Fondest Dream

H/t Project Democracy

More On Government Muzzling

Yesterday, I posted a video of recently retired Fisheries and Oceans Canada biologist Steve Campana speaking about the sad state of morale within bureaucratic ranks. The Harper regime's obsession with control and secrecy means that government scientists are forbidden to speak about their research without going through a labyrinthine series of communications protocols that often still result in denial of permission to speak to 'outsiders,' i.e., the public.

Here is how one government scientist responded to the post, anonymously:

I speak as a government scientist who knows of what Dr. Campana speaks. The squeeze comes from a couple of directions - benign budgetary neglect and active silencing. The budgetary issues are shared by most other government departments:

- attrition of critical personnel as scientific staff are lost to the private sector or retirement and are rarely if ever replaced,

- the similar loss of administrative staff and the downloading of their jobs onto scientific and technical personnel (it is shameful how much time some of us spend doing travel requests and administration)

- loss of program funding which results in decreased opportunity for data collection or equipment purchases

- loss of critical infrastructure - technical library closures, loss of oceanographic vessels, etc...

- loss of travel budgets that have essentially cut many scientists out of the conference loop. This might seem to the outsider like a perk, and in some ways it is, however conferences provide more opportunities to begin important collaborations than any other way I know.

As for the communications issues, I think Dr. Campana summed it up perfectly. As employees, we are generally allowed to publish scientific journals (with some restrictions to more sensitive projects, I presume), but we are basically not allowed to ever speak with the media, even on the most benign of subjects. This has been brought about by the establishment of the Orwellian-named "Communication" branches within each department whose jobs seem to be the restriction of communication at all costs, and through the establishment of a hush-hush environment that is established from the top down. Also, local regional directors are more and more frequently hired outside of their areas of expertise, as if management is a thing in and of itself and knowledge of the department being managed is of secondary importance.

I could go on, but you probably get the point.

Meanwhile, yesterday on Power and Politics, Biologist Katie Gibbs, founder of Evidence for Democracy, addressed the issue with Power and Politics' Evan Solomon:


Finally, today's Star weighs in with a hard-hitting editorial on the issue, observing how this government repression has not gone unnoticed both domestically and internationally:

In the past couple of years the New York Times, Nature magazine, the Guardian and The Economist have all written critical articles pleading for our scientists to be set free.

Federal Information Commissioner Suzanne Legault is investigating complaints that federal scientists have been muzzled by the government.

A survey from Environics Research last year found that 91 per cent of government scientists feel they cannot share their expertise with the media without facing censure from their bosses.

Our democracy continues to wither; it will take collective concern and strong electoral action from the wider public to reverse this sad state of affairs.

A Recently Retired Government Scientist Speaks Out:

This is sad beyond words.

A recently retired Fisheries and Oceans Canada biologist says the muzzling of federal government scientists is worse than anyone can imagine.

Steve Campana, known for his expertise on everything from Great white sharks to porbeagles and Arctic trout, says the atmosphere working for the federal government is toxic.

"I am concerned about the bigger policy issues that are essentially leading to a death spiral for government science," he said in an exclusive interview.

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

The Harper Strategy

H/t Marry Ellen Davis

The Harper Attack On The Environment - Part Two

Continuing the series I started the other day, here is another excerpt from Science Under Attack, a chapter in Elizabeth May's memoir Who We Are.

Much of that chapter is devoted to the science of climate change, a science that, although constantly under attack by the ignorant and the well-funded climate-change denial industry, is essentially irrefutable. The foundation of its credibility, of course, is research. It is that research that the Harper regime has been systematically hobbling since it came to office:

March 2012 marked the end of all funding for the Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences (now the Canadian Climate Forum). The funds put in place in 2000, $110 million over ten years for autonomous research funding in Canada's major universities, had been spend expanding our understanding of the climate crisis in its multi-faceted disciplines of inquiry.

As reported in The Star at the time of its closure,

the Harper government promised a new program to replace the foundation. It committed itself to delivering $35 million to the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) of Canada over five years...

But, for reasons that were never explained, that funding never materialized. The result?

The ensuing funding gap has caused many university-based climate and atmospheric science activities to collapse. With scientists already reeling from draconian cuts to Environment Canada, widespread layoff notices have resulted in a brain drain the like of which has not been seen for a generation. Rather than “attracting world-leading talent,” Canada is quickly divesting itself of its best and brightest.

