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Canadian Government Muzzling Scientists
IllogicalStudent writes with this excerpt from 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 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 not only to 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."
http://www.pirateparty.ca/
Canadians voted for Harper and he is simply giving them what they asked for. Everybody knows scientists just take money from the government by ginning up fear and give us nothing tangible in return. It's time somebody stood up to them.
They criticize the Chinese about freedom of the press and then do everything they can to prevent truth escaping into the wild in Canada. Unfortunately by trying to hide the truth they highlight that this is good area to look for whatever they are trying to hide. Which highlights another Conservative trait, they aren't very bright.
What I read it as is that you will never hear anything from a government scientist that doesn't support the government agenda. It means that government scientists cannot realistically be treated as unbiased sources, the same way you wouldn't trust a tobacco funded study on the effects of cigarets. Would you really trust a government funded scientist's on the possible ecological damage caused by harvesting the oil sands if the current government's agenda had that as item number one? Most people would question that relationship anyway, but this new requirement makes it all but official; if you take government grant money, you will only publish results that agree with the government's stances.
When Government starts restricting information it means they are hiding something.
My only guess is that some of the Canadian Federal scientists have discovered things about climate and the oil sands that the Canadian Government is terrified of releasing. It's obviously a conspiracy among the Canadian big shots.
The Canadian people should demand all of their resignations and get a new PM in there pronto before what's ever going on the we don't know about happens and destroys Canada and possibly the World!
RIP America
July 4, 1776 - September 11, 2001
I spent much of my youth - including 2 different highschools - in Canada and it has to be one of the most government controlled propaganda using places ever - honestly you would think that they single handedly won WW2, that the bush pilot is a significant figure in world history and *everything* was invented in Canada.
The concept is that these scientists work for the Canadian people, not for the zealot of the day.
"The time for study is over, it is time for action" - John Baird, then Minister of Environment, before gutting the climate scientists budgets.
I have never in my life been ashamed to be Canadian. Until today. Thanks Stephen, you stupid ass!
If I were God, wouldn't I protect my churches from acts of me?
In Christian Paradis's Canada, science is under the inquisition? Irony and whatnot...
When, years ago, the soviets did this they were, rightly, lambasted.
Any scientist who doesn't work for the government works for industry. They're even more controlled in what they can say.
No scientist should have to check with the government before talking to the media. The only duty of a scientist is to advance knowledge. To promote truth. If you trust them to do that, you should have no problem with them talking to the media. If you can't trust them to do that, then why are you giving them grants?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
What's missing for me here is the government's claimed reason for doing this. National security?
Currently hooked on AMP
but they make up for it in viciousness.
"Slower traffic keep right" - Canadian road sign or political joke?
The core of the problem is that the conservative party currently in government is insanely partisan. Their entire MO is about "message management," with actual governing coming in a distant second or third. So of course they are going to try to muzzle scientists, and the actual research they are muzzling doesn't even need to make sense - it's done more as a Pavlovian reflex without taking the time to analyze whether the information is even sensitive or not.
The hypocrisy of it all is astounding considering this same party campaigned on the promise of "transparency and accountability" during the 2006 election.
If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
Why don't I have the feeling there's about to be a flood of, "That's it, I'm moving to the U.S.!"
What I read it as is that you will never hear anything from a government scientist that doesn't support the government agenda
if the current government's agenda had that as item number one
*CURRENT* being the key word. "The Government" has no agenda. It is a group of people intended to lay down and enforce some common rules; not a dictator. If you can't convince your countrymen that the government is going the wrong direction, and get them to vote it a different way, maybe you are the one in the wrong.
The fundamental problem with this philosophy is that 50% of voters are dumber than average (median).
No comprende? Let me type that a little slower for you...
They commissioned a scientist to research it, but the government didn't like the results so they didn't approve the scientist's application to publish.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
It may be different in Canada, but in the US, the professors in the field of education tend to be some of the greatest contributors to the various scientific fields. They generally don't work for the government or the industry.
This is the same government that has destroyed the accuracy of the Census under the smokescreen of "privacy rights." (We all know why the Conservatives don't like accurate census data; it makes it harder to spend money based on ideology rather than on real need.)
The Canadian government has always been notoriously non-transparent; even the Liberals have muzzled a scientist in the past.
