Mr. Speaker, Quebec's dark ages are back. Never keen on letting any more information out than necessary, this Conservative government prefers to keep the public in the dark and feed it scientific and environmental mistruths instead of the straight facts.
This desire to control scientific and environmental information takes many forms. They have cancelled funding for ambitious research projects, such as the Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences. Environment Canada scientists are not allowed to answer media questions without approval from their boss. Climate change skeptics are being appointed to boards of directors of organizations that fund university research, such as the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada. Numerous federal infrastructure projects are exempt from the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act. They argue that global warming is due to solar magnetic cycles or other unexplained natural phenomena. I cannot believe the ignorance.
It is shameful that this government is trying to control the message to the point that it is deliberately distorting reality.