“While this level of rescue for world-renowned science should never have been necessary, Greens thank Premier Wynne and IISD for stepping up,” said Green Leader Elizabeth May, Member of Parliament for Saanich-Gulf Islands.

Ms. May served on the board of the IISD for nine years prior to entering politics.

“IISD, a think tank, is not necessarily the right organization to take on this mandate. However, keeping the ELA open and functioning, and in a public and transparent context, was paramount,” said May.

“The refusal of the Harper Conservatives to re-think their anti-environmental agenda remains disturbing,” said May.

The post ELA: Greens Congratulates Wynne for her Leadership appeared first on Elizabeth May.

I remember the struggle to develop a treaty to combat drought and encroaching deserts. Canada was one of the few countries in the lead to negotiate the treaty. I was not intimately involved, but I knew people who were. When it was signed in 1994, I was elated. Along with the conventions on climate and biodiversity, the treaty to combat drought addressed a global and pressing concern. It was clearly related to climate change, but was more regionally specific. And, although desertification is not a current threat to Canada, certainly drought is.

There had been no inkling or rumour that Stephen Harper wanted to exit another global environmental law. Given that the only treaty from which Canada has ever withdrawn, since 1867, was Kyoto, the cavalier way in which this news leaked out—posted on a Foreign Affairs website and noticed by Canadian Press— added to the shock. That we gave no notice to the secretariat for the Convention was further evidence of our contempt for both the United Nations and the threat posed by climate induced drought and desertification.

In Question Period the next day, Ralph Goodale (former Liberal finance minister and now only the MP for Wascana) posed an excellent question in which he linked other recent Harper administration decisions reducing the Prairies’ preparedness for drought. He charged ‘Maniacal front-line cuts have killed PFRA (the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration), which had world-class Canadian brainpower on soil and water conservation. Conservatives vandalized community pastures, the prairie tree farm and Experimental Lakes Area. Now Canada is the only country in the world sneaking out the back door on the UN Convention Against Drought.’

I was grateful Goodale noted cuts to programmes put in place after the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl, as I have been trying to draw attention to them. What Harper has against hedgerows and water conservation in the Prairies is certainly a mystery that has angered Prairie farmers. The Prime Minister’s response was spun to create the impression that the convention on drought and desertification was akin to a poorly run charity, in which aid dollars were poorly spent: ‘This organization spends less than 20% of the funds that we send are actually spent on programming. (sic) The rest goes to various bureaucratic measures. That is not an effective way to spend taxpayer money.’

‘This organization?’ The Prime Minister is speaking of a treaty, within which every other country on earth is making some level of contribution, financial and otherwise. How much were we spending? An astonishingly low pittance… $290,000/year. Admittedly that is a nice amount of money if you are collecting for a new school gymnasium, but it is chump change in the federal budget. We approve more than that routinely by unanimous consent for Parliamentary committee travel. Equated with those things the Prime Minister thinks are a good use of taxpayer funds, things like renting Pandas at $1 million/year, the drought treaty was a bargain.

Canada’s diplomatic corps is shocked. Former Ambassador to the United Nations, former Deputy Minister of National Defence and victim of a terrorist kidnapping in Mali, Robert Fowler, sent an email to the media. Calling our withdrawal from the treaty ‘a departure from global citizenship,’ here’s what he said:

‘It (the Harper administration) has taken climate-change denial, the abandonment of collective efforts to manage global crises and disregard the pain and suffering of the peoples of sub-Saharan Africa (among many others) to quite a different level.’

Responding to Foreign Minister John Baird’s defence that Canada won’t ‘go along to get along,’ Fowler continued:

‘No, by jingo, we’re not going to