The reason is basically that the current government is allergic to anything that puts them "off message." It's pure politics.
If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
This is a myth. Humans have known the earth to be round since at least the Greeks. Anyone who has ever been on a ship would have noticed the horizon and land seemingly disappearing over it.
The objections to Columbus was that he was bad at math and could not possibly get all the way to India with his supplies that way. He just got lucky that he ran into the Americas, otherwise he probably would have starved after running out of supplies.
My parents are retired scientists of world-class standing, previously employed by the Canadian federal government, with extensive networks of colleagues around the world as well as here in Canada. The current government's efforts to muzzle and control what scientists say is widely viewed as completely unacceptable by the scientists themselves, but the highest levels of the departments which employ them have long been taken over by bureacrats.
I would not be concerned with bias toward government goals on the part of the scientists, though. The government's attempts to vet and spin their public communications speaks quite eloquently to the scientists' integrity... and to this government's perfidy.
Corruptissima re publica plurimae leges.
I think that there is a misconception here. The Canadian government didn't suppress the publishing of the results, rather they prevented the scientists from contacting the media. Also, in response to the statement that only government supported claims would be published, even were that true a paper has to go through various hoops in order to get published. This includes peer review to make sure that the science is legitimate. There will always be other scientists who disagree and they are welcome to publish rebuttals.
Research professors get salaries that generally come directly from federal grants. They work for the government.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
As an American, trust me you do not want a two party system. You get only corporatists.
That's great, so whoever is in charge at the moment gets to decide which results get published. Why, they should fund a study to see which political party's policy will be best for the economy. That way everyone in the country will know for sure which party they should vote for... as long as it happens to be the one in charge, otherwise no one will ever see the results.
How are you supposed to convince others that the people in charge are wrong when the people in charge decide what information is available? You need access to information that shows them to be wrong, something that this law appears on the face to be designed to prevent. We've always been at war with Eastasia, and here's a historian that will corroborate that statement if you don't believe me.
Er, no. The publication process hasn't been muzzled as far as I know (and I'd probably know, see my comment further down). But this does point to some interesting challenges for the current generation of scientists.
Take a guy like Dave Schindler - when he ran ELA for the feds, he published and publicised ground-breaking work on nutrient loading and acid rain (to cite a couple of examples) that resulted in improved regulation. Today he's not employed by the feds, so he can and does tackle the oil sands issue, but those scientists who are employed by the feds are the ones who are told to vet their public comments.
Corruptissima re publica plurimae leges.
It's obviously a cover-up of climate change data, ordered by lobbyists for the planet-raping carbon industry. Those other restricted topics are only there to make the climate change cover-up a bit less flagrant.
"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power." -- Mussolini
The second agenda is to maintain the basic structure of the political environment. It is not advantageous for the democrats/republicans in the US to introduce an amendment that would bring proportional representation or otherwise disrupt their power balance. Neither side really wants reforms in tax structure, debate over currency, etc.
If the two major parties can distract the masses with issues that don't really matter they can share the power for the future.
If you can't convince your countrymen that the government is going the wrong direction, and get them to vote it a different way, maybe you are the one in the wrong.
Good luck getting most people to even vote, let alone go beyond their general apathy.
And that reasoning is laughable, the main point of freedom in a democracy is limited government first, that is the real pillar of freedom, democracy is second. Democracy without limited government is nothing more than mob justice. Your reasoning falls apart when you try to use it in a case. For example, is lynching justified? After all, everyone agrees with it!
A free government depends on limited government more than it depends on democracy .
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Same shit here in the US. Bush ran a very secretive government, and pulled the "We don't have to justify it to you," card to the other two branches often. Obama promised to change that... And really hasn't. The states secrets thing is getting pulled out, few changes are being made, etc.
Politicians don't like it when their opponents have secrets, but they love it when they do.
This rule appears to apply only to scientists who directly work for a government agency as employees, though, not to professors who are funded by federal grant money, or even professors who teach at public universities.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Harper, in his attempts to create a "Fox News" in Canada blasts those opposed to it using "Free Speech" arguments.
Harper is a hypocritical creep who has NO interest in the good of the people. He is interested in dumbing them down, propagandizing at them and limiting knowledge.
