Public scientific research should be for the benefit of the public, not just the governing party.

Manipulation or misapplication of scientific results to advance policy agendas is politicization of science.1 Sometimes officials go further, and muzzle scientists or interfere with their ability to do research. Sometimes scientists are fired because their discoveries or assessments don’t favour the agenda of the governing party.

The integrity of public scientific research in Canada is in decline. Environment Canada climatologists are told to stick to "approved lines" in interviews. The head of Canada's Nuclear Safety Commission was fired for a negative assessment of the 51-year-old NRU reactor, which lacked emergency cooling power at the time. The chair of the organizing committee was banned from attending the World Climate Talks in Poznan for "financial reasons" - despite the fact that he had his own funding.

For an overview of these and other recent incidents, see our summary page.

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[1] Politicizing Science: The Alchemy of Policymaking. Gough, Michael. Hoover Institution Press: Stanford, 2003.

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