"It already feels like a long time ago.
Remember way, way back when Canada’s federal scientists were shackled
to their laboratory tables, unable to speak out or walk freely in the
light of day?
I don’t mean to sound trivial; the war on science in Canada was real
and severe in its implications and in some places devastating in its
consequences.
But looking back on what Canadians are calling the ‘dark decade’
already feels ridiculous somehow, like it’s a caricature of our past
reality. How did things get so bad?
http://desmog.ca/2016/03/09/canada-s-unmuzzled-scientists-call-protection-future-muzzling
That’s something the scientific community at large is asking itself,
in a serious attempt to prevent ideology-driven, anti-science policies
from taking root once again.
“Science should never be silenced again,” Debi Daviau, president of
the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada (PIPSC), a
union representing more than 15,000 federal scientists, said in a
statement released Wednesday.
PIPSC, as well as the science-advocacy group Evidence for Democracy
(E4D), released an open letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as
well as to science ministers Kirsty Duncan and Navdeep Bains,
requesting policies be put in place to protect the scientific
integrity of Canada’s public employees.
(Full disclosure: I recently became a volunteer member of Evidence for
Democracy's board of directors.)
The two groups say they commend the Liberal government for restoring
the mandatory long-form census in Canada as well as lifting strict
communications procedures that prevented federal scientists from
speaking to the media or the public without upper level bureaucratic
oversight.
In the joint letter released today, the groups are calling on the
government to take their effort to restore scientific integrity in
Canada a step further.
“The government clearly supports science integrity — now we need them
to safeguard it from future attacks,” Katie Gibbs, executive director
of E4D, said
“Creating strong science integrity policies in all federal
science-based departments will go a long way to ensuring that
critically important government research is available to the public
and used in policy development.”
The letter also requests scientific integrity provisions be added to
collective bargaining agreements, to ensure federal employees have an
enshrined right to work and communicate freely without fear of
censure.
According to Daviau, having clear rules in place for scientists is
critical for the restoration of scientific integrity at the federal
level.
“By including the right of scientists to speak in collective
agreements we can ensure there exists a consistent policy and a
binding process to resolve disputes as well as prevent in future the
kind of chill imposed by communications policies under the Harper
government,” she said.
The open letter comes just one day after the release of a report from
the Institute for Research on Public Policy and the Canadian Academy
of Engineering that calls for the better use of science in the
creation of public policy.
“As governments grapple with evermore complex policy problems, science
and technology must play a bigger role in providing an evidence base
for decisions and supporting government efforts to manage risk and
uncertainty,” Pierre Lortie, president of the Canadian Academy of
Engineering, said in a release.
The report calls on the Liberal government to foster informed debate
by making research used in decision-making more readily available to
the public, to strengthen internal decision-making policy, establish a
national science advisory board and build bridges between
parliamentarians and the scientific community.
Graham Fox, president of the Institute for Research on Public Policy,
notes scientific evidence is meant to play a role in decisions, but
that other factors are always taken into consideration.
“Of course, evidence should weigh heavily in the balance, but it will
not necessarily replace or trump budget considerations, citizens’
concerns, campaign commitments and other considerations,” Fox said.