Propaganda is not an attempt to communicate. Rather, it regards people not as people but as little machines which can be programmed using the right strings of words and images calculated to illicit desired behavior. The moment somebody intends to manipulate, the act of communication has ended and the act of programming has begun. Freedom of speech laws were designed with the idea in mind that people fundamentally respected the humanness of their peers. They didn't have to respect one another's opinions, but the underlying assumption is that we are appealing to the soul and intelligence on a personal level and not a cynical machine-programming level. Put another way, humans must treat each other as humans and not as lab rats.
Propaganda doesn't respect fundamental humanity and therefore should not be brought under the protection of freedom of speech. Same with advertising.
-FL
Alas, while the conservatives did a 'Unite the right' and gained votes from the old conservative party and the reform party, the left has become increasingly fragmented. The Liberals, the NDP, the Green party. Even the Pirate party has a Canadian segment now. So if you lean conservative you have little choice. If you lean liberal you have so many choices. Thus the current stead of Canadian parliament.
UNIX/Linux Consulting
This isn't just Canada by any stretch - it's everywhere. And scientists are just the newest people being affected.
The problem is media. Not left-wing media, not right-wing media, but scandal happy media. From my perspective (in Canada), media have lost all desire to fill people in on what's happening, all they want is a scandal - something they can sell right now. They want to catch a politician (or a scientist) making a mistake or saying anything that a significant number of people will disagree with. And it's been getting worse for decades.
Now, sure, it makes sense that - to a certain extent - the media needs to maintain a bit of an adversarial role toward government. Media is an important check on the power of government. But that needs to be balanced by a desire to be informative rather than sensational and a desire to inform people with both sides of an issue.
How it is now, we've reached the point that, to be safe, politicians just don't say anything of any interest - and the only information we'll get will be vacuous and committee-written. Nobody wins in this situation.
To me, politicians and media share the blame on this one. Politicians need to be open, but media needs to ease off the trigger a bit so that being open isn't quite so suicidal. The best summary I've seen of this is here (David Mitchell).
Let's not stir that bag of worms...
The Harper government must still be stinging from the contents of the RCMP Long-Gun Registry report that they tried to suppress.
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Or perhaps the suppression of data that supports a contrarian opinion or action.
The facts are, what they are. Peer review is vital. Yet trusting politicians to use information neutrally is suspect.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
...I thought they were actually muzzling the scientists. But like the feedbag type. You know, like horses.
I was thinking, DAMN, you're working them to death! They're only human, for the love of god!!!
Frankly, it would have been a much less frustrating story. And I wonder what they're going to do when they realize that the vast majority of stuff they will get will be on stuff like the peculiarities of the reproduction of a certain type of fungus, or some standard survey of fluctuations in the luminosity of a group of stars that the suits won't understand even if it's spelled out to them Dick and Jane style. They don't know what they're getting into. In fact, expect a jump in mundane research that makes no sense to the public as pissed off scientists decide to give the government what for.
Omnes tuae crepidines sunt nobis sunt. Ascendo tuum!
...if you take government grant money, you will only publish results that agree with the government's stances.
Hang on that is NOT what the article says. The scientists in question are EMPLOYED by the government. They are not university-based faculty who also apply for grants, are employed by a university and have tenured positions. While this is certainly very disturbing and worrying it is not as far reaching as applying to everyone who gets government research grants, only to those employed directly by the government.
Of course the irony is that, since I am someone getting a research grant from the Canadian government, but not employed by them, the government policy might make you doubt that what I just wrote is true.... which is why it is a really stupid policy to muzzle scientists whether they are government employed or not. It makes it hard to believe scientists if they come up with evidence that actually supports a government policy yet everyone will still believe them if they announce evidence against a policy....and so far university scientists can still do that.
There was a study on cell phone use while driving. The study cam to the conclusion that talking on the cell phone while driving was dangerous. It also stated that there was no difference in the danger level if you were holding the phone or using a hands free device. The politicians where I live used this study to pass a law requiring a hands free device to be used.
How stupid are people that the politicians can believe them to be that stupid?
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
I don't see the difficulty. We now know "Transparency" = "keeping the scientists invisible" (you can't get much more transparent than that) and "accountability" = "having bean-pushers really run the country".
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
No story such as this would be complete without pointing out that the Minister of Science and Technology is a creationist.
