Ottawa has seen countless demonstrations over the decades, none more poignant or disturbing than what unfolded Tuesday when hundreds of scientists took to the street to protest what they call “the Death of Evidence.”

Though the global media covered the event — complete with images of lab-coated geeks wandering the capital wide-eyed in shock and disbelief — it could only hint at the full import of the event.

Not only was the protest unprecedented, even extraordinary, it struck at the dark heart of the New Canada, a nation more interested in hiding the truth than understanding it, exploiting resources than conserving them.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s decision to search-and-destroy the environmental movement has now been ratcheted up to the next phase; his government has launched a war against science itself, an attack on the collection and analysis of the very data that enable us to comprehend the world of which we are part and on which we depend.

This must be the evidence the scientists spoke of.

The Tories’ latest campaign comes as no surprise; even before Harper won a majority in 2011, he made no secret of his dislike for inconvenient truths of any sort, environmental or otherwise. It fits a pattern of behaviour that goes back to the killing of the long-form census in 2010. The stated cause of that singular act of irrationality, national outrage, turned out to be a Tory fiction. In fact, most Canadians support the form.

And who could forget that other triumph of expedience over evidence, the demise of the gun registry.

The latest federal cuts — to Environment Canada, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, the National Research Council of Canada, Statistics Canada, the National Science Adviser, Law Commission of Canada and National Round Table on Environment and Economy — will hurt in many ways.

But the most egregious of all was to the Experimental Lake Area, the globally respected research station whose seminal work led to environmental changes around the world, including Brian Mulroney’s acid-rain legislation.

Harper’s argument is that poor little Canada just can’t afford the ELA. It costs $2 million annually, about a nickel per Canadian per year.

Just weeks ago, more than 500 Canadian websites went black to protest Bill C38, the legislative death star that eviscerates much of the social, environmental and intellectual infrastructure.

Harper sees Canada as little more than the sum of its (shaky) economic parts. Except for holding on to power, the party line is the bottom line.

If Canada feels different, it’s because it is. Under Harper, we have become strangers to ourselves, a foreign country run by an angry and hostile regime. The world has noticed, but is too preoccupied with its own problems to do anything more than fret.

Harper and his robo-ministers — especially Peter Kent in environment and Joe Oliver in natural resources — have been blunt: They will brook no opposition in their zeal to exploit the oilsands, build pipelines and empower the new robber barons.

To see where this leads, look no further than Canada’s cities, where change appears first. Everywhere it’s a familiar story about worsening congestion, lack of transit, housing shortages, crumbling public realm, inadequate funding and official indifference. We are the only G-8 nation without a national transit policy. And as Finance Minister Jim Flaherty likes to say, he’s not in the business of fixing potholes.

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Still one wonders how firing hundreds of scientists will benefit Canada or its holy deficit. More likely, it will only speed up the brain drain. Our loss will be some other country’s gain.

Christopher Hume can be reached at chume@thestar.ca.

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