Saskatoon StarPhoenix

Scientists to protest cuts with funeral

- NATALIE STECHYSON

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.

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