ONE of the hallmarks of the Conservative government led by Stephen Harper, Canada’s prime minister, has been its ultra-tight control of communications. A central group in the Privy Council Office, the department that supports the prime minister and cabinet, vets most speeches, news releases and responses to media queries, and provides talking points to help ministers and bureaucrats toe the party line. They are usually offered a simple choice: Sing from the same songbook or shut up.

From the government’s point of view this approach has worked splendidly, with politicians and officials delivering a uniform message. Journalists are less happy, however, and complain about receiving responses long after deadlines have passed—if their inquiries are answered at all. An even more disgruntled group is scientists working for the state, who say their ability to explain their research and findings to the people who pay for it—the Canadian public—has been severely restricted.

The scientists and the union representing them have complained mightily in the past, with little effect. The government shrugged off a scolding it received last year from Nature, a leading journal, which advised Canada “to set free its scientists”. However, it will be harder to ignore a new wave of criticism stemming from the government’s effort to extend its communications control to American scientists working on joint projects.

At issue is the wording of a contract for a proposed collaboration in the Arctic between America’s University of Delaware and the Canadian department of fisheries and oceans. Whereas a contract for a previous effort stipulated that “project-related information shall be freely available to all Parties to this Agreement and may be used, disseminated or published by any Party, at any time”, the new agreement says that “any technology, data or other information of any kind related or arising from the Project...shall be deemed confidential and neither Party may release any such Information to others in any way whatsoever without the prior written authorisation of the other Party”.

Andreas Muenchow, one of the American scientists involved, cried foul. “I feel that it threatens my academic freedom and potentially muzzles my ability to publish data and interpretation and talk timely on science issues of potential public interest without government interference,” he wrote on his blog. “I cannot in good conscience sign away my freedom to speak, publish, educate, learn, and share both of what I know and what I do not know.” The wording is being renegotiated.

The source of the criticism was particularly noteworthy given America’s own about-face on scientific disclosure in recent years. During the presidency of George W. Bush, the United States government was often accused of ignoring or burying significant research. Upon taking office in 2009, Barack Obama promptly ordered all heads of federal agencies to make available as much information as possible. He followed that up last month with a directive that his administration increase public access to federally funded scientific research and that researchers publish their data. In contrast, Canada has maintained its tight lid on communications between government scientists and the media (although researchers are mostly free to speak at conferences and publish in journals). Combined with the Conservatives’ occasionally ostrich-like attitude towards science—“We’re not governing on the basis of the latest statistics,” the justice minister once proudly proclaimed—the government finds itself painted as both secretive and retrograde.

The record is not uniformly grim. As part of its commitment to the Open Government Partnership, which it joined in April 2012, Canada has been making more data available online. Statistics Canada, the public statistical agency, has made its entire database free. However, these moves are often overshadowed by comical excesses in communication control, such as preventing a scientist from talking to journalists about his work on a flood 13,000 years ago without approval from a minister, or ordering a researcher not to attend the launch of his own novel because it dealt with climate change.

The information commissioner, an independent officer of parliament, is considering a request from a group of environmental lawyers to investigate whether the government is violating the Access to Information Act by muzzling its scientists. Given that her office is already fighting the government in court over perceived violations in four other areas, the scientists are unlikely to get relief from that quarter any time soon.