Stay tuned for the next installment on the Harper wrecking crew.

An Inse Suggestion

In my morning post, I reprinted the following letter from The Toronto Star:

With Stephen Harper’s Conservatives intent to push science back to medieval times, it may be time for Canadians to embrace those efforts and get with Harper Times. Issue all conservatives a bell to be worn in public. They have become pariahs of society, like the lepers of old, and should be treated as such.

How a party representing less than 40 per cent of the electorate can be allowed to systematically dismantle our democracy and scientific institutions shows the current first past the post voting system is a relic that has long passed its expiry date.

Tyler Lindsay, Niagara Falls

Inse subsequently sent me the following, which I post with thanks, clearly reflective of the spirit of Tyler Lindsay's missive:

2015: Day Two

H/t The Toronto Star

Well, it is good to know that Star letter-writers have lost none of their edge over the holiday season. Responding to the paper's recent editorial lacerating the Harper regime's science policy ("Whatever the government’s motives, whatever it understands or does not about how science works, it has over the last eight years devastated Canadian research in a way that will be hard to reverse.") they offered the following:

Re: Canada needs a brighter science policy, Editorial Dec. 28

A lack of national science policy is fallout from the Conservative strategy of pitting one end of the nation against another, favouring pipeline-rich Alberta and shunning Ontario, for example.

There is no mechanism for uniting Canadians against this divisive, undermining approach. Stephen Harper has made clear that those who do not subscribe to his views are on his “enemies” list, and this would include scientists and other intellectuals who would challenge his free market doctrine.

The disrespect Harper has shown scientists, Statistics Canada, and others such as veterans and aboriginal peoples, is a form of contempt all Canadians should note come the next federal election.

Unlike the openness and enthusiasm for science joyfully brought forth to Canadians by Commander Chris Hadfield, Harper has silenced the dialogue about any policies Canadians value as fundamental to our democracy and impeded the future of Canada’s membership in a worldwide community of scientific research.
One has to wonder about his motives. It is time for Canadians to stand up.

Diane Sullivan, Toronto

The Harper government has taken us back several decades in our understanding of our relationship with the natural world, decades we may not be able to recover. Degrading our natural systems — wetlands, lakes, rivers, forests, wildlife, diversity of species and atmosphere — and calling the resultant increase in GDP a benefit to society is counterintuitive.

Instead of reveling in the exploitation of the sources of our water, food, air, flood protection, erosion control, soil fertility, resilience to diseases or invasive species, and protection from climate change, it would be far more productive to develop National Accounts that place a value on the assets of our natural world.

We continue to devalue the natural world of which we are a part and is essential for our existence, at our own peril.

Melanie Milanich, Toronto

With Stephen Harper’s Conservatives intent to push science back to medieval times, it may be time for Canadians to embrace those efforts and get with Harper Times. Issue all conservatives a bell to be worn in public. They have become pariahs of society, like the lepers of old, and should be treated as such.

How a party representing less than 40 per cent of the electorate can be allowed to systematically dismantle our democracy and scientific institutions shows the current first past the post voting system is a relic that has long passed its expiry date.

Tyler Lindsay, Niagara Falls

Sometimes Mockery Is the Best Weapon

H/t Vicki Denyer

What If?

Last evening, I was watching the 6o'c lock news, distracted and perturbed by the howling winds (up to 100 kms. per hour) buffeting our windows. Here in Southern Ontario, about 100 kilometres from the snowstorm that has devasted Buffalo, I can perhaps be forgiven for feeling especially sensitive to increasingly frequent bouts of extreme weather linked to climate change.

Then I was overcome with a real anger whose origin I couldn't immediately identify. But as I thought about it, I realized that it was in part related to the prospect of a power outage, something we seem to experience here at least three or four times a year. There is nothing like a power outage to reduce us to an almost primal state, a state in which our facade of mastery of the universe is brutally stripped away. It is always a sobering and humbling opportunity to realize that, vis-à-vis nature, we are nothing.

Then I realized the real basis for my anger: all of the corporate and federal poltical hostility to taking meaningful action to try to keep the global rise in temperatures within 2 degrees Celsius, the uppermost limit that science tells us might prevent runaway and irreversible climate change.