To the Conservatives, "science" means "whatever we say". No wonder they want to control what actual pesky scientists say.
Equine Mammals Are Considerably Smaller
Hey a Slashdot censorship article that is actually about government censorship!
There is a war going on for your mind.
The Conservative government in Canada is similar to the Republicans in the USA.
And in the immortal words of Stephen Colbert:
"Reality has a well-known liberal bias."
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
I've worked with a number of great scientists I wouldn't want to talk to media - probably none without coaching. Do you have any idea what kind of damage a 10 second soundbite can do to the objective truth? (Likely taken from several hours of video and interview footage). PR people make their money by not getting excited or passionate about their work and making a comment which can be misunderstood, misinterpreted, or misused - and they never ever forget that that camera is rolling and audio recording even if it's pointed somewhere else.
We didn't have a two party problem until the entire right wing merged to form one party... the left is still much bigger than the right, the right just got rid of their fanatical parties and now they're all happy that they might scrap the gun registry which would be Harper's claim to fame in all his years... what a ridiculous government we have... honestly Harper's done nothing but raise the debt with his fiscal responsibility bs, the kid is a clown and needs to have a pie thrown in his face... too bad that's considered assault now, it used to be every PM would get one in the face
why so serious?
Yup, exactly this. The Harper administration has for the past few years been increasingly exerting control on how the public service disseminates information to the public. In the past (before 2007) a bureaucrat usually only needed the approval of their direct supervisor to respond to media inquiries, unless the topic was particularly sensitive. Now it the system of Message Event Proposals created in 2007, approval frequently needs to come directly from the Prime Minister's Office, even for totally routine and innocuous communications.
I think the biggest problem is, reports on the last ice age might offend the Conservative Party's core supporters - who know that there's no such thing as 13,000 years ago, and even if there was there'd be both dinosaurs and cavemen at the same time.
But peer review is still going on here.
What has peer review got to do with this? Peer review is to ensure that what does get published is valid, but this story is about what doesn't get published. Nobody peer reviews a paper that is never released.
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
stated that there was no difference in the danger level if you were holding the phone or using a hands free device.
Trouble is, if you open up that can of worms you'll get studies noting there's no difference between hands free phone chatting and talking to passengers, and that kids in the car are much more dangerous than even using a chat client on a smart phone while driving and eventually you'll get the conclusion that drivers should be isolated and on uppers, while passengers should be in a separate compartment.
And that just won't be politically manageable. Which is why you get not entirely scientifically supported regulations instead, that may or may not do much good, but that perhaps make it appear that someone's doing something about something so the can of worms can be shoved under the carpet until we have computer driven cars instead.
You mean the RCMP manufactured report where all the information was based on police requests, and not public opinion? Yes, very stinging.
Om, nomnomnom...
The "Core of the problem" is government, not who is in control. When a government has grown to a point of such abuse it is inevitable that someone will abuse it. Government corruption exists because it has the power to do corrupt things. Lobbyists exist because we allow government to grow powerful enough to be lobbied. Reducing centralized power is the answer.
you'll get studies noting there's no difference between hands free phone chatting and talking to passengers
Wrong. Talking to passengers is very different than talking on the phone. I can't recall the study off the top of my head, but this has been tested. A passenger is far more likely to take the driver's state into account before speaking, and is also aware of what is going on outside the car. Talking to a person on the other end of a cell phone has none of these advantages.
"Going to war without the French is like going deer hunting without your accordion." ~General Norman Schwarzkopf
You're confusing two different issues here. The paper did get published in a peer reviewed journal. The government didn't interfere with that process at all. There is no evidence that the science was influenced by government agenda.
The government didn't step in until after the peer-reviewed paper was published, and only then did they refuse to let their scientists talk with the media. Even then, the media story wasn't suppressed, it went forward, based on information published in the peer-reciewed literature and interviews with co-authors who were not Canadian government employees.
The sum total of the government interference was to prevent their own scientists from talking directly to the media. Which is pretty darn stupid, without a doubt, but it's not the same as the government burying the data.
yp
I'm Canadian by the way and I'm really ashamed and pissed off by my government...
