Garneau would ungag scientists
Says Harper is obsessed with total control
Federal government scientists should be ‘ungagged’ and allowed to speak scientific truth to power, federal Liberal leadership contender Marc Garneau said Wednesday.
“Very quickly I would ungag them,” said the former head of the Canadian Space Agency. “This government is obsessed with controlling the message. They muzzle anyone who might be critical and don’t believe scientific evidence if it gets in the way of (the Conservatives’) message. We should not be afraid of the truth. Scientists in the government of Canada must tell us the unvarnished truth.”
The Conservative government has come under fire nationally and internationally for imposing gag orders on all its scientists — notably those at Environment Canada, Fisheries and Oceans, and Natural Resources who now need special permission to speak publicly about their work.
If elected prime minister, Garneau said one of his first acts would be to reinstitute a national science adviser — a position created by former prime minister Paul Martin and scrapped by the Conservatives.
“As prime minister,” he said, “I would want the unvarnished truth from the head scientists in this country, telling me, ‘Yes, global warming is real’ — that kind of stuff. I believe we need to blow open the doors and let the real world in — we need to share it with Canadians whether it’s embarrassing to us or not. If you believe global warming is a fact based on scientific evidence you should be able to say that as a scientist.”
Public servants should not use their positions for partisan purposes and should be reprimanded if they do, said the former astronaut.
“But I don’t think we should be frightened of allowing civil servants to speak to the media,” he added. “I’m in favour of open e-government and letting information out because the taxpayer paid for it. Unless it has security, privacy or proprietary implications we should be sharing data.”
Garneau criticized Prime Minister Stephen Harper for an “obsessive” message control that he claimed sees all but a few cabinet ministers in the House of Commons “reading from notes given to them by the Prime Minister’s Office.
“It’s caused a chill in the civil service,” he said.