While our overlords may safely (but temporarily) ensconce themselves as the worst comes to pass, the rest of us will be left to contemd with an increasingly harsh environment, all so that corporate entities can continue to amass record profits, taking all they can before the world as we know it disappears.

Then a thought occurred to me. The Salamander has frequently commented on how we need some powerful symbols, metaphors, and imagery around which opposition to the Harper agenda can coalesce. What if, for all the increasingly volatile weather, for all of the power outages, for all of the floods, for all of the "100-year storms," and for all of the other frequent natural disasters we are facing, Canadians place the blame where it belongs: let us affix pictures in our public consciousness (and in our advertising) that expose the corporate giants and their chief Canadian aider and abettor, Stephen Harper, for what they are: Protectors of a monied status quo that is dooming the rest of us to a life soon to become nasty, brutish, and perhaps short.

What if, when the next wallop of nature visits us, we think of it this way:

This storm is brought to you by Stephen Harper, who refuses to lift a finger to mitigate climate change.

Just a thought.

Score Another One For Rick

Another acerbic commentary from Canada's conscience.

Another Reason Not To Subscribe To The Globe and Mail

As I noted recently, we are currently receiving a free three-month subscription to the Globe, one that we will not be renewing. My last post on the subject dealt with one of the reasons. Here is another.

In its 'wisdom,' and despite widespread evidence to the contrary, Canada's self-proclaimed 'newspaper of record' insists, in its Monday editorial, that the Harper regime is not muzzling scientists.

As with so many other efforts by The Globe to extol Dear Leader, the piece starts off deceptively, seeming to suggest there is a basis for concern:

The Conservative government only undermines itself by restricting the ability of federally employed scientists to communicate freely with the public and the media. It feeds suspicion, suggesting that Canada has something to hide, for example, on such controversial matters as the oil sands – wrongly or rightly.

So far, so good. Then:

Last week, the Union of Concerned Scientists, an American organization, and the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada sent Prime Minister Stephen Harper an open letter strongly recommending that Canada no longer insist that government scientists get the permission of a media relations officer before they speak to journalists. Fifteen thousand or so researchers are said to be affected by such rules. There were 800 signatories – Canadian government researchers themselves did not sign it.

Hmmm. Even better. Has the self-titled 'newspaper of record' finally seen the light?

The PIPSC rhetorically exaggerates when it repeatedly says that government scientists are “muzzled.” But in November, 2007, the Conservatives did lay down a rule that any media interview with Environment Canada scientists would be “co-ordinated” by communications staff.

And then we get to the 'exculpatory' heart of the matter, at least what passes as exculpatory in Globeworld:

David Tarasick of Environment Canada and others wrote a paper in 2011, which appeared in one of the world’s most respected scientific journals, Nature, saying there had been an extraordinary loss in the ozone layer over the Arctic. Nobody in government got in the way of its publication, so it cannot be said that Dr. Tarasick was silenced. This was not a case of Galileo, the motion of the heavenly bodies and the Inquisition.

The paper then reveals what the 'real' problem is.

Nonetheless, “media relations” did get in the way of direct, effective engagement with reporters who might have been able to translate scientific language into news stories adapted for the general public.

So you see, it is just a bureaucratic problem that has created a 'bottleneck.'

It is one thing for cabinet ministers and MPs to work with communication staffs in order to keep the government’s messages consistent and coherent, in accordance with cabinet solidarity. It is quite another to insist that thousands of researchers communicate through legions of flacks. That inevitably creates bottlenecks.

So, the message from the Globe, obviously labouring under the delusion that it still has real influence on public thinking, is simple: Nothing to see here. Move along. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

Telescope vision is one thing. Patent dishonesty is quite another.

The paper is right about something, however. When it comes to The Globe and Mail, there really is nothing to see there.

UPDATED: Another Group Shames Harper

It is to be hoped that the closer we move to next year's election, more and more Canadians will be wagging their fingers at Stephen Harper for his various acts of destruction in this country. For now, let's enjoy the fact that this group is doing it for us:

An organization known for its efforts to improve scientific integrity within the U.S. government is taking aim at Prime Minister Stephen Harper over policies and funding cuts that it says are detrimental to Canadian public science.

