Delete, Dump and Destroy: Canada's Government Data Severely Compromised

sandbagger writes: Stories about government data and historical records being deleted, burned — even tossed into Dumpsters — have become so common in recent years that many Canadians may feel inured to them. But such accounts are only the tip of a rapidly melting iceberg. A months-long Maclean's investigation, which includes interviews with dozens of academics, scientists, statisticians, economists and librarians, has found that the federal government's 'austerity' program, which resulted in staff cuts and library closures (16 libraries since 2012) — as well as arbitrary changes to policy, when it comes to data — has led to a systematic erosion of government records far deeper than most realize, with the data and data-gathering capability we do have severely compromised as a result.

Comments

"Austerity." You keep using that word.

[ErikTheRed]

I do no think it means what you think it means. In governmental terms, it means "give us unlimited money so that we don't have to prioritize among the thousands of special interests begging and scraping for more cash."

In any other context it means that you are seriously lacking resources and have cut things to the bone. For you or me, it means we get rid of cable TV, the gym membership, take cheaper vacations, don't buy a new car, live in a smaller place, don't eat and drink out as often, etc.

Governments have a much, much different approach: they begin by exacting revenge on the unwashed masses that dare not give them every dime their hearts desire. They find popular things (especially parks and libraries) and immediately begin the slashing there. This is, of course, utterly petulant - these items aren't even rounding errors in the budgets and no real savings are made. In the US, we call it "Washington Monument Syndrome" - popular tourist destinations like the Washington Monument are shut down during budget battles for basically no reason other than a giant political temper tantrum. There still is, of course, plenty of money (billions! trillions!) for new fighter planes that don't work and imprisoning people for owning certain plants and giving people and corporations lifetime welfare benefits, etc.,etc., etc.

There is no "governmental austerity." Anybody who brings it up is playing Orwellian word games with you, and should have filthy socks shoved in their mouths (and possibly other body orifices) until they stop.

Re:"Austerity." You keep using that word.

[dryeo]

Different type of library. These are science libraries, things like all the fisheries research that us taxpayers have paid for over the last 125 years. They claim that citizens aren't using the libraries, which is true as they are targeted at fellow scientists and shut them down including dumping and burning all the years of research. The idea is to do away with the fisheries, which bring in $100s of millions of dollars as well as food in favour of selling raw bitumen. If there are no records of the salmon, it can't be argued that the bitumen spill hurt the salmon.
The local libraries are not a Federal responsibility.

Re:"Austerity." You keep using that word.

[bledri]

I do no think it means what you think it means. In governmental terms, it means "give us unlimited money so that we don't have to prioritize among the thousands of special interests begging and scraping for more cash."

In any other context it means that you are seriously lacking resources and have cut things to the bone. For you or me, it means we get rid of cable TV, the gym membership, take cheaper vacations, don't buy a new car, live in a smaller place, don't eat and drink out as often, etc.

Governments have a much, much different approach: they begin by exacting revenge on the unwashed masses that dare not give them every dime ...

There is no "governmental austerity." Anybody who brings it up is playing Orwellian word games with you, and should have filthy socks shoved in their mouths (and possibly other body orifices) until they stop.

You are right that it's Orwellian, but wrong about how. This is not a tantrum against the masses, it's a tantrum against reality. The libraries in question are scientific libraries. Specifically libraries that contain environmental records related to pollution, biodiversity and climate. This is an attempt to continue the hamstringing of any science that shows the dark side of the so called free market. Intentional environmental ignorance is financial bliss for the oligarchy.