Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Cardigan.
Scientists work for a better tomorrow through exciting discoveries, from aerospace to astronomy and from biotechnology to nanotechnology. Science matters more than ever before because the challenges we face, climate change, shrinking biodiversity, are greater and the potential benefits are larger. Canada therefore needs robust science for the public good—for example, to identify risks to ecosystems and human health and to develop solutions to reduce dangers and protect the health and safety of Canadians and the communities in which we live.
Tragically, science is under persistent attack in Canada, despite the fact that the benefits of university research and development are $15 billion and 150,000 to 200,000 person-years of employment per year.
In 2008, an editorial in the prestigious journal Nature criticized the Conservative government for closing the Office of the National Science Advisor, skepticism about the science of climate change, and silencing federal researchers. Budget 2009 cut $148 million over three years from the federal research granting councils. Moreover, the government attempted to direct research towards subjects it perceived as priorities. Scholarships were to be focused on business-related degrees. This was a flawed strategy, as no one can predict with any certainty what the most important inventions and technologies will be in the future.
As one of Canada's Nobel laureates, John Polanyi, wrote, “We have struggled for a long time to come to terms with the fact that our universities serve the public interest best when free of government interference in academic affairs.”
The reality is that countries that maintain and increase their investments in research and development during difficult economic times emerge stronger and more competitive when the recovery begins. In 2009, James Turk, the executive director of Canadian Association of University Teachers, warned that lack of funding and increasing government micromanagement means we could lose a lot of our top researchers.
James Drummond, the chief scientist at the Polar Environment Atmospheric Research Laboratory, in Eureka, explained that he would be able to improve the lab through new infrastructure funding but would not be able to operate it. On April 30, 2012, PEARL was scheduled to cease full-time, year-round operation.
In addition to government cuts to research funding, cuts to federal science programs and scientists, there have been new media protocols for government scientists since the Conservatives came to power in 2006. For example, Canadian journalists have documented numerous cases, from an unexplained virus in salmon, to a two-degree Celsius increase in global temperatures being possibly unavoidable by 2100, to a 13,000-year-old flood in northern Canada, in which prominent researchers have been prevented from discussing peer-reviewed articles.
Researchers would once have responded quickly to journalists, but are now required to direct inquiries to a media relations office which requires written questions in advance and that still might not allow scientists to speak. Federal scientists are under growing surveillance and control. Numerous studies have shown a pattern of suppression, manipulation and a distortion of federal science. Officials have limited public access to scientific information.
Recently a symposium called "Unmuzzling Government Scientists: How to Re-Open the Discourse" was held at the meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, in Vancouver. The government's media policies were once again under scrutiny. According to the journal, Nature, “The way forward is clear: it is time for the Canadian government to set its scientists free”.
I can attest not only to the muzzling but also to the fear on the part of scientists. I used to consult for Environment Canada, and I have numerous friends who are scientists across Canada and the United States. Because of fear of retribution if they speak out, Canadian scientists often ask me to speak to American colleagues, who can freely comment on what is happening in Canada. I have one friend who was so concerned that he or she wrote to me from the spouse's email account to my old university email account, and then explained that he or she would call on the spouse's cellphone from a busy mall so the call could not be traced.
Surely everyone in the House should be outraged by the climate in which our scientists are being forced to perform. Surely everyone should be outraged by the quashing of dissenting opinions, by the war on democracy, environment and science. The persistent attack on science for the public good reached a boiling point on July 10, 2012, when Canadian scientists rallied on Parliament Hill in order to protest the closure of federal science programs, the muzzling of scientists and the “untimely death of scientific evidence and evidence-based decision-making in Canada”.
At the end of the month, Canada's world-renowned Experimental Lakes Area, with 58 lakes and considered to be one of Canada's most important aquatic research facilities, will shut down. In fact, the government has already begun dismantling the station. In the space of a few weeks, 11,000 Canadians signed a public petition, sent hundreds of letters of support for the ELA to government officials and held rallies across the country. Leading scientists from around the world and across Canada support ELA's cause. Opposition members of Parliament have delivered petition after petition and undertaken press conferences, including one to push the Minister of the Environment to adopt the 58 lake facility. Liberal MPs held briefings for all members of Parliament and senators and put forth motions to study the value of the ELA and the potential effects of transferring the facility to a third party.
Following the presentation of two Liberal motions regarding the ELA, in both the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development and the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans, the issue was addressed in camera without public explanation, and the motions are now no longer before the committee.
The Canadian public supports the ELA. An Environics Research poll showed that over 73% of Canadians oppose the decision to cancel federal funding for the ELA, including 60% of those identifying as Conservative voters. The Department of Fisheries and Oceans claims it cannot find the $2 million per year required to run the ELA, although it would require $50 million to remediate the lakes in the area upon the centre's closing.
Scientists suggest the Conservatives are trying to silence a source of inconvenient data. As a first example, PEARL, the Polar Environmental Atmospheric Research Lab, which gathered atmospheric information related to air quality, climate change and ozone required only $1.5 million to permit its year-round science program.
Also potentially on the chopping block is one of Canada's oldest and most celebrated scientific research stations, the 50-year-old Kluane Lake Research Station, located in the Yukon adjacent to the largest non-polar icefield in the world. The sensitive region is ideal to measure climate change.
ELA has been compared to the Hubble telescope for its service in aiding scientific research. The research conducted at the ELA must continue. The research must be made public and ELA must be owned by the public.
In closing, we must fight for a government that understands that scientific research is fundamental to meeting Canada's needs, will restore science to its rightful place, will back promises with action and money, and will protect scientific findings from being altered, distorted or suppressed. All Conservative cabinet ministers should stand up for science, for scientists, for unmuzzling researchers, and for ensuring a scientific integrity policy so Canadians can receive the best cutting-edge science to ensure evidence-based decision-making. The government must protect our water now and for our future generations, and not protect navigation as it did in Bill C-45. That means ELA must continue.