The WAR on Science: Thursday, November 21, 2013, 7:00 pm Room 1900, SFU Harbour Ctr

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Rockfish, if I didn't think that Harper's anti-science agenda will have detrimental effects for future generations I would think that is funny... actually, it still is pretty damn funny ;)
 
Muzzling Civil Servants: A Threat to Democracy?
http://www.elc.uvic.ca/press/docume...acy-Watch_OIPLtr_Feb20.13-with-attachment.pdf

Introduction
This paper examines a trend indicating that the federal government of Canada is closing off
access to government information. The media plays a crucial role in distributing information,
including government information, to the Canadian public. As a result, this paper primarily
focuses on how the federal government has disrupted the media environment through the
direct and indirect muzzling of government scientists and other federal civil servants. In Part A,
the communications policies of various federal departments are outlined and examples
illustrating the results of the implementation of such policies are provided. In Part B, the
departmental policies of the Canadian federal government are contrasted with those in the
United States, implemented under the leadership of President Barack Obama. In Part C, an
analysis of the overall trend of the federal government of Canada closing off access to
government information is provided.

In conducting research for this paper, various individuals were consulted, including: current and
former federal civil servants, journalists, members of non-profit organizations and professors of
Canadian universities. Furthermore, a large number of internal government documents that
were previously released through Freedom of Information requests under the Access to
Information Act have been referenced in this paper. Copies of the referenced documents have
been included in the Appendices of this paper.
 
Dismantling of Fishery Library 'Like a Book Burning,' Say Scientists
Harper government shuts down 'world class' collection on freshwater science and protection.
By Andrew Nikiforuk, Today, TheTyee.ca

The Harper government has dismantled one of the world's top aquatic and fishery libraries as part of its agenda to reduce government as well as limit the role of environmental science in policy decision-making.
http://thetyee.ca/News/2013/12/09/D...eadlines&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=091213
 
http://thetyee.ca/News/2013/12/09/D...eadlines&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=091213
Last week the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, which is closing five of its seven libraries, allowed scientists, consultants and members of the public to scavenge through what remained of Eric Marshall Library belonging to the Freshwater Institute at the University of Manitoba.
One woman showed up to pick up Christmas gifts for a son interested in environmental science. Other material went into dumpsters. Consultants walked home with piles of "grey material" such as 30-year-old reports on Arctic gas drilling.
Nearly 40,000 books and papers were relocated to a federal library in Sidney, B.C.
"It was a world class library with some of the finest environmental science and freshwater book collections in the world. It was certainly the best in Canada, but it's no more," said Burt Ayles, a 68-year-old retired research scientist and former regional director general for freshwaters in central Canada and the Arctic.
Established in 1973, when foreign governments hailed Canada as a world leader in freshwater science and protection, the library housed tens of thousands of reports, maps, charts and books, including material dating back to the 1880s.
The library contained fishery reports on the decline of sturgeon fishing in Lake Winnipeg from the 1890s, said Ayles, and served as invaluable intellectual capital for public researchers at the Freshwater Institute and world famous Experimental Lakes Area.
"The loss of this library and its impact on fisheries and environmental science is equivalent to Rome destroying the Royal Library of Alexandria in Egypt. It's equal to that," said Ayles. At the time, Alexandria boasted the world's largest collection in the ancient world.
Closure 'makes us poorer as a nation': scientist
Before Fisheries and Oceans hired a librarian to dispose of the library's contents, the collection duly reflected the importance of freshwater in the nation's geography, say scientists.
Canada holds more than 20 per cent of the surface freshwater in the world, and its rivers and streams annually transport almost 10 per cent of the world flow of freshwater. Canada is also one of the world's largest seafood-exporting nations.
"I was sickened," said one prominent research scientist who had worked for the federal government for 30 years, and who did not want to be identified. "All that intellectual capital is now gone. It's like a book burning. It's the destruction of our cultural heritage. It just makes us poorer as a nation."
"There are so many willing accomplices to what's going on," the scientist added. "All of our federal libraries and archives are being diminished. It's an ideological thing coming from a right-wing libertarian government."
Since 2012, the government has closed or consolidated more than a dozen federal libraries at Parks Canada, Environment Canada, Natural Resources Canada, Foreign Affairs, Citizenship and Immigration and Canadian Heritage (see sidebar).
"The government is either incompetent or malevolent or both," added Ayles.
No scientist interviewed by The Tyee thought digital libraries could replace what has been destroyed.
Digital libraries, for example, often don't include older material and journals and paradoxically reduce access to material due to payment schemes. They restrict rather than expand readership, say scientists.
"You don't get rid of intellectual capital because one day you might need it, and if you have squandered it then you must redo it," explained one researcher. "People are not being told the truth about what is happening in this country."
Federal cuts by the Harper government have forced Fisheries and Oceans to lay off hundreds of researchers, as well as 700 Coast Guard workers; dismantle a marine contaminants program; and close the Kitsilano Coast Guard station, the first line of defence against oil spills. After dramatic cuts to the Canada Offshore Oil, Gas and Energy Research Centre at the Bedford Institute of Oceanography, its director, Ken Lee, an oil spill expert, saw the writing on the wall and took a job in Australia.
Given that the Fisheries Act has been gutted in response to lobbying by energy companies (they found habitat protection "onerous" and it has been removed), government supporters say the infrastructure to protect fish and freshwater is no longer necessary.
The library's closing did not surprise retired water ecologist David Schindler. "In retrospect, I am not surprised at all to find them trashing scientific libraries," he said.
"Paranoid ideologues have burned books and records throughout human history to try to squelch dissenting visions that they view as heretical, and to anyone who worships the great God Economy monotheistically, environmental science is heresy."
Echoes of the Experimental Lakes
The library's closure pours salt on another wound: thedismantling of the world-famous Experimental Lakes Area (ELA).
For nearly 50 years, scientists from around the world have used 58 lakes in northern Ontario for real, in-the-field experiments. These whole-lake studies led to groundbreaking insights on acid rain, mercury transport, gender-bending hormones and phosphate pollution. They also produced some of the longest running data on climate change's impact on water and fish.
The Harper government stopped funding the $2-million facility in 2012, saying its services were no longer needed or redundant. At the time, project scientists were planning to do experiments on bitumen pollutants and their impact on fish and other species.
Former science minister Gerry Goodyear defended the closure by arguing that whole-lake experiments like those performed at ELA could be replaced by smaller scale experiments in labs where they would not jeopardize the entire lake.
Jules Blais, president of the Society of Canadian Limnologists, replied in a May 6, 2013 letter that Goodyear's comments were not only misleading, but inaccurate. Scientists uniformly agree that whole-lake research offers the best evidence to guide policy, Blais wrote, while "small-scale experiments are inadequate to address issues related to ecosystem services, food web structure, land-water interactions, air-water interactions, shoreline communities, and migratory species."
Furthermore, "experiments at the ELA are carefully designed to simulate environmentally-relevant conditions, and are only performed if ecosystems will recover naturally from the manipulation," wrote Blais, a leading authority on mercury pollution.
The closure of the library, which served as a vital source for the ELA, will make it harder for Winnipeg's International Institute for Sustainable Development to rescue what remains of the team of scientists that ran the ELA. A last minute deal, supported by funding by the Ontario government, has been compromised by the federal government. The ELA's remaining researchers all received "surplus letters" last week, which makes it difficult to retain ELA staff.
Schindler, one of the first directors of the ELA, has long criticized the pace and scale of Canadian tar sands production. He co-authored two significant studies that showed the tar sands industry was responsible for significant pollution of waterways in the region. The studies forced Ottawa to develop a new monitoring program for the mega-project.
The ELA cost $2 million a year to maintain, but its research saved governments around the world billions of dollars by preventing water contamination, Schindler said.
Read more: Federal Politics, Environment
Andrew Nikiforuk is an award-winning journalist who has been writing about the energy industry for two decades and is a contributing editor to The Tyee. Find his previous stories here.
 
