Canadian war on science
jdupuis | August 15, 2014From the "So Funny it Hurts" file...
This one combines the recent spying cases between Canada and China with the equally "humourous" ongoing Canadian War on Science.
Chinese cyber spies disappointed by Canada’s complete lack of scientific research
BEIJING - Chinese state-sponsored hackers were disappointed after hacking into Canadian government and business research archives and discovering they contained little to no valuable information.
“Wow, how on Earth is this country more developed than we are?” said Chinese Ministry of State Security intelligence analyst Lao Xi Ming from the smoke…
jdupuis | June 4, 2014There are two very strong competing emotions at work here in this post: delight versus depression.
Depression that the government-funded research landscape here in Canada can sink so low that the premier freshwater research facility likely in the world is reduced to putting its hand out and asking for spare change just to fund its core research program.
But there's also a kind of delight in acknowledging that we've reached a place in the evolution of open public science that regular people like you and I can participate directly in making sure important research happens and continues to…
jdupuis | April 14, 2014As part of the celebrations for Canada's upcomming 150th birthday, the Canadian federal government has released its Digital Canada 150 strategy paper, and while it`s not all bad, at the same time there is not an awful lot to recommend it. Especially considering it was four years in the making.
My sense is that its main purpose is for the Harper Conservative government to be able to say it has a digital strategy during the next election campaign in 2015. The most telling thing about the strategy, of course, is which department it originated in: Industry Canada. Not Culture, not Heritage, not…
jdupuis | April 1, 2014Added: Please note the date this post was published on.
After a couple of years of implementing some really amazing and progressive change at Elsevier, I've decided to refocus some of my advisory efforts over the next few years. As a result, I'll be taking on a senior advisory role for the Government of Canada. I'm thrilled to announce I'll stepping into a new position created just for me: Chief Advisor on Science Libraries.
In this capacity I'll be reporting directly to our brand new Minister of State for Science & Technology Ed Holder and one of my chief roles will be liaising with…
jdupuis | February 12, 2014Welcome to the rebooted science interview series here at Confessions of a Science Librarian! The previous incarnation mostly concentrated on people in the broadly defined scholarly communications community, like Mark Patterson of eLife, Peter Binfield and Jason Hoyt of PeerJ or author Michael Nielsen.
The series has been extremely irregular for the last few years so I thought my more recent involvement with Canadian science policy advocacy presented an interesting opportunity to start over. In particular, my participation in the recent iPolitics science policy series presented itself as a…
jdupuis | January 29, 2014A couple of weeks ago I was approached by Rabble.ca to write a piece for them with some of my thoughts about the current controversy surrounding the government of Canada's closure of several Department of Fisheries and Oceans libraries. I have a link compilation here.
I was happy to write up something and it appeared here. Rabble also allows authors to keep all rights to their work so we agreed that after a few days I would be able to repost it here on my blog. Which is what I've done below.
I will reiterate my thanks to Kaitlin McNabb for offering me this opportunity and for her very…
jdupuis | January 16, 2014I have an article up at Rabble.ca today about the library closure situation at Canada's Department of Fisheries and Oceans.
When closures happen, the librarians and staff work very hard to minimize the impact on their community, especially to make sure valuable collections are not lost and that research support services are maintained.
This is where the DFO situation takes a downward turn.
Apparently, this careful process to keep irreplaceable material was not, at all, what happened at the DFO libraries that are being closed. Instead, chaos and confusion seemed to reign.
Check it out over…
jdupuis | January 13, 2014Welcome to the rebooted science interview series here at Confessions of a Science Librarian! The previous incarnation mostly concentrated on people in the broadly defined scholarly communications community, like Mark Patterson of eLife, Peter Binfield and Jason Hoyt of PeerJ or author Michael Nielsen.
The series has been extremely irregular for the last few years so I thought my more recent involvement with Canadian science policy advocacy presented an interesting opportunity to start over. In particular, my participation in the recent iPolitics science policy series presented itself as a…
jdupuis | January 9, 2014As is occasionally my habit when a big story breaks, I have gathered together all the relevant documents I could find concerning the recent controversy about the Canadian Conservative government's recent consolidation of the libraries at their Department of Fisheries & Oceans. The consolidation has resulted in severely weeded collections, library closures and staff layoffs.