In an open letter released Tuesday, the Union of Concerned Scientists urged Mr. Harper to lift a communications protocol that prevents federal researchers from speaking with journalists without approval from Ottawa. The letter also refers to barriers that it says inhibit collaboration with colleagues in the broader scientific community.

The letter, signed by over 800 academic researchers working outside of Canada,

was released jointly with the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada (PIPSC), the union that represents more than 15,000 scientists employed within a range of government departments and agencies. It includes a reference to a PIPSC survey, conducted in 2013, which found that 90 per cent of more than 4,000 of the federal scientists who responded felt they could not speak freely about their work.

Dennis Hansell, chairman of the Department of Ocean Sciences at the University of Miami and one of the signatories, said:

“As a global scientist I need Canadians to be involved so I can get my work done too. If there’s any threat to that, that’s a problem,” said Dr. Hansell, who is in the midst of proposing a project in the Arctic that would require the co-ordination of U.S., German and Canadian research teams.

Much of the world seems aware of the autocracy and fear that exists in Canada. Let's hope that sufficient numbers of Canadian voters will soon become similarly enlightened.

UPDATE: Of course the Harper regime, used to such international disparagement, said black is white:

In a statement responding to the letter, Scott French, a spokesman for Ed Holder, minister of state for science and technology, said the government has made "record investments in science, technology and innovation."

With regard to the freedom of federal scientists to communicate, French said, "While ministers are the primary spokespersons for government departments; scientists have, and are readily available to share their research with Canadians," he said. He added that federal departments and agencies produce over 4,000 science publications per year, including 700 peer-reviewed articles last year alone.

As usual, everyone else is wrong, and the Harper regime leads the world in all that is sacred and holy.

Another Reminder Of The Regime Under Which We Chafe

I hope none of us forgets this, just one small part of the Harper programme to promote ignorance, stifle informed discussion, and ravage the environment.

Fighting The Darkness

Knowledge is power, and withholding knowledge is crippling.

So states scientist Sarah Otto, in an op-ed piece in today's Star. Sadly, when we apply that truth to the Canadian reality, it becomes apparent that all of us are confined to metaphorical wheelchairs.

Referring to a report released last week by Evidence for Democracy, Otto laments the sad state of ignorance fostered by our repressive federal overlords:

Overall, we earned only a 55-per-cent grade, on average, for the openness of communication policies for federal scientists here in Canada. Compare that with the U.S., where the average grade using the same methods was 74 per cent in 2013.

A few specific examples, only the tip of the iceberg according to Otto, attest to our government's contempt for openness:

- Scott Dalimore, a geoscientist at Natural Resources Canada, was prevented from doing media interviews about his research on a 13,000-year-old flood.

- Kristi Miller, a scientist at the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, was prevented from publicly discussing work she published on salmon.

- David Tarasick, an environmental scientist at Environment Canada, was prevented from speaking publicly about his research on the ozone layer.

And this statistic should be quite sobering to all citizens:

A recent survey was conducted by the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada, a union representing scientists in 40 federal departments. It found 90 per cent of scientists felt that they cannot speak freely to the media about the work they do.

Otto, who was asked by government scientists to speak up for them, learned some other facts about their muzzling that should outrage all Canadians:

I have been told, in confidence, about important results being held up from publication in scientific journals, waiting for approval, about missed opportunities to inform the public about research, and about cases where scientists were asked not to publish, chillingly because “we want the public to forget” about this issue.

While she ends her article with some specific suggestions to remediate this deplorable state of affairs, longtime observers will conclude there really is only one viable fix, the opportunity for which comes next year when, I hope, sufficient numbers of informed Canadians go to the polls to cast judgement on the current cabal.

And Speaking of Disappearances...

It seems like the silence over the disappearing Environment Canada committee discussed in my previous post may have had its precedent set back in 2012, when another strange silence was orchestrated over another disappearance.

Margaret Munro, in The Ottawa Citizen, reports new evidence of the Harper regime suppressing information Canadians have a right to by muzzling our federal scientists. In 2012, the amount of Arctic ice hit its lowest level ever, and Canadian Ice Service scientists wanted to tell us about it, to warn us of its implications.

[Leah] Braithwaite and her colleagues — aware of the national and international interest in the shrinking polar ice — wanted to hold a “strictly factual” technical briefing for the media to inform Canadians how the ice had disappeared from not only the Northwest Passage but many normally ice-choked parts of the Arctic.

