Denying Science Its Just Due

Yes, they're right in flagging Canada's dismal record in funding critical scientific enquiry on the environment. Canada has been remiss for decades in adequately funding science projects of all kinds.

We have the scientific expertise, we have built some world-class scientific infrastructure, our universities graduate skilled scientific technologists and brilliant scientific enquirers, but we've become lamentably niggardly in setting aside reliably ongoing funding to ensure that Canadian scientific innovation can continue to percolate.

And the current Conservative-led government hasn't bothered to shine a bright light of support on Canadian scientists, no more than its predecessors.

In fact, they're probably worse in some respects because of their actual withdrawal of needed monetary support from scientific monitoring of environmental situations as a result of global warming, in those very areas where we most need to be aware of what has been happening and what continues to happen, as our weather patterns inexorably change and our atmosphere becomes ever more degraded.

Now none other than the highly respected British journal Nature has published an editorial faulting Canada's current government for its dreadful lack of commitment toward science and the environment. Response from official government sources has been swift and unequivocal; the conclusions are quite simply "incomprehensible" and most certainly "misleading".

On the other hand, Canadian scientists are standing up and shouting "right!". Not at all proud of the fact that the current government is stunting the potential for scientific enquiry and enlightenment on the environment.

After all, if we can't understand what is happening, and why it is occurring, and where the most serious problems arise, then how can we possibly devise a science-based working response in hopes of remediation?

It "has expressed what many of us feel", according to Andrew Miall of the University of Toronto, president of the Royal Society of Canada's Academy of Science.

Dr. Miall and his colleagues have been witnessing the dismantling of scientific advisory bodies, and the dismissal of people vital to science such as chemist Arthur Carty, former president of the National Research Council.

Where most developed and wealthy countries of the world are busy supporting science and technology, Canada's dismal record in ignoring the need for such support is troubling and speaks to a lack of intelligent leadership in this area. The government has been severely truncating budgets for scientific enquiry at a time when we need it most.

While the Canada Research Chairs program is well funded and able to recruit the scientists we need, the funding for applications for scientific programs just isn't there. We've made strides in some areas, notably the Canadian Light Source synchrotron in Saskatoon, yet big-science projects such as this one hardly know where their ongoing funding is going to come from.

Surely a country as well endowed with educated professionals in the fields of science, technology and engineering, can do a lot better that this?