I have more to say on the situation, probably next week, but I thought I'd compile this list first both for the common good and to help me frame my own thoughts.
As usual, if you note any errors or omissions in my,…
jdupuis | January 2, 20142012 was a year of Open Access advocacy for me. I published a ton of posts that year generally around the loose theme of making the scholarly communications ecosystem fairer and more open. In 2013 I did a little of that too, for sure.
But with a lot of the effects of the Conservative government's 2012 omnibus Bill C-38 coming home to roost with numerous cuts and closures and yet more policy changes, the thing that really motivated me to blog in an otherwise very slow blogging year was Canadian science policy.
More precisely, advocating for a fairer, more just system of government funded…
jdupuis | October 22, 2013Sarah Boon (Twitter, blog) has organized a series of posts on science policy in Canada over the next month or so to be published in the iPolitics online magazine. The first four are out with another eight (two approximately every Monday) between now and November 18th. Which is just in time for the upcoming Canadian Science Policy Conference in Toronto starting November 20th.
The articles are available open access. I'll list the first bunch here, including my own contribution comparing what's going on at Library and Archives Canada with similar assaults on science. I will update this post as…
jdupuis | October 17, 2013Chris Turner's The War on Science: Muzzled Scientists and Wilful Blindness in Stephen Harper's Canada (website) is a book that absolutely must be read by every Canadian interested in the future of science and science policy in the country.
And the Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservative government is wagering that that's a pretty low percentage of the population. If Susan Delacourt and Darrell Bricker and John Ibbitson are to be believed, the strategy that the Prime Minister is using focuses on an emerging coalition of western Canadians and new Canadians and suburbanites in eastern…
jdupuis | October 6, 2013How bad is it? Even the New York Times has noticed what is going on with Canadian science, comparing the situation here unfavourably with the situation in the US under George W. Bush.
It began badly enough in 2008 when scientists working for Environment Canada, the federal agency, were told to refer all queries to departmental communications officers. Now the government is doing all it can to monitor and restrict the flow of scientific information, especially concerning research into climate change, fisheries and anything to do with the Alberta tar sands — source of the diluted bitumen that…
jdupuis | September 13, 2013Darrell Bricker and John Ibbitson's book The Big Shift: The Seismic Change in Canadian Politics, Business, and Culture and What It Means for Our Future is pretty obviously not a science book. Rather, it's a book about Canadian politics. But of course here in Canada these days, it's hard to talk about science without talking about politics at least a little. This book is interesting from a science policy perspective since it endeavors to give insight into the deeper rationale behind the current Conservative government's actions. In a sense, it asks, "What kind of Canada do Stephen Harper and…
jdupuis | July 10, 2013On May 20th, 2013 I published my most popular post ever. It was The Canadian War on Science: A long, unexaggerated, devastating chronological indictment. In it, I chronicled at some considerable length the various anti-science measures by the current Canadian Conservative government. The chronological aspect was particularly interesting as you could see the ramping up since the 2011 election where the Conservatives won a majority government after two consecutive minority Conservative governments.
As an exercise in alt-metrics (and here), I thought I would share some of the reactions and…
jdupuis | June 17, 2013I 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 Council announced that it would change it's focus from performing basic, curiosity-driven research to more applied research, preferably sponsored by Canadian industry.
From Minister of State for Science and Technology Gary Goodyear's speaking points:
Ladies and…
jdupuis | May 20, 2013This 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 science. It is a government that is more interested in keeping its corporate masters happy than in protecting the environment.
As is occasionally my habit, I have pulled together a chronology of sorts. It is a chronology of…
jdupuis | May 7, 2013Now 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 the restructuring and refocusing of the NRC.
Here's some more from the Sun News article:
The government of Canada believes there is a place for curiosity-driven, fundamental scientific research, but the…
jdupuis | April 29, 2013What 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 importance of preserving our heritage, scientific and cultural.
The kind of place where Environment Canada would take their own name off their weather service website. Really? Yeah, really.
The kind of place where the Federal Government slashes its own role…
jdupuis | March 22, 2013You 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 with shouted Yays.
You would think that anyone who would vote nay to such a resolution would be a virtual pariah in an open democratic society, a society that values an informed citizenry and evidence-based decision making.
Apparently you would be wrong.…