Governing in the dark: Ottawa’s dangerous unscientific revolution
C. Scott Findlay
Most Canadians understand that our well-being depends on science. But Canadian science is under assault. And scientists, like Peter Finch in the film Network, are mad as hell. In July, more than 2,000 of them staged a mock funeral for scientific evidence on Parliament Hill to protest the Harper government’s dismantling of Canadian institutions that collect scientific evidence, the muzzling of government scientists, and the erosion of the role of scientific evidence in public debate and regulatory decisions.
The rally was covered by news media across Canada and around the world. Nature, perhaps the world’s premier science journal, ran a lead editorial on the event, concluding: “If the Harper government has valid strategic reasons to undermine vital sectors of Canadian science, then it should say so . . .”
Predictably, the next day Minister of State for Science and Technology Gary Goodyear issued a hasty press release pointing out that the last budget included a $1.1 billion investment in science. Even the lay public saw through this embarrassingly transparent attempt to dodge the issue, which was about the gathering, unfiltered dissemination and use of scientific evidence, not about the funding of science writ large.
Even so, close examination of the $1.1 billion investment shows that much has been allocated to industry and commercial science partnerships. Meanwhile, the proportion of funding allocated to basic research, such as the budget of the Discovery Grants program of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, has been dropping steadily since 2006.
more
http://www.thestar.com/opinion/article/1269189--governing-in-the-dark-ottawa-s-dangerous-unscientific-revolution
= new reply since forum marked as read
