Report released today says 9 in 10 scientists in Canada fear to speak freely to the media about the work they do and that, faced with a departmental decision that could harm public health, safety or the environment, nearly as many (86%) would face censure or retaliation for doing so. Any you wonder why there are so many of us 'radicals' on this forum who are upset with the current federal government policy. Good policy must be informed by science and that is simply not the case here in Canada at the moment. Whether we are talking about fish farms, food safety, medicine, resources, education, and on and on science and research should be at the forefront in terms of policy decision making ... and that is clearly not the case under the Harper gov't.
If anyone would like to make an attempt to justify this muzzling and suppression of public information I wish you luck.
http://www.pipsc.ca/portal/page/portal/website/issues/science/bigchill
Invitations to participate in the online survey, hosted by Environics Research, were sent to 15,398 PIPSC members – scientists, researchers and engineers – engaged in scientific work in over 40 federal departments and agencies. Of these, 4,069 (26%) responded between June 5 and 19, 2013. The survey is considered accurate + or – 1.6%, 19 times out of 20.