The Liberals are tabling a motion today “to end (the government’s) muzzling of scientists and (to) create a chief science officer for Canada.”

Liberal MPs Marc Garneau, Ted Hsu and Kirsty Duncan took to the House of Commons foyer on Tuesday morning, where they announced their motion and charged that the Conservatives are restricting government scientists’ ability to speak to the press about their research.

They also said that these constraints have alarmed the international scientific community.

“The Conservatives have engaged in a systematic campaign to silence anyone — scientist or otherwise — who takes a position contrary to theirs,” said Hsu, a physicist and Liberal critic for science and technology. “The journal Nature, which is the premier science journal in the world, published an editorial criticizing the muzzling of scientists in Canada.”

The U.S.-based Union of Concerned Scientists has also voiced concern about Canadian scientists’ freedom of speech, he said.

“Many (scientists) have left Canada because they cannot do their research freely,” claimed Duncan. “They cannot talk to Canadians freely.”

Government scientists are afraid of speaking out “for fear of losing their job and for fear of losing their funding,” she added.

“(If I) email a friend for some advice (or) with a question, I get an answer back saying please contact the minister’s office,” offered Hsu. “This is the sort of thing that will not happen under a Liberal government.”

But “there are certain limits” to what government scientists should disclose, he noted. “The government may collect personal data or the government may collect proprietary data while it’s doing research, and of course that’s (off-limits).” As well, he said, “there may be some facts which negatively impact public safety” which the government should not make public.

The Liberals’ motion would “consolidate taxpayer-funded science so it is easily available to Canadians through a central portal,” and its proposed chief science officer would “(ensure) that government science is publicly available.”

Hsu added that today’s motion “is very closely related to Justin Trudeau’s transparency initiative.”

Conservative MP Robert Sopuck, himself a former government scientist, expressed disagreement on Tuesday afternoon with the Liberals’ motion. He suggested that allowing public researchers to speak to the press about their work would compromise bureaucratic neutrality on political matters.

“What our government is doing is following British parliamentary tradition,” he told iPolitics. “In the civil service, civil servants advise policymakers. … To me, what the Liberals seem to be saying is that civil servants should be allowed to comment on policy.”

Government scientists who wish to weigh in on public policy “need to do what I did: leave my job and enter politics,” he added.