Having to go through nine approval levels before they could impart the information doomed the effort. Newly-released documents reveal the following:

“Ministerial services” — the sixth layer — cancelled the briefing, the documents say. And the ice service scientists ended up watching as the Canadian media and public got most of their information from the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC ), where scientists were quick to give interviews, hold briefings and issue press releases as the ice shattered records as it melted from Baffin Island to the Beaufort Sea.

Observers say the case is further evidence of the way the Conservative government is silencing scientists.

“It’s suppression through bureaucracy,” said Katie Gibbs, executive director of Evidence for Democracy (E4D ), an Ottawa-based non-profit pushing for open communication of government science.

“Why is it that we need nine levels of approval for this sort of thing, what’s the justification,” said biologist Scott Findlay, a co-founder of E4D and member of the Institute for Science, Society and Policy at the University of Ottawa.

He said the government’s “Byzantine message control” is not only wasting time, money and resources, but having a “corrosive” effect on the public service.

Perhaps naively, Findley also suggested that

federal scientists are professionals and the government should trust them to interact with the media and release information that is in the public interest, such as conditions and changes in the Arctic ice.

The development of trust requires a degree of integrity and good mental health on the part of both parties, qualities that, sadly, we have come to discover, Mr. Harper and his minions are deeply deficient in.

No Surprise Here- An Update

Tuesday's post discussed the apparent disappearance of a committee made up of representatives from Environment Canada, the Alberta government and oil and gas companies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the tarsands. Investigative reporter Mike De Souza provides important new information about this committee on his website.

Putting the heat on Environment Minister Leona Aglukkaq in the House of Commons, NDP environment critic Megan Leslie suggested it is time for the Harper regime to stop stalling:

“After seven years of the government’s broken promises to introduce greenhouse gas rules for the oil and gas sector Canadians are still waiting,” Leslie said.

“Now we hear that Environment Canada has stopped talking to the industry and the Alberta government altogether. In fact, the (federal) government-led committee hasn’t met since March 2013. When will this government quit stalling and when will we see the regulations?”

Of course, as is standard operating procedure for this government, Aglukkaq did not answer, preferring to mouth platitudes about what a great job the government is doing in reducing emissions in this country:

“We have taken action on some of the largest sources of emissions in this country, the transportation and the electricity-generation sector” ... “I’m also looking forward to taking part in the UN climate summit in New York next week to speak to Canada’s record in taking action on climate change.”

And this is hardly a time for obfuscation and misdirection:

Environment Canada estimated earlier this year that greenhouse gas emissions from the oilsands increased by 307 per cent between 1990 and 2012. The carbon emissions were projected to grow a further 61 per cent before the end of the decade.

A clue as to why the committee's work suddenly ceased may be found here:

Behind closed doors, internal records obtained by Greenpeace Canada through provincial freedom of information legislation revealed that industry lobbyists rejected proposals from the Alberta government to introduce tough rules, and instead suggested delaying action to allow for more “study, analysis and consultation.”

Concludes Keith Stewart, a Toronto-based climate and energy campaigner at Greenpeace Canada:

“This is what happens when a government opens the doors wide to the oil industry and shuts out everyone else ... The upstream oil and gas industry is now the biggest carbon polluter in the country precisely because the Harper government gives in every time they cry poor. Meanwhile, the public foots the ever-rising bill for climate disasters while the oil companies post record profits.”

It seems safe to conclude that this is yet more evidence that Stephen Harper is not here for us.

No Surprise Here - Part Two

Given Stephen Harper's most recent demonstrated indifference to climate change, I report the following with no surprise, only a degree of tired resignation:

Environment Canada appears to have quietly ended key discussions that were intended to tackle carbon pollution from the oil and gas industry.

A committee made up of representatives from Environment Canada, the Alberta government and oil and gas companies was created in the fall of 2011 to develop options to reduce industrial greenhouse gases from the oilsands sector, the country’s fastest growing source of carbon emissions.

But the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP), which was part of the committee, says it stopped getting invitations to meetings in 2013.

“We have no knowledge of the group having met since March 2013,” said Alex Ferguson, the vice-president of policy and performance at the association, which represents Canadian oil and gas companies, in an email to the Star.

The most discouraging aspect of the report is this:

The Harper government has estimated it won’t achieve the prime minister’s international climate change commitment to reduce emissions by 2020, mainly because of rising pollution from the oil and gas sector.

While most Canadian industries have reduced their carbon footprints, the oilsands sector has moved in the opposite direction increasing its emissions by 307 per cent between 1990 and 2012, Environment Canada estimated in a report submitted to the United Nations earlier this year.

Once again, under this administration Canada is proving to be one of the West's most egregious climate-change outliers. It is not a distinction any of us should take pride in.

No Surprise Here

Rather typical, wouldn't you say?

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is hosting a major climate summit in New York on September 23, “to mobilize political will” towards reducing global emissions.

U.S. President Barack Obama will be attending, as will U.K. Prime Minster David Cameron.

In fact, 125 heads of state will be there.

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, however, will not.

And please remember:


This message not brought to you by the Committee to Re-elect Stephen Harper.

Our Anti-Democratic Democracy

This morning, in my print edition of The Toronto Star, I saw the following headline: Canadian scientists to be placed in isolation. While it turned out to be a story about the evacuation of a Canadian medical team helping to fight Ebola in Sierra Leone, for a brief moment I thought it concerned the latest efforts by the Harper regime to muzzle our scientists.

I can perhaps be forgiven for my initial confusion. Reading Paul Wells' book on Stephen Harper, The Longer I'm Prime Minister, two things become apparent: the Harper regime is in constant re-election mode, and a foundation of that never-ending campaign is the almost complete control it exercises over government sources of information.

Having studied what brought down previous governments, Harper et al. have almost always refused to hold national inquiries or House committee investigations into contentious matters. Such would involve too many variables that could wind up embarrassing the government and providing fodder for the opposition (a.k.a. 'enemies'). And woe to he who 'commits sociology.'

Yet of course these restrictions of information, these eliminations of the tools whereby patterns can be detected, these constant and crass manipulations of the Canadian people are all grave disservices to our democracy, predicated as it is on the essential freedoms that the Harper Conservatives find so threatening.

One of the most egregious examples of the Harper contempt for democracy is the regime's muzzling of government scientists, those civil servants who are funded by the taxpayer and whose research is, at least in theory, intended for the public good. Apparently that takes a back seat to the political good of the Conservative Party.

An essay recently appeared in The Toronto Star by C. Scott Findlay, an Associate Professor of Biology at the University of Ottawa and co-founder of Evidence for Democracy, a organization that advocates for evidence-informed decision-making by governments. In it, the writer shows the absurd lengths to which the cabal goes in its never-ending re-election efforts.

He starts out by making reference to a Postmedia investigation that uncovered the following:

In 2012, as the Arctic ice hit the lowest point ever recorded, scientists at the Canadian Ice Service were keen to tell Canadians about the stunning ice loss.

Given the ominous implications for climate change of reduced ice cover, Canadian Ice Service chief of applied science, Leah Braithwaite, wanted to hold a “strictly factual” technical briefing for the media to inform Canadians how the ice had disappeared from not only the Northwest Passage but many normally ice-choked parts of the Arctic.

Reports Findlay:

Documents obtained under an Access to Information request show that the approval process for the briefing implicated nine different levels of government, from the director of CIS to the environment minister. Even the communications folks at the Privy Council Office felt obliged to put their imprimatur on a communications plan that was weeks in the making.

Yet despite the herculean efforts of CIS scientists to inform Canadians on the state of Canada’s arctic ice, a briefing that was planned for months was eventually cancelled.

But, he says, this should surprise no one, since the federal government’s obsession with message control is well known. In February, CBC News reported that tweets from Industry Canada are planned for weeks, scrutinized by dozens of public servants, revised by ministerial staff, and leadened by a (wait for it) 12-step protocol. (Emphasis added.)

Findlay laments the waste of taxpayer money expended in the suppression of publicly-funded research and information, but addresses the heart of the issue this way:

But the real costs of Orwellian message control are far greater. An uninformed public, which — as Thomas Jefferson noted — is the scourge of democracy. A federal public service whose motivation, creativity and productivity is being steadily eroded by the signal failure of politicians and political mandarins to treat public servants — scientists, managers and senior administrators alike — like responsible professionals, fully capable of making decisions about things like technical briefings.

It would appear that in Harperland, (public) ignorance is bliss.