Most scientists ‘muzzled’, survey told
Researchers say government ignoring climate-change evidence
Ninety per cent of Canadian government scientists feel they can’t speak freely to the media and half say they have seen the health and safety of Canadians or environmental sustainability compromised because of political interference with scientific work, says a national survey of federal scientists.
“Science is increasingly being frozen out of policy decisions and scientists themselves are not able to provide timely, vital scientific information to Canadians,” said Gary Corbett, president of the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada, which represents 60,000 government workers.
PIPSC commissioned the Environics Research Group to conduct an online survey of the union’s 15,000 federal scientists in 40 government departments this summer, amid mounting complaints of “muzzling” of scientists by the government and an ongoing investigation into the matter by federal information watchdog Suzanne Legault. Survey responses were collected for two weeks in June and results were made public Monday.
The 4,000 scientists who responded to the survey made it clear that muzzling of scientists is prevalent and is negatively affecting Canadians, Corbett said.
PIPSC spokesman Peter Bleyer said the response rate was “robust” for an online survey; Environics says the results would reflect the opinions of federal scientists within 1.6 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
More than 70 per cent of respondents said the government is not using the best scientific evidence to develop laws and policies. This includes 63 per cent of Environment Canada scientists and 62 per cent of Department of Fisheries and Oceans scientists, who said their departments are ignoring the best climate change research available.
“Science seems no longer to have a strong place in decision-making,” noted one survey respondent.
Almost one-quarter of scientists said they had been asked to exclude or alter scientific information in federal documents. These complaints were most prevalent among scientists at Health Canada, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada and Environment Canada.
And even if scientists weren’t personally asked to censor their work, many said they had witnessed such activity.
Sixty-seven per cent of Department of Fisheries and Oceans scientists and 59 per cent of Environment Canada scientists who responded said they knew of cases where their departments had suppressed information, leaving the public with misleading or inaccurate information.
“This is not the way it should be,” said Liberal MP Ted Hsu, who has previously criticized the government for its behaviour toward scientists.
“Scientists are not supposed to decide what policy is, but they’re supposed to put forward the facts. If scientists are being influenced by political staff to exclude something or change the wording on something, that’s not the way things should be if you want to have good evidencebased policy.”
Corbett said the scientists are “facing a climate of fear” and that the majority of respondents — 88 per cent — supported improved whistleblower protection which would allow scientists to better serve the public.
Greg Rickford, minister of state for science and technology, did not respond directly to the survey results, but said that “our government has made record investments in science.”
The report is the first of two being released by PIPSC. A second report looking at the impact of government cutbacks will be published later this year.