Mr. Speaker, in January, we received some troubling news. We found out that 60 scientists at Environment Canada working on very critical research relating to climate change and water quality were being cut from the department. These cuts were part of previously announced plans to reduce Environment Canada's staff by 10%. The minister stood and said things like this was about the bottom line, but the net effect of these cuts is to significantly reduce the government's ability to conduct environmental research and analysis.
January's drastic announcement came in the wake of a previous round of cuts in the fall that actually saw Canada's ozone monitoring program on the chopping block. Over the course of last fall, it became very clear that the program cuts were not to duplicate or redundant scientific testing and monitoring and that the cuts would reduce the department's ability to do research and monitoring in ozone. That was actually confirmed by an internal memo to the minister. The cuts mean that necessary scientific data will be lost and the government's claims to the contrary are not supported by the facts.
These misguided and unscientific cuts could not have come at a more alarming time because, as we know, in October it was reported that an unprecedented hole in the ozone, twice the size of Ontario, had appeared in the ozone over the Arctic. An international team of 29 scientists, including 4 Canadians, were behind this report and they actually called the findings ominous.
Why the Conservatives would cut such an essential monitoring program that protects Canadians over the long term remains a mystery to me. The government, so far, has produced zero data for the House and zero analysis backing up the reasons for these cuts. The claims it is making that this will not impact scientific capacity are absolutely unsubstantiated. The Conservatives expect Canadians to trust the platitudes that they are spouting about their commitment to environmental stewardship but these assurances are continually called into question by their inaction on the environment file.
The reality is that the Conservative government is doing everything it can, including making detrimental changes to federal environmental assessments, to reduce scientific capacity and monitoring so that it can avoid taking responsibility for the environmental consequences of its unsustainable development policies. If Canada cannot monitor changes to its own environment, how can we make sound policy decisions?
If people stand up to this mismanagement, as we have seen, they are called radicals or adversaries to Canada's economic well-being. However, what the government does not seem to realize is that by systematically denying scientific realities, they are denying Canadians a healthy and prosperous future because of the economic costs of these decisions. By wilfully blinding themselves to scientific realities and the consequences of lax environmental policies, the Conservatives are putting the health, prosperity and future of Canadian people on the line.
When will the government recognize that ignoring science hurts us all?