Todd Southgate

“Environment Canada scientists told to toe the line”

Environment Canada has "muzzled" its scientists, ordering them to refer all media queries to Ottawa where communications officers will help them respond with "approved lines."Well, where have we seen this before? I’ll remind you.

That’s right folks, if it looks familiar that’s because it was done a few years back, and south of the border. It is a tactic borrowed straight from the US Republican’s playbook “Why I hate scientists and how they interfere with my friend’s profits”. There actually WAS a book published on the subject called the Republican’s War on science, not that many have read it I imagine given the dearth of Britney Spear's anecdotes. Groan.

Here’s a 60 minutes piece talking about the Bush government’s successes at muzzling scientists. I urge everyone to watch this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0i4Sx1edJE

This is exactly what the conservative party is now doing in Canada, and everyone will be less informed as a result.

Ironically, the piece on 60 minutes ends with a mention that one of Bush’s science advisors Phil Cooney (who was the Chief of staff of the Council on environmental Quality and responsible for editing and burying scientific findings as well as ignoring scientist’s fears) is now working for (DRUM ROLE PLEASE) Exxon Mobile. Today, Exxon Mobile has posted the largest annual profit by any U.S. company EVER: that’s 41 BILLION dollars folks. Nice work for simply trashing the planet’s climate and lying to the public. Oh, what a wonderful world we have.