Kirsty Duncan is a Liberal member of parliament (Etobicoke North) and critic for the Environment. She has a Ph.D. in geography (University of Edinburgh, 1992) and has taught meteorology, climatology, and climate change at the University of Windsor, corporate social responsibility and medical geography at the University of Toronto and global environmental processes at Royal Roads University. She served on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, an organization that won the 2007 Nobel Prize with Al Gore and is the author of Hunting the 1918 Flu: One Scientist’s Search for a Killer Virus (University of Toronto Press, 2003), and Environment and Health: Protecting our Common Future (2008).

October 12th marked the launch of National Science and Technology Week in Canada. Despite the launch of the week and Conservative rhetoric, science is under persistent attack in Canada by this federal government.

In 2008, an editorial in the prestigious journal Nature criticized the Conservative government for closing the office of the national science advisor, their scepticism about the science of climate change, and their silencing of federal researchers. In 2012, Nature reported that policy directives confirm the government’s little understanding of the importance of the free flow of scientific knowledge. The journal also reported that, “rather than address the matter, the Canadian government seems inclined to stick with its restrictive course and ride out all objections.”

Budget 2009 cut $148 million over three years from the federal research granting councils. Moreover, the government attempted to direct research toward subjects it perceived as priorities in both 2008 and 2009.

Recently, Canada’s most northerly civilian research station, the Polar Environment Atmospheric Research Laboratory (PEARL) will cease year-round operation in April, 2012, when an annual investment of only $1.5 million would have allowed PEARL to continue gathering atmospheric information related to air quality, climate change, and ozone.

Also, potentially on the chopping block are the 50-year-old Kluane Lake Research Station (KLRS) — despite a recent investment of $2.5 million by the government — and the Experimental Lakes Area (ELA). The world-renowned ELA, which is as useful as the Hubble telescope in aiding scientific research, is unique in the world. Over the past four decades, the station has provided answers regarding acid rain, mercury pollution, and many other issues. It has informed public policy with regard to strategies to combat harmful algae blooms and to improve regulations on air pollutants. Today, we need ELA to find solutions to problems that affect lakes, fish populations, and drinking water for a cost of just $2 million per year.

While the Conservative government cut internationally-renowned research stations for between $1.5 and 2 million per year, it approved tens of millions of dollars in “economic action plan” advertising — even as it cited fiscal restraint.

For $1.5 million, taxpayers might have learned more about ozone depletion — the first large (2,000,000 km2) Arctic ozone hole was discovered in 2011 and other indications of significant Arctic change. For $2 million, Canadians might have learned more about solutions to problems that affect lakes, fish populations, and drinking water. The question that begs to be asked is what did Canadians receive in return for their investment in economic action plan ads?

Canadian scientists have been doing their part to fight the cuts; the persistent attack on science reached a boiling point on July 10th, when scientists rallied on Parliament Hill in order to protest the closure of federal science programs, the muzzling of scientists, and the “untimely death of scientific evidence” and evidence-based decision-making in Canada.

Now the Ministers of Science and Technology and the Environment must have the courage and the tenacity to fight for scientific research that is fundamental to meeting Canada’s needs, to back promises with action and money, and to protect scientific findings from being altered, distorted or suppressed.

The ELA is an essential research platform for understanding the threats to Canada′s water resources (particularly from climate change and oil and gas extraction), assessing the risks of water pollutants and emerging threats, and developing and testing strategies for ecosystem-based management to improve water quality; the area is essential to understanding the environmental effects and fate of chemicals originating from the Alberta oil sands. Moreover, the ELA has operated a comprehensive meteorological station, which is a measurement site of Environment Canada′s s Canadian Air and Precipitation Monitoring Network.

The Environment and Sustainable Development committee should fight to study the ELA, its research, its impact on public policy, and the cost of closing, remediating, or transferring the ELA to a third party. The potential cost of shutting the ELA is not insignificant; in 1996, site remediation was estimated at $25 million, but ELA has grown substantially since that time.

Time is of the essence given the impending deadline, at which point the government will decide the fate of the ELA. Given that ELA falls under a number of Environment Canada programs (e.g. 1.2, 1.3, 2.1, 2.2 and 3.1) perhaps Environment Canada should transfer the ELA to the department, and take over the program for $2 million per year.

It is time for the Canada’s two Ministers to match their supposed support of science by saving the ELA which has been providing public policy makers with exceptional and unique research for over 40 years within Canada and around the world.

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