First of all, the Conservative Party of Canada is much more like the former Reform Party than the Conservative Party of the old days. There is a very strong base of religious nuts and redneck in the party who would do anything to deny actual scientific fact about too many things. Be it of religious reasons when it comes certain topics like geology/archeology/astronomy etc., and/or if it doesn't suit their own agenda such as for the global warming, pollution, geology, and that kind of things.
So far, we've got several nice demonstration of that. There was John Goodyear (I think I've got the name right), the science advisor to the minister, who turns out to be a conservative christian creationist who clearly doesn't believe in evolution. We've got John Baird, who as the Minister of Natural Ressources went to a big after-Kyoto conference and said that he never realized that global warming was an issue (clearly the government denies any environmental problems on taking place on this planet). One more for the road? No prob! The government pushing the purchase of replacement fighter jets for our old CF18 and pretty much buying new fighter jets them without asking anyone. A few days later, press conference with the Minister of Defense about the fact that two of our CF-18 escorted a Russian reconnaissance bomber away from the Canadian land. The plane was actually in the far away buffer and/or international zone and such kind of things happens a couple of times a year with not a single mention in the medias...
The whole game is very clear: they have their secret agenda and they're trying to sneak it in while the opposition parties are so weak, disorganized and without strong leadership that they aren't afraid that the opposition will make the government fall, unless they come with something big and blatant. So what they do is bringing a few big and controversial stuff along with a bunch of little sneaky things related to censorship for instance. They know opposition parties won't let go the big things so they play the arguing game a bit and give it up in a "package deal" that is like "ok, we're giving up the big piece but let's just not argue the little details".
Canada hasn't been right-wing since the 1920's, even more-so since the '70s(lookin' at you libs). It's always leaned left, the only question is, where is the right and to what point is it leaning. The reality is during the 20's we got the start of institutionalized left-leaning "we care for you" programs. During the 70's this accelerated, with things like CPP and medicalcare. It won't ever shift back, because people are stuck on the tit of government entitlements.
However things like having money for kids? Yeah that's a good idea, without a question. Especially if they're natural born, or immigrant who want to integrate fully into society. It means that your country is less reliant on external forces to maintain population(like immigration) and more reliant on those that want the country to move forward based on natural population.
Om, nomnomnom...
Thankfully I exaggerate, but that element of Canadian society definitely has it's home in the CPC - look at Stockwell Day, cabinet minister and young earth creationist.
The Conservative base, like it seems to be in many countries, is split between the social conservative religious wackos and the fiscal conservative "yay oil, boo climate" wackos. This move is brilliant (in a very cynical way) because it plays to both - but like most of Cabinet's actions these days, doesn't appeal to anyone else.
Well, it is the ridiculous nature of the process and it is another example of the control freak we have as a PM. The example given in the article is a scientist who published a paper in Nature about the glacial flooding at the end of one of the ice age periods. The government did not allow him to be interviewed about the article until the deadlines had passed. The OK had to come virtually from the PM. We are not talking about anything controversial here: nothing that would be tied to present day issues. This pre-historic science and has nothing to do with contrarian views.
This will shock everyone, I know, but it is an example of the hypocrisy of the govt which came to power partly on the platform of being open. Sigh... meet the new boss same as the old boss.
TFA mentions something about oil sands and mercury pollution in the Athabasca river, so it's most probably work of the oil industry.
As a bonus, they get silence about floods at the end of the ice age. Any paper about climate is bad for the oil industry, they need ignorance in order to enforce their truth that there is no climate change and if it existed it would not have been caused by CO2 in the atmosphere.
You probably don't understand the current situation in Canadian politics. The Harper government got in on 35% of the popular vote, and probably less. How? Four other parties split the left of center vote: the Liberals, the NDP, the Green Party, and the Block Quebecois. Two thirds of the country did not want and did not vote for the Conservatives, and voter apathy is at an all time high.
This story hits right to the crux of the matter. The Conservatives beat the Liberals by campaigning on the issue of--wait for it--transparency! They then immediately proceeded to shut down all avenues of public information from the government except official channels, and Conservative ministers usually refuse to talk to the press at all, sending party spin doctors instead when they can no longer avoid talking to the press. Government access is now funneled entirely through Access to Information, which can take months or years (effectively making it useless to the media), and National Security is invoked on the merest wisp of an excuse. So this story is part of a longstanding practice, not just a reasonable approach to the media.