OTHER FEDERAL LIBRARY CLOSURES AND CONSOLIDATIONS
CLOSED:
Canadian Heritage: The Library and Archives Canada Staff Resource Centre closed on Nov. 1, 2012. As of April 2013, the Public Service Commission (PSC) was in the process of closing. Plans regarding the disposition of PSC's library collection had not been finalized.
Citizenship and Immigration (CIC): The CIC library closed on March 31, 2012.
Environment Canada: The National Roundtable on the Environment and the Economy was eliminated. Its library was closed on March 31, 2013.
Foreign Affairs: The Documentation Service and library of the Canadian Cultural Centre at the Canadian Embassy in Paris closed on June 21, 2012.
Human Resources and Skills Development: HRSDC closed its libraries in Gatineau, Quebec, and Montreal on March 31, 2013.
National Capital Commission: The National Capital Commission Library closed in 2012.
Intergovernmental Affairs: The Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) is expected to significantly reduce and eventually close its library.
Public Works and Government Services: PWGSC closed its library on May 31, 2012.
Transport, Infrastructure and Communities: Transport Canada closed its library in 2012.
CONSOLIDATED:
Canada Revenue Agency (CRA): The CRA is consolidating its nine existing libraries into one, the location of which has yet to be determined.
Environment Canada: Parks Canada will consolidate five libraries into one. Regional libraries located in Calgary, Winnipeg, Quebec City and Halifax will be consolidated into the Cornwall, Ontario location.
Fisheries and Oceans (DFO): The DFO will close seven of its libraries, leaving two principal and two subsidiary locations. Consolidation completed September 2012.
Natural Resources: Natural Resources Canada is set to close six of 14 libraries in 2012-2013: two in Ottawa, one in Varennes, Quebec; one in Edmonton, Alberta; and another in western Canada. In 2014, another Ottawa library will be closed.
Source: Canadian Association of University Teachers.
-- Andrew Nikiforuk
 
