Natural Resources Canada scientists were told this spring they need “pre-approval” from Minister Christian Paradis’ office to speak with national and international journalists. Their “media lines” also need ministerial approval, say documents obtained by Postmedia News through access-to-information legislation.
The documents say the “new” rules went into force in March and reveal how they apply to not only to contentious issues including the oilsands, but benign subjects such as floods that occurred 13,000 years ago.
Before any of you wingnuts go on about who cares what happened 13,000 years ago, they why are we paying people to message-manage scientists about that? And consider also that all messages are being managed and edited.
They also give a glimpse of how Canadians are being cut off from scientists whose work is financed by taxpayers, critics say, and is often of significant public interest — be it about fish stocks, genetically modified crops or mercury pollution in the Athabasca River.
I don’t know about you, but I sure want to know what’s in my food and water.
The control and micro-management points to a high level of “science illiteracy” in the upper ranks of the federal government, (Weaver) says, and “incredible disrespect” for both the researchers and the taxpayers footing the government’s multi-billion-dollar science bill.
“The sad reality is that these guys in Ottawa think federal scientists work for them,” says Weaver. “They don’t, they work for the people of Canada. This is science funded by Canada for the public good,” he says. “It is not science funded to produce briefing notes for ministers so they can get elected in the next federal campaign.”
Canadians had better wake up and put a stop to this muzzling and editing. We pay for reports and studies, we should expect and receive the truth. It isn’t that the government considers us too fragile to handle the truth, it’s that it knows that we will indeed grasp it and expect those we elect to act on the information for our benefit, not theirs.
2 comments:
Well it is good to see that micromanaging is happening once again. God only knows what the ignorant people would do with real information...oh yeah and by the way I hope they start pushing God again, he was such a useful scapegoat...I mean source of information. In all seriousness though, I am very tired of not only watching this government getting away with increasing the totalitarian nature of our already dictatorial system. Far worse is that there seems to be no valid alternative that voters would stand behind. There are darker days still in our future, I hope everyone has a warm sleeping, its going to get awefully cold in this damned place.
very tired...darker days...I feel the same way. So discouraging to see that 1/3 of voters polled still support this anti-democratic government. The longer they hold power, the more they get a strangle-hold on information, and it'll get even worse.
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