Stephen Harper is muzzling scientists and bringing legislation like Bill C-51 because the Prime Minister wants to keep Canadians ignorant and afraid, according to Simon Fraser University Professor Lynne Quarmby.

“I was arrested for an act of civil disobedience,” the University’s Chair of the Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry said referring to her arrest during the Kinder Morgan protest on Burnaby Mountain. “That was before Bill C-51. With Bill C-51 in place, that would make me a terrorist.”

Bill C-51, which was passed in the Senate with 44-28 vote and now awaiting royal assent before becoming law, makes any activity “interference with the capability of the Government of Canada in relation to intelligence, defence, border operations, public safety, the administration of justice, diplomatic or consular relations, or the economic or financial stability of Canada,” an act of terrorism.

“Who’s Harper trying to protect from me?” Quarmby, who is the Green Party candidate for the newly created riding of Burnaby North—Seymour at the upcoming federal elections, asked. “Ordinary Canadians? I don’t think so. He’s trying to protect multinational corporations.”

Efforts by multinational resource corporations and pipeline companies to encroach on indigenous lands have met with strong resistance by First Nations groups and environmentalists.

RCMP has labelled such activists and those who advocate for renewable energy as “anti-petroleum extremists” and experts fear that Bill C-51 will be used to intimidate and silence opponents of Harper government’s economic agenda.

The scientist has a theory as to why Harper is passing legislation to protect corporate interests.

“It’s because of his ideology,” Quarmby said. “He’s so strongly driven by his ideology that he is blind to the basic facts of reality.”

“He believes he can control the future of Canada,” she added. “He’s unable to hear anything different from that.”

That, according to the professor, is why Harper is muzzling scientists and ratcheting up fear mongering with propaganda.

“He wants to keep us afraid and ignorant,” she said. “And that’s why he reacts so strongly to someone like me. So strongly, that he’d label me a terrorist.”

“It’s because I can find a little bit of courage and a little bit of wisdom,” she concludes. “And I’m willing to say, I’m sorry, the emperor has no clothes.”