By James Heiser
Canadian scientists are learning the truth of the old maxim, “He who pays the piper calls the tune.” While the general public and most scientists believe that science should be a search for truth, government ministers in Ottawa have a different notion. Since March, the role of Canadian Minister of Natural Resources Christian Paradis has become that of scientific gatekeeper. According to the Vancouver Sun:
The Harper government has tightened the muzzle on federal scientists, going so far as to control when and what they can say about floods at the end of the last ice age.
Natural Resources Canada (NRC) scientists were told this spring they need "pre-approval" from Minister Christian Paradis' office to speak with 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 contentious issues including the oilsands, but benign subjects such as floods that occurred 13,000 years ago.
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.
Allegations of governmental muzzling of scientists could not come at a less auspicious time for the scientific community. Since news of the Climategate scandal spread around the world in late 2009, public confidence in the accuracy of the theoretical basis for ‘science’ behind sweeping collectivist legislation has collapsed. For example, polls have shown that as many as 67 percent of Americans doubt that climate change will pose a significant threat during their lifetimes — a significant erosion in the number of citizens prepared to be swept up in the storm of governmental and media hysteria.
News that a Western government is allegedly attempting to turn scientists into little more than shills for a party line — right down to “media lines” they would be expected to present to the public — threatens to further undermine the credibility of the entire scientific community.
According to the Vancouver Sun:
"We have new media interview procedures that require pre-approval of certain types of interview requests by the minister's office," wrote Judy Samoil, NRC's western regional communications manager, in a March 24 e-mail to colleagues.
The policy applies to "high-profile" issues such as "climate change, oilsands" and when "the reporter is with an international or national media organization (such as the CBC or the Canwest paper chain)," she wrote. ...
Samoil later elaborated, saying "the regional communications managers were advised of this change a couple of weeks ago."
The documents show the new rules being so broadly applied that one scientist was not permitted to discuss a study in a major research journal without "pre-approval" from political staff in Paradis' office.
Stumble It!
Harper is replaying the McCarthy era's "reds under every bed" paranoia......