The era of extreme Jewish intellectualism is now at an end. The breakthrough of the German revolution has again cleared the way on the German path...The future German man will not just be a man of books, but a man of character. It is to this end that we want to educate you. As a young person, to already have the courage to face the pitiless glare, to overcome the fear of death, and to regain respect for death - this is the task of this young generation. And thus you do well in this midnight hour to commit to the flames the evil spirit of the past. This is a strong, great and symbolic deed - a deed which should document the following for the world to know - Here the intellectual foundation of the November Republic is sinking to the ground, but from this wreckage the phoenix of a new spirit will triumphantly rise.
— Joseph Goebbels , Speech to the students in Berlin 1933 Book Burning
 
http://www.forestry.gov.uk/pdf/FCRP022.pdf/$FILE/FCRP022.pdf
Moseley, D. and Valatin, G. (2013)
Insights from behavioural economics for ecosystem services valuation and sustainability
Forestry Commission Research Report.
Forestry Commission, Edinburgh. i–vi + 1–24 pp

Evidence shows how the values people place upon ecosystem services and sustainability can change following a period of learning and preference formation as preconceptions, prior knowledge and levels of understanding are updated.

I think Harper has already realized this fact...
 
http://www.amazon.ca/The-War-Science-Scientists-Blindness/dp/1771004312

Good christmas gift. I just read this book after attending Chris Turner's seminar at SFU a few weeks ago. I think this is a must read for all Canadians. We are being led down a seriously dangerous path with consequences that will be felt for generations... but hey, economy is doing OK for the short term right ;)

---

In this arresting and passionately argued indictment, award-winning journalist Chris Turner argues that Stephen Harper's attack on basic science, science communication, environmental regulations, and the environmental NGO community is the most vicious assault ever waged by a Canadian government on the fundamental principles of the Enlightenment. From the closure of Arctic research stations as oil drilling begins in the High Arctic to slashed research budgets in agriculture, dramatic changes to the nation's fisheries policy, and the muzzling of government scientists, Harper's government has effectively dismantled Canada's long-standing scientific tradition.

Drawing on interviews with scientists whose work has been halted by budget cuts and their colleagues in an NGO community increasingly treated as an enemy of the state, The War on Science paints a vivid and damning portrait of a government that has abandoned environmental stewardship and severed a national commitment to the objective truth of basic science as old as Canada itself.
 
http://www.alternativesjournal.ca/policy-and-politics/crimes-against-ecology

Crimes Against Ecology
Is the Harper government guilty? You be the judge.
BY LAURA MCDONALD
NOV 2013
...
The charge: Promoting willful ignorance by eliminating advisory bodies and restricting data gathering.
The evidence:
 In January 2008, the Office of the National Science Adviser was phased out.
 The mandatory long-form census was replaced with a voluntary national household survey in July 2010, reducing the availability of reliable and detailed data.
 The 2012 budget halved $5-million in annual funding for the First Nations Statistical Institute and eliminated it completely in 2013, leading to 23 staff layoffs.
 The 25-year-old National Roundtable on the Environment and the Economy was shut down in March 2013 because the government didn’t agree with its reports. The NRTEE was prohibited from publishing its final report online and from transferring historical materials to another organization. (They circulated them anyway.)
The charge: Preventing knowledge from reaching the public by muzzling government scientists.
The evidence:
 Restrictive new protocols were implemented at Environment Canada in 2007 and Natural Resources Canada in 2010 requiring scientists to obtain government permission before speaking to the media. Meanwhile, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans has restricted scientists from publishing research prior to screening for “concerns/impacts to DFO policy.”
 A lengthy 2008 guide to “Meeting the Media” instructs DFO employees to “refer to the Department or the Government in your answers and do not use the personal pronoun ‘I’. After all you’re a DFO spokesperson and not an opinionated commentator.” (The guide is included in a report from Democracy Watch.)
 In April 2010, Natural Resources Canada prohibited geologist Scott Dallimore from speaking to reporters regarding his Nature paper about a flood that occurred about 13,000 years ago without his answers being vetted in advance – despite it having nothing to do with NRC’s identified “hot topics,” such as minerals, energy or anthropogenic climate change.
 The National Research Council Press was privatized in September 2010, revoking free access to 17 journals.
 From January to August 2011, DFO researcher Kristi Miller was not allowed to give interviews about her 2011 paper on a virus suspected of killing wild sockeye salmon in BC.
 In summer 2011, Environment Canada denied water researcher Marley Waiser permission to speak about two papers disclosing the presence of chemicals and pharmaceuticals in Saskatchewan’s Wascana Creek.
 In October 2011, federal scientist David Tarasick was prohibited from discussing the discovery of one of the largest ozone holes above the Arctic until after media interest waned.
 Environment Canada scientists were shadowed and monitored by media-relations handlers at the International Polar Year conference in April 2012.
 Libraries at the Pacific Forestry Centre in Victoria and the Northern Forestry Centre in Edmonton were closed to the public in October 2012.
 In November 2012, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency successfully lobbied to have the research lab at the Atlantic Veterinary College-University of PEI stripped of its international credentials for revealing evidence of infectious salmon anemia in BC salmon, thereby threatening exports.
 In April 2013, the DFO required scientists working on a joint Canada-US Arctic research project to sign an exhaustive confidentiality agreement. (Some of the US scientists, including University of Delaware oceanographer Andreas Muenchow, refused.)
 The new Library and Archives Canada code of conduct, released in March 2013, prohibits employees from participating in professional conferences, teaching and other “personal activities” without permission and adherence to strict criteria, including that the subject matter not be “related to the mandate or activities of LAC.” The mandate of the LAC is “to facilitate co-operation among communities involved in the acquisition, preservation and diffusion of knowledge.” In other words, the LAC is not allowed to fulfill its own mandate.
A June 2013 survey by the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada found that 90 per cent of federal scientists “feel they are not allowed to speak freely to the media” about their work – and one-third have been actively prevented from doing so.
The charge: Systematically dismantling decades of environmental protection legislation.
 
The evidence:
 Canada withdrew from the Kyoto Protocol in December 2011, sidestepping an estimated $14-billion in penalties for noncompliance with reducing emissions targets below 1990 levels. A much easier federal target of 17 per cent below 2005 levels by 2020 was announced.
 With omnibus Bill C-38, key portions of the Fisheries Act were repealed in June 2012, endangering habitats and removing triggers for impact assessments. Bill C-38 also replaced the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act with a much weaker version that restricts public participation in assessment hearings, and neutered the Species at Risk Act, including removing time limits on permits.
 In December 2012, environmental oversight was reduced by changes proposed by the pipeline industry to the Navigable Waters Protection Act.
 Canada became the only country to withdraw from the UN anti-drought convention in March 2013.
 In April 2013, legislation proposed by the oil and gas industry amended the list of industrial projects requiring environmental reviews, removing provincially regulated pipelines and tar sands processing facilities.
The charge: Limiting scientists’ ability to provide perspective by reducing environmental research funding.
The evidence:
 In 2007, Harper announced a new Science, Technology and Innovation Council to prioritize industry goals and economics over scientific perspective.
 The government announced it would not renew funding for the Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences in March 2010 (although the facility stopped receiving money in
2006). Since 2000, CFCAS funded more than $110-million of research into prairie drought, air quality and other pressing issues.
 In April 2010, 86 workers were laid off at the Canada Institute for Scientific and Technical Information, the country’s national science library and leading publisher of scientific information.
 Funding for the Polar Environment Atmospheric Research Laboratory (PEARL) ran out in February 2012. Significant pressure from the scientific community won a partial reprieve of $5-million over five years – well short of the Nunavut-based facility’s $1.5-million annual operating budget.
 The Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council reallocated more than $15-million from basic research to industry partnership programs in 2012, continuing a trend that began in 2005. NSERC ended its major resources support program in May 2012, which provided operational funding for 37 organizations and research stations – including the Kluane Lake Research Station in the Yukon (which lost half of its operating budget after more than 50 years) and the world-renowned Bamfield Marine Sciences Centre on Vancouver Island (which lost $500,000 in annual funding it had been receiving since 1970).
 The May 2012 federal budget also cut $2-million in annual funding for the Experimental Lakes Area in Northern Ontario. An interim agreement between the International Institute for Sustainable Development and the provinces of Ontario and Manitoba is keeping the 45-year-old globally renowned freshwater research laboratory open until at least March 2014. But in September 2013, the federal government cancelled the agreement that allowed whole-ecosystem experiments to take place, making the kind of research done at ELA illegal.
 In 2013, the National Research Council was told to focus on science with practical business applications.
The charge: Undermining conservation and monitoring efforts by cutting funding, staff and programs.
The evidence:
 The 2011-2012 Environment Canada budget was reduced by $222.2-million over the previous year and 1,211 jobs were cut. Among the hardest-hit programs were Climate Change and Clean Air, Weather and Environmental Services, Water Resources and Internal Services, the Action Plan on Clean Water and the Federal Contaminated Sites Action Plan. The Chemicals Management Plan, the Clean Air Agenda and the Air Quality Health Index and the Species at Risk programs were eliminated.
 In April 2012, the Sustainable Water Management Division of Environment Canada ended its work on water-use efficiency and conservation, including the Municipal Water and Wastewater Survey, because of $1.5-million in budget cuts.
 Four national marine conservation areas and 42 national parks lost operational capacity when 638 Parks Canada jobs were declared surplus in April 2012.
 To save $79.3-million, 400 jobs were cut at the DFO in May 2012, affecting research stations, fish hatcheries and libraries. The DFO’s Ocean Contaminants & Marine Toxicology Program was also cancelled entirely. A year later, the DFO’s budget was reduced by $100-million over three years, replaced by $10-million for local organizations to do fish habitat work.
 Other casualties of the 2012 budget included the Centre for Offshore Oil, Gas and Energy Research, whose work on the ecological effects of oil and gas was phased out in spite of its experience helping with the BP oil spill cleanup in 2010. The Smokestacks Emissions Monitoring Team was also dismantled to save $718,000, and the Mersey Biodiversity Centre in Milton, Nova Scotia, was slated for closure by April 1, 2014.
 On the 20th anniversary of the UV index in October 2012, Environment Canada’s ozone monitoring department was eliminated by a $13.3-million budget cut. (The first ozone hole over the Arctic was discovered in 2011.)
The charge: Obstructing and threatening environmental education and advocacy efforts.
The evidence:
 In April 2006, the government suddenly stopped funding the $45-million One-Tonne Challenge program carried out by local groups across Canada.
 Environment Canada backed out on $547,000 in promised funding for the Canadian Environmental Network (RCEN) in October 2011, forcing the network to lay off its entire staff. The RCEN is more than 30 years old and has 600 member organizations.
 In January 2012, the Prime Minister’s office threatened Tides Canada’s charitable status for supporting advocacy group ForestEthics. With an audit of Tides Canada already underway, the government ordered the Canadian Revenue Agency to increase its monitoring of charities’ spending in March 2012.
 In February 2012, Public Safety Canada identified environmentalists as “issue-based domestic terrorists” in its counter-terrorism strategy.
 The Centre of the Universe astronomy interpretive centre and 100-year-old telescope in Saanich, BC, were closed to the public as of fall 2013 due to National Research Council cuts.
 
Thx for that link Agent! When the examples of Canada's recent gutting of environmental legislation are grouped together like this is really is quite a telling story.
 
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/capt-trevor-greene/science-cuts-canada_b_4534729.html


How the Harper Government Committed a Knowledge Massacre

Posted: 01/03/2014 12:07 pm

Department Of Fisheries And Oceans, Freshwater Institute Library, Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Centre, St. Andrews Biological Station, Environmental Science, Fascism, Fisheries, Libraries, Libricide, Political Ideology, Tyee, Canada Politics News
.
Scientists are calling it "libricide." Seven of the nine world-famous Department of Fisheries and Oceans [DFO] libraries were closed by autumn 2013, ostensibly to digitize the materials and reduce costs. But sources told the independent Tyee in December that a fraction of the 600,000-volume collection had been digitized. And, a secret federal document notes that a paltry $443,000 a year will be saved. The massacre was done quickly, with no record keeping and no attempt to preserve the material in universities. Scientists said precious collections were consigned to dumpsters, were burned or went to landfills.

Probably the most famous facility to get the axe is the library of the venerable St. Andrews Biological Station in St. Andrews, New Brunswick, which environmental scientist Rachel Carson used extensively to research her seminal book on toxins, Silent Spring. The government just spent millions modernizing the facility.

Also closed were the Freshwater Institute library in Winnipeg and the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Centre in St. John's, Newfoundland, both world-class collections. Hundreds of years of carefully compiled research into aquatic systems, fish stocks and fisheries from the 1800s and early 1900s went into the bin or up in smoke.

Irreplaceable documents like the 50 volumes produced by the H.M.S. Challenger expedition of the late 1800s that discovered thousands of new sea creatures, are now moldering in landfills.

Renowned Dalhousie University biologist Jeff Hutchings calls the closures "an assault on civil society."

"It is always unnerving from a research and scientist perspective to watch a government undermine basic research. Losing libraries is not a neutral act," Hutchings says. He blames political convictions for the knowledge massacre.

"It must be about ideology. Nothing else fits," said Hutchings. "What that ideology is, is not clear. Does it reflect that part of the Harper government that doesn't think government should be involved in the very things that affect our lives? Or is it that the role of government is not to collect books or fund science?" Hutchings said the closures fit into a larger pattern of "fear and insecurity" within the Harper government, "about how to deal with science and knowledge."

Many scientists have compared the war on environmental science to the rise of fascism in 1930s Europe. Hutchings muses, "you look at the rise of certain political parties in the 1930s and have to ask how could that happen and how did they adopt such extreme ideologies so quickly, and how could that happen in a democracy today?"
 
Coming to a TV near you. This Friday;
http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/m/episodes/2013-2014/the-silence-of-the-labs

In the past few years, the federal government has cut funding to hundreds of renowned research institutes and programs. Ottawa has dismissed more than 2,000 federal scientists and researchers and has drastically cut or ended programs that monitored smoke stack emissions, food inspections, oil spills, water quality and climate change.

Now some scientists have become unlikely radicals, denouncing what they call is a politically-driven war on knowledge. In Silence of the Labs, Linden MacIntyre tells the story of scientists - and what is at stake for Canadians - from Nova Scotia to the B.C. Pacific Coast to the far Arctic Circle.
 
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/capt-trevor-greene/science-cuts-canada_b_4534729.html


How the Harper Government Committed a Knowledge Massacre

Posted: 01/03/2014 12:07 pm

Department Of Fisheries And Oceans, Freshwater Institute Library, Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Centre, St. Andrews Biological Station, Environmental Science, Fascism, Fisheries, Libraries, Libricide, Political Ideology, Tyee, Canada Politics News
.
Scientists are calling it "libricide." Seven of the nine world-famous Department of Fisheries and Oceans [DFO] libraries were closed by autumn 2013, ostensibly to digitize the materials and reduce costs. But sources told the independent Tyee in December that a fraction of the 600,000-volume collection had been digitized. And, a secret federal document notes that a paltry $443,000 a year will be saved. The massacre was done quickly, with no record keeping and no attempt to preserve the material in universities. Scientists said precious collections were consigned to dumpsters, were burned or went to landfills.

Probably the most famous facility to get the axe is the library of the venerable St. Andrews Biological Station in St. Andrews, New Brunswick, which environmental scientist Rachel Carson used extensively to research her seminal book on toxins, Silent Spring. The government just spent millions modernizing the facility.

Also closed were the Freshwater Institute library in Winnipeg and the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Centre in St. John's, Newfoundland, both world-class collections. Hundreds of years of carefully compiled research into aquatic systems, fish stocks and fisheries from the 1800s and early 1900s went into the bin or up in smoke.

Irreplaceable documents like the 50 volumes produced by the H.M.S. Challenger expedition of the late 1800s that discovered thousands of new sea creatures, are now moldering in landfills.

Renowned Dalhousie University biologist Jeff Hutchings calls the closures "an assault on civil society."

"It is always unnerving from a research and scientist perspective to watch a government undermine basic research. Losing libraries is not a neutral act," Hutchings says. He blames political convictions for the knowledge massacre.

"It must be about ideology. Nothing else fits," said Hutchings. "What that ideology is, is not clear. Does it reflect that part of the Harper government that doesn't think government should be involved in the very things that affect our lives? Or is it that the role of government is not to collect books or fund science?" Hutchings said the closures fit into a larger pattern of "fear and insecurity" within the Harper government, "about how to deal with science and knowledge."

Many scientists have compared the war on environmental science to the rise of fascism in 1930s Europe. Hutchings muses, "you look at the rise of certain political parties in the 1930s and have to ask how could that happen and how did they adopt such extreme ideologies so quickly, and how could that happen in a democracy today?"

What a bunch of BS!


DFO looking after science and taxpayers
Library users will continue to have free access to all items in collection

Serious misinformation was spread recently about the consolidation of Department of Fisheries and Oceans libraries. Let me correct the record.

DFO owns one of the world's most comprehensive collections of information on fisheries, aquatic sciences and nautical sciences. Our government values these collections and will continue to strongly support it by continuing to add new material on an ongoing basis.

The decision to consolidate our network of libraries was based on value for taxpayers. The primary users of DFO libraries, over 86 per cent, are employees of the department. An average of only five to 12 people who work outside of DFO visited our 11 libraries each year. It is not fair to taxpayers to make them pay for libraries that so few people used.

Users of these libraries clearly prefer to access its information digitally, which the Department of Fisheries and Oceans can accommodate while also saving taxpayers money. In 2011, for example, over 95 per cent of the total documents provided to users were provided digitally through self-service or library staff virtually assisted service.

Users will continue to have completely free access to every item in DFO's collections. All materials for which DFO has copyright will be preserved by the department.

Duplicate materials, including books, from the libraries being consolidated were offered to other libraries and third parties if they wanted them. They were also offered to the DFO staff on site at the library, then offered to the general public, and finally were recycled in a "green" fashion if there were no takers. It is absolutely false to pretend that any books were burnt.

Our government is proud to stand up for taxpayers while retaining our important scientific knowledge.

Gail Shea

Minister of Fisheries and Oceans

http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/looking+after+science+taxpayers/9362503/story.html
 
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What a bunch of BS!


DFO looking after science and taxpayers
Library users will continue to have free access to all items in collection

Serious misinformation was spread recently about the consolidation of Department of Fisheries and Oceans libraries. Let me correct the record.

DFO owns one of the world's most comprehensive collections of information on fisheries, aquatic sciences and nautical sciences. Our government values these collections and will continue to strongly support it by continuing to add new material on an ongoing basis.

The decision to consolidate our network of libraries was based on value for taxpayers. The primary users of DFO libraries, over 86 per cent, are employees of the department. An average of only five to 12 people who work outside of DFO visited our 11 libraries each year. It is not fair to taxpayers to make them pay for libraries that so few people used.

Users of these libraries clearly prefer to access its information digitally, which the Department of Fisheries and Oceans can accommodate while also saving taxpayers money. In 2011, for example, over 95 per cent of the total documents provided to users were provided digitally through self-service or library staff virtually assisted service.

Users will continue to have completely free access to every item in DFO's collections. All materials for which DFO has copyright will be preserved by the department.

Duplicate materials, including books, from the libraries being consolidated were offered to other libraries and third parties if they wanted them. They were also offered to the DFO staff on site at the library, then offered to the general public, and finally were recycled in a "green" fashion if there were no takers. It is absolutely false to pretend that any books were burnt.

Our government is proud to stand up for taxpayers while retaining our important scientific knowledge.

Gail Shea

Minister of Fisheries and Oceans

http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/looking+after+science+taxpayers/9362503/story.html

Hey Chris Gadsen, before you start running your mouth off, pay attention.
 
Hey soxy could you keep an eye out for me on sun news for a report about Environment Canada and their libraries.
Read that the greenshirts have finished with DFO and have moved to EC.
[h=1]Last chapter for many Environment Canada libraries January 10, 2014[/h]http://www.canada.com/technology/Last+chapter+many+Environment+Canada+libraries/9368919/story.html
9368920.jpg


Environment Canada has a phone number for its library in Calgary. But a meteorologist answers, and he can’t say what’s become of the books.
It’s a similar story in Edmonton and Quebec City where federal libraries, with shelves loaded with reference books and scientific reports on everything from beluga whales to songbirds, now exist only in name.
Environment Canada lists the libraries on its website but the books are long gone.
“It’s been moved to Saskatoon,” said a woman named Susan who picked up at the phone number for the Edmonton library. In Yellowknife an answering machine said the Environment Canada library “is closed.” And the number listed for the federal conservation and environment library in Winnipeg is no longer in service.
Environment Canada, like the department of Fisheries and Oceans, is closing and consolidating its science libraries to the dismay of some observers who worry valuable books and materials are being lost.
“My sense is that the Environment Canada policy has been to essentially hack one arm off to save the other,” said one scientist, who asked not to be identified for fear of losing his job. He said the big worry is the loss of so-called “grey literature” — material that hasn’t been widely published, with as few as one or two copies in existence — and historical reports on wildlife and the environment that exist nowhere else.
Environment Canada libraries in Winnipeg, Edmonton, Calgary and Yellowknife have closed and the collections have been shipped to Saskatoon. A skeleton staff of one librarian and a couple of co-op students are said to be dealing with the consolidated collection in Saskatoon, which includes 650 boxes stashed in a “caged” storage areas awaiting sorting and cataloguing.
Several Environment Canada libraries in the East — including the ones in Quebec City and Sackville, N.B., have also been shuttered, others have been downsized, and some cases valuable materials has been tossed, scientists say.
Cuts to the federal science library programs have been underway for years but concern and controversy has grown as the books have been cleared off the shelves, with excess and outdated material landing in dumpsters. Peter Wells, an ocean pollution expert at Dalhousie University in Halifax, describes the closing of the DFO libraries as a “national tragedy.” And recent reports have likened it to burning books.
Barbara Clubb, interim executive director of the Canadian Library Association, said the group’s members are concerned. The reports of loss of access to valuable materials are “very, very worrying,” said Clubb.
The government defends the closures saying they are part of an effort to modernize its science libraries.


That picture sure look like a modern Canadian library....
Actions speak louder then words.....
 
Hundreds of federal programs and world renowned research facilities have been shut down or had their funding reduced by the federal government. This list was compiled by the Canadian Association of University Teachers and the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada. If you are a federal government scientist or researcher and your program, project, or research facility has been affected by the cuts we would like to hear from you, please comment below or send us an email at fifth@cbc.ca

Environmental Emergency Response Program
Urban Wastewater Program
Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences
Smokestacks Emissions Monitoring Team
Hazardous Materials Information Review Commission
National Roundtable on the Environment and the Economy
Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency, Winnipeg Office
Municipal Water and Wastewater Survey
Environmental Protection Operations
Compliance Promotion Program
Action Plan on Clean Water
Polar Environment Atmospheric Research Laboratory (PEARL) (PEARL lost its $1.5 million annual budget when the government stopped funding the Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Science (CFCAS) . In May 2013, the federal government announced the facility would get a $ 1 million a year grant for the next five years. But according to Professor Tom Duck, of Dalhousie University, with the loss of CFCAS, atmospheric and climate research will be funded at less than 70 per cent of the level it was funded at in 2006.)
Sustainable Water Management Division
Environmental Effects Monitoring Program
Federal Contaminated Sites Action Plan
Chemicals Management Plan
Canadian Centre for Inland Waters
Clean Air Agenda
Air Quality Health Index
Species at Risk Program
Weather and Environmental Services
Substance and Waste Management
Ocean Contaminants & Marine Toxicology Program
Experimental Lakes Area (Under the Bill-38 the ELA was shut down. As of January 2014, the International Institute for Sustainable Development and the Ontario government are working out an agreement with the federal government to take over the facility.)
DFO Marine Science Libraries
Centre for Offshore Oil & Gas Energy Research
Kitsilano Coast Guard Station
St. Johns Marine Traffic Centre
St. Anthony’s Marine Traffic Centre
Conservation and Protection Office
Conservation and Protection Office (L’anse au Loup, NL)
Conservation and Protection Office (Trepassey, NL)
Conservation and Protection Office (Rigolet, NL)
Conservation and Protection Office (Burgeo, NL)
Conservation and Protection Office (Arnold’s Cove, NL)
Conservation and Protection Office (Baddeck, NS)
Conservation and Protection Office (Canso, NS)
Conservation and Protection Office (Sheet Harbour, NS)
Conservation and Protection Office (Woodstock, NB)
Conservation and Protection Office (Port Hood, NS)
Conservation and Protection Office (Wallace, NS)
Conservation and Protection Office (Kedgwick, NB)
Conservation and Protection Office (Montague, PEI)
Conservation and Protection Office (Inuvik, NT)
Conservation and Protection Office (Rankin Inlet, NU)
Conservation and Protection Office (Clearwater, BC)
Conservation and Protection Office (Comox, BC)
Conservation and Protection Office (Hazelton, BC)
Conservation and Protection Office (Quesnel, BC)
Conservation and Protection Office (Pender Harbour, BC)
Atlantic Lobster Sustainability Measures Program
Species-at-Risk Program
Habitat Management Program
DFO Institute of Ocean Sciences (Sidney, BC)
Freshwater Institute - Winnipeg
Oil Spill Counter-Measures Team
Maurice-Lamontagne Institute’s French language library
Canadian Coast Guard Management
Water Pollution Research Lab (Sidney, BC)
Water Pollution Research Lab (Winnipeg, MB)
Water Pollution Research Lab (Burlington, ON)
Water Pollution Research Lab (Mont-Joli, QC)
Water Pollution Research Lab (Moncton, NB)
Water Pollution Research Lab (Dartmouth, NS)
St. Andrew Biological Station
Canadian Scientific Submersible Facility
Ice Information Partnership
Motor Vehicle Fleet
Inshore Rescue Boat Program
Species at Risk Atlantic Salmon Production Facilities
Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization
At-Sean Observer Programs
Financial Management Services
Pacific Forestry Centre, Satellite Office (Prince George, BC)
Canadian Centre for Remote Sensing
Pulp and Paper Green Transformation Program
Isotopes Supply Initiative
Clean Energy Fund
Sustainable Development Technology Canada – Next Generation Biofuels Fund
Program of Energy Research and Development
Pacific Forestry Centre
Astronomy Interpretation Centre – Centre of the Universe
MRI research, Institute Biodiagnostics
Polar Continental Shelf Progam
Canadian Neutron Beam Centre
Aquatic Ecotoxicology, Aquatic and Crop Resource Development
Molecular Biochemistry Laboratory, Aquatic and Crop Resource Development
Plant Metabolism Research, Aquatic and Crop Resource Development
Human Health Therapeutics research program
Automotive and Surface Transportation program
Magnetic Resonance Imaging Research
Environmental Risks to Health program
Substance Use and Abuse program
First Nations and Inuit Primary Health Care program
Health Infrastructure Support for First Nations and Inuit program
Interim Federal Health Program
Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration
Environmental Knowledge, Technology, Information, and Measurement program
Science, Innovation and Adoption program
Rural and Co-operatives Development program
Farm Debt Mediation Service
Centre for Plant Health (Sidney, BC)
National Aboriginal Health Organization
First Nations Statistical Institute
Cultural Connections for Aboriginal Youth
First Nations and Inuit Health
Fertilizer Pre-Market Efficacy Assessment program
Enforcement of Product of Canada label
RADARSAT Constellation Mission
Whapmagoostui-Kuujjuarapik Research station
Kluane Lake Research Station
Bamfield Marine Science Centre
Microfungal Collection and Herborium
Biogeoscience Institute
Coriolis II research Vessel
OIE Laboratory for Infectious Salmon Anaemia
Canadian Phycological Culture Centre
Brockhouse Institute
Polaris Portable Observatories for Lithospheric Analysis and Research
Mount Megantic Observatory
Smoke Stacks Emissions Monitoring Team
National Roundtable on the Environment and Economy
Environmental Protections Operations Compliant Promotion Program,
Sustainable Water Management Division,
Environmental Effects Monitoring program,
Fresh Water Institute
Canadian Centre for Inlands Waters (Burlington)
World Ozone and Ultraviolet Radiation Data Centre
Environmental Emergencies Program
Parks Canada
Montreal Biosphere
Statistics Canada
Fields Institute for Research in Mathematical Sciences
Laboratory for the Analysis of Natural and Synthetic Environmental Toxicants
National Ultrahigh-field NMR Facility for Solids
IsoTrace AMS Facility
Canadian Phycological Culture Centre
Canadian Resource Centre for Zebrafish Genetics
Neuroendocrinology Assay Laboratory at the University of Western Ontario
Canadian Centre for DNA Barcoding
Portable Observatories for Lithospheric Analysis and Research Investigating (POLARIS) (Ontario)
Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics
Brockhouse Institute for Materials Research
St. John’s Centrifuge Modelling Facility
Quebec/Eastern Canada high field NMR facility
Félix d’Hérelle Reference Center for Bacterial Viruses
Canadian Neutron Beam Laboratory
The Compute/Calcul Canada
Center for Innovative Geochronology
Biogeoscience Institute
Pacific Institute for the Mathematical Sciences
Pacific Northwest Consortium Synchrotron Radiation Facility
Centre for Molecular and Materials Science at TRIUMF
Pacific Centre for Isotopic and Geochemical Research
Canadian Cosmogenic Nuclide Exposure Dating Facility
Atlantic Regional Facilities for Materials Characterization
The Canadian SuperDARN/PolarDARN facility
 
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