Scientists to protest cuts with funeral

OTTAWA — A funeral procession — complete with a coffin, black-clad mourners and a scythe-wielding grim reaper — will make its way to Parliament Hill Tuesday as hundreds of scientists from across Canada rally to protest federal science cuts.

Members of Canada’s scientific community are staging the rally to mourn the “death of evidence” in what the rally’s organizers say is the federal government’s war on science.

Whatever values Canadians cleave to, they should be presented with evidence on the impacts of federal government policies and programs and be able to make informed decisions based on that information, said coorganizer Scott Findlay, associate professor of biology and former director the University of Ottawa’s Institute of the Environment.

“The prevention of this evidence getting into the public domain, the consequence of that is that the public continues to be uninformed. And an informed public is the basis on which democracy depends,” Findlay said.

“I think it’s important for the public to understand that scientists are getting increasingly concerned about this. I’m hugely concerned.”

The federal cuts, according to the organizers’ media release, are being imposed on critical research programs in Environment Canada, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, the National Research Council of Canada, Statistics Canada, through the closure of Experimental Lakes Area, the Polar Environment Atmospheric Research Laboratory and the First Nations Statistical Institute, and through the elimination of the National Science Advisor and National Round Table on Environment and Economy.