"In sharp contrast to past Canadian practice and current U.S. Government practice, the federal government has recently made efforts to prevent the media and the general public from speaking to government scientists,” Tyler Sommers, coordinator of Democracy Watch, wrote in a statement about a complaint they filed Wednesday, citing Canada's Access to Information Act.
Well, he doesn't know the US all that well. It's no secret that the Obama administration refuses to fund science they don't like, muzzles and spies on scientists, and edits reports that disagree with the current political agenda - just like all US presidents have done (though with virtually no outcry from academia or science media since January of 2009), but now Canada does it too? Their taxes are now the same as ours, the dollar is worth as much as ours - I'd like to move there and get some free health care, except now their federal government is as hostile to independent science as ours? Come on Canada, you can do better.
Democracy Watch says the Canadian government is creating an 'icy chill' in science because scientists are not being allowed to speak to the media at all, or bureaucratic procedures delay approval to speak to the media so journalists would have to miss deadlines, or government handlers sit in on interviews with scientists. It's positively George Bush-ian. Or Barack Obama-ian. What it is not, is Canadian.
Here's hoping they fix it.
