Sunday, February 24, 2013

Censorship is alive and well in Canada – just ask government scientists...

We like to think of censorship as something that happens over there, in the faraway places where men break into houses at night to smash computers, or arrive in classrooms to remove books they don’t like. Not in lovely, calm, respectful Canada. Here we don’t necessarily notice freedoms being eroded slowly, grain by grain, “like sands through the hourglass,” if you’ll allow me to quote from Days of Our Lives.

Just ask Canada’s government scientists. Oh wait, you can’t ask them, because they’ve got duct tape over their mouths (metaphorical duct tape, but hey – it’s still painful). This week the University of Victoria’s Environmental Law Clinic and Democracy Watch asked federal Information Commissioner Suzanne Legault to investigate claims that scientists are being prohibited from speaking freely with journalists – and through them, the public.

In a report called Muzzling Civil Servants: A Threat to Democracy, the UVic researchers present some chilling findings: Scientists are either told not to speak to journalists or to spout a chewed-over party line, rubber-stamped by their PR masters; the restrictions are particularly tight when a journalist is seeking information about research relating to climate change or the tar sands; Environment Canada scientists require approval from the Privy Council Office before speaking publicly on sensitive topics “such as climate change or protection of polar bear and caribou.” Full story...

Related posts:
  1. Canadian workers warned against criticizing Harper government...
  2. Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper muzzling science and scientists...
  3. Angry Canadians "make noise" with pots and pans...
  4. Maple Spring: 'Canada vs totalitarian govt crackdown'
  5. Internet censorship is bad in China; is it any better in the "free" world?
  6. The Perfect Storm of internet censorship...

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