A month ago, the Conservatives triggered a shit storm by attempting to shut down the long form census, claiming that the questions were intrusive. The question they cited was, "How many beds do you have in your house?" I will explain why this seemed significant to their base in a moment (hint: they equate beds with sex.) The Conservatives claimed they could get the data by other means. This means your bank, credit cards, air miles, browsing habits, etc--all of which have your name attached to the data, are quite expensive, and all of which come with non-disclosure agreements. But the census does not associate names with data (these get separated upon receipt), and gives statistical data on the state of the nation. In other words, it serves as a report card on government policy, and is open source. The other data is spotty, not much good for statistical analysis, not available for public view, but gives the government unprecedented access to personal information. In other words, our government wants more information about us, but doesn't want us to know anything about it.
And yes, they will know how many beds we have, and will have a pretty good idea of what we do in them.
How do they get away with it? The 35% comprises two groups: mainly social conservatives (the religious right and immigrants from third world countries), and "economic conservatives"-- the Canadian equivalent to the Tea Partiers. The former I can understand, but those alone would make the Conservatives a political backwater. The latter are a mystery. The Liberals paid down the debt for fourteen years, and Paul Martin could have steered through the current economic crisis with his eyes closed. We threw away the best economic manager we've ever had on a whim. It isn't like our federal government was out of control--Americans would have killed to have a guy like Martin. The Conservatives are now taking credit for Canada's remarkably stable banking system, yet in their first throne speech, they tried to dismantle it, pressuring the banks into allowing subprime mortgages; forty and even fifty years long. Fortunately, the financial institutions imported from the U.S. to foster this insanity were not yet too big to fail, and collapsed without much of an impact. But what if Harper had gotten power in 2000? We would have conditions that mirrored Bush's America, with huge military expenses in Iraq, a housing bubble, and failing banks. And their pet project? Twenty Billion for prisons, to build an American style prison industry/lobby. Conrad Black (hardly a bleeding heart liberal) has discovered for himself the obscenity of this proposal. No one in favour of this has any right to call himself a libertarian. And so, as under the last Conservative government, we have record deficits, a failing economy, and the largest trade deficit in our history.
The majority of Canadians are socially liberal
Actually, if you listen to the comments of some DFO (Department of Fisheries and Oceans) scientists when asked about their thoughts on the (many years) raging 'controversy' over whether or not sea lice and other contaminants have been (drastically) affecting salmon runs their answers (or lack thereof) seem to make it pretty clear that they're not allowed to even think about the answers to those questions.
A few weeks ago, the Canadian Government decided that filling out 'long form' census questions would no longer be mandatory. They declared that Stats Canada scientists had assured them that this would not affect the quality of the data collected. The head scientist of Statistics Canada had to quit his job in order to counter the lies spoken by the Prime minister and his Cabinet.
Given the kind of control that they've taken over what government scientists can say, I have little question that some political hack is going to declare that submitting a paper to a scientific journal about a contentious issue is going to fall under this new policy.
Personally, I think that this is a flagrant violation of scientists' rights to free speech, but that's a matter for the courts to decide.
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
Sorry, but that's not really it. The Prime Minister is silencing them because they might talk to the media about things he doesn't want them talking about. It's part of a pattern of hamfisted control freak behaviour. I mean most of the ministers that Harper has appointed aren't allowed to talk to the media without his direct approval of what they're to talk about and when they are allowed, they're given a script to memorize before hand. Only 1 or 2 of his most favoured cronies are allowed the freedom to speak the media without heavy censorship.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
Doubtful, it's part of a patten of tightly controlling information. After all if you were going to dictate what these scientists were allowed to publish, first you would have to make sure they're not allowed to talk about that to the media. Frankly the Conservative Party of Canada is a lot like the Republican party. They've become an anti-fact, anti-truth party that likes to drive wedge issues to convince dumb or apathetic voters to vote against their actual interests over some inflammatory issue of the moment. They're slowly ripping the mechanism of government apart to appease their anti-tax, anti-government supporters and trying to stomp out opposition and free thought wherever they can within the government services.
They're even trying to set up their own Canadian version of Fox News.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
I miss the good old days when our Prime Ministers would personally beat protesters.
Seriously. Remember when we didn't have an enormous US-style federal deficit for 12 years?
- chrish