Canadian war on science
Category archives for Canadian war on science
The Canadian War on Science: National Research Council’s new focus ignores how science works
Posted by John Dupuis on June 17, 2013 I know I’ve already posted about the changes at the NRC, but this recent David Suzuki article frames the issue so perfectly that I thought I’d post about it again. The article is called National Research Council’s new focus ignores how science works. The core issue is that recently the Canadian Federal Government’s National Research…
The Canadian War on Science: A long, unexaggerated, devastating chronological indictment
Posted by John Dupuis on May 20, 2013 This is a brief chronology of the current Conservative Canadian government’s long campaign to undermine evidence-based scientific, environmental and technical decision-making. It is a government that is beholden to big business, particularly big oil, and that makes every attempt to shape public policy to that end. It is a government that fundamentally doesn’t believe in…
Scientific discovery is not valuable unless it has commercial value
Posted by John Dupuis on May 7, 2013 Now there’s a quote for you! Provocative in it’s shortsightedness and fairly ignorant of how the interplay between scientific discovery and commercialization/technology transfer works. Commercial products are engineered and developed out of basic scientific discoveries. So who said that? Sadly, it was the John McDougall, President of the National Research Council of Canada talking about…
Reading Diary: Keystone XL: Down the Line by Steven Mufson
Posted by John Dupuis on April 29, 2013 What kind of place has Canada become? The kind of place that closes world-class research facilities in the arctic and in lake country. (Thanks, Ontario!) The kind of place where the government actively muzzles it’s own scientists and librarians, the scientists for wanting to share their research and librarians who want to talk about the…
The Canadian war on public science, basic research and the free and open exchange of scientific information
Posted by John Dupuis on March 22, 2013 You would think that such apple pie issues as public science, basic research and the free and open exchange of scientific information would be hard to disagree with. You would think that a resolution in the Canadian parliament would to such effect would meet with resounding support, resulting in a unanimous vote, the room resounding…
Controversy at the recent Canadian Library Association conference
Posted by John Dupuis on June 4, 2012 Apologies to my loyal readers for the rather inside-baseball library and Canadian politics focus of my recent posts, but that unfortunately is where I’m at right now. It will probably continue for a least a little bit. Onward. The Canadian Library Association held its annual conference in Ottawa last week and one of the highlights…
An Open Letter to the World on the Governmental Destruction of the Environment in Canada
Posted by John Dupuis on May 25, 2012 I’ve been posting quite a bit recently on the disastrous record of the current Conservative government here in Canada, especially in regards to how they treat information, science and the environment. Sadly, I have way too many posts in the works along these lines. The other day a post I saw on the Deciphering Science…
