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Greg Rickford, the PM’s choice for Minister of State for Science and Technology, wrote a letter to iPolitics last week. It was in response to a column I published on this site on October 6 — Harper’s Greatest Hits: the Science of Fundraising.

It was not a fan letter.

Greg Rickford said he was greatly “concerned” about the column and that he “would like to set the record straight.” He had my full attention.

I thought perhaps he would address why his Kenora riding association president, Anne Ayotte, had sent out a mailer in his name calling some scientists “radical ideologues.”

All they did was criticize Rickford’s demonstrably wobbly record surrounding the closure of the Experimental Lakes Area in northwestern Ontario. I guess it’s “either you’re with us or you’re radical ideologues,” correct?

I also thought he might address Ayotte’s request for donations so that the minister could counterattack his critics. After all, it looked a bit strange — the Minister of State for Science asking for money to fight scientists as soon as he gets the job.

I thought he would at least point out any errors I might have made in listing the Harper Government’s feckless stewardship of science and the environment since coming to power. But no, not a fact challenged.

Instead, Rickford dished up enough motherhood statements to make two apple pies and a bucket of apple sauce.

Consider the ministerial mush. Rickford said that scientists and researchers have every reason to be proud of the work they do. And Canadians should be proud that they do it right here in Canada. He was beginning to sound like the dinner guest who wouldn’t go home after the dubious third martini. First and foremost, the minister blathered, the Harper government is committed to science.

Correct — committed to cutting it. In the case of the ELA, Rickford went from being a big fan to a man who called the idiotic decision to close the place a “golden opportunity.” A fella could get whiplash doing that.

People in Kenora will remember that Rickford had nothing but good things to say about the ELA in 2009 when Ottawa invested in a new, million-dollar fish lab at the site. Come to think of it, why would you do that if you were thinking of dumping the place?

Three years later, the same MP saw great possibilities in firing 17 federal scientists and closing down a unique, world-class facility. The 29,000 people who signed the petition against closing the ELA saw it otherwise, including brilliant scientists from over 50 countries around the world.

Was it really to save the piddling budget, as Kenora’s compliant MP and sway-back officials at DFO claimed? Well here are the numbers — you decide. The two departments formerly involved in funding the ELA get 1 per cent of the moolah from the big pie at budget time. The grand total for the ELA — one-tenth of one per cent of those budgets.

Minister, to set the record straight, your government doesn’t support science.

In fact, the greatest shame of your government may be that in the age of climate change you did nothing. Consider that atmospheric and climate research in Canada is now funded at 70 per cent of the level it was when you came to power in 2006.

Your government walked away from Kyoto and still hasn’t bothered to come up with a plan to limit greenhouse gas emissions from the energy sector.

Your boss dumped the Office of National Science Advisor in 2008 — but we did get an Office of Religious Freedom.

Your government cut the foundation that funded Canada’s Polar Environment Atmospheric Research Laboratory (PEARL) in 2011. Peter Kent came up with a great defence: The Harper government hadn’t shut down PEARL, just the funding programs that paid for it.

Point by point, Kent’s public statements about PEARL were called “factually incorrect” by one of the co-founders of the research facility. Or when a minister says it, does it become a fact?

Your government made the decision to close the Mersey Biodiversity Centre in Nova Scotia as of 2014.

Your government axed the Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences.

Your government closed seven of nine marine science libraries in Canada.

Your government closed the Ocean Contaminants Program, lock, stock, and barrel and fired Dr. Peter Ross, a leading world expert on the effect of pollution on marine mammals.

Your government close the Habitat Management Program at Fisheries and Oceans Canada — but why not, since under the new gutted Fisheries Act there was no habitat to protect anyway?

Your government fired 136 scientists from Environment Canada and cut its budget by $200 million in 2011 and $53 million more in 2012.

Your government fired 436 scientists and professional staff at Fisheries and Oceans Canada.

Your government would rather appoint David Suzuki to the Senate than bring in a carbon tax.

It is for the above reasons that Dr. John Smol, a biologist from Queens University, and 84 other prominent Ph.Ds wrote your government a letter demanding that you stop “the politicization of science.”

It is for the above reasons that more than 2,000 scientists and students showed up on Parliament Hill in July 2012 to insist your government stop muzzling scientists.

I have one final thought. You and your communications aces up there on the Hill are fooling nobody with the phoney appeal to “applied science,” the so-called Harper shift in how we do science in Canada these days.

It is just a way of putting the scientists to work for corporations, and furnishing you with an excuse to get the bulldozers going with the minimum of interference from the lab coat people. Or as the New York Times put it, “This is more than an attack on academic freedom. It is an attempt to guarantee ignorance.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve always found that adults prefer to navigate reality by the facts.

Michael Harris is a writer, journalist, and documentary filmmaker. He was awarded a Doctor of Laws for his “unceasing pursuit of justice for the less fortunate among us.” His eight books include Justice Denied, Unholy Orders, Rare ambition, Lament for an Ocean, and Con Game. His work has sparked four commissions of inquiry, and three of his books have been made into movies. He is currently working on a book about the Harper majority government to be published in the autumn of 2014 by Penguin Canada.

Readers can reach the author at [email protected]. Click here to view other columns by Michael Harris.

The views, opinions and positions expressed by all iPolitics columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of iPolitics.