Let scientists speak freely
Casting an eye over the latest contract demands by Canada’s federally employed scientists and researchers, it’s tempting to check the calendar. Is this 2015 — or 1615?
The 55,000 members of the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada are demanding provisions that would allow scientists to — wait for it! — speak openly about their work, publish results without fear of censorship and travel abroad to collaborate with peers.
More disturbingly, they feel the need to press for guarantees that would protect government researchers from being coerced to alter their data and to prohibit policy-makers from knowingly misinterpreting scientists’ findings.
On Tuesday, union members rallied in Ottawa, Montreal, Quebec City and Vancouver to protest “the muzzling of Canada’s public scientists and partisan interference in the development of public science.”
They shouldn’t have to demonstrate for these rights — never mind negotiate for them — in a democracy. But the Harper government’s controls on scientific debate and research are growing tighter by the day. How bad is it? In the past couple of years the New York Times, Nature magazine, the Guardian and the Economist have all written critical articles pleading for our scientists to be set free.
Federal Information Commissioner Suzanne Legault is investigating complaints that federal scientists have been muzzled by the government.
A survey from Environics Research last year found that 91 per cent of government scientists feel they cannot share their expertise with the media without facing censure from their bosses.
Environics was not alone in its findings. Last year a survey from the science advocacy group Evidence for Democracy also found that federal policies do not support open communication between scientists and the public.
That’s not just bad news for scientists. It means the government can ignore findings that do not fit its agenda and the public won’t even know it — or be able to hold it accountable for wrong-headed decisions.
As Katie Gibbs of Evidence for Democracy said: “Current media policies could prevent taxpayer-funded scientists from sharing their expertise with the public on important issues from drug safety to climate change.”
Margrit Eichler, president of Scientists for the Right to Know (which was founded in response to the Harper government’s attacks on science), put it this way: “Good policies must be based on solid evidence. Democracy requires an informed electorate.”
That seems obvious, but it also appears to be threatened. The firings of key scientific leaders, a wave of researcher layoffs, and the closure of research organizations and facilities have all led to a lack of scientific research that should form the basis for government policies.
The researchers’ union points out that under current plans, more than $2.6 billion and 7,500 positions will be eliminated by 2017 from the top 10 science-based departments and agencies. Meanwhile, some departmental science libraries have been shuttered, with their contents sometimes ending up in dumpsters.
All this has created a climate of fear that leads to self-censorship, adding to the veil of ignorance behind which the government operates.
Canadian scientists and researchers are fighting for the right to publish and speak freely about the research we need, and pay for with our taxes. We hope their union will be able defend its members’ right to free speech — and our right to know.
Canada’s public scientists are right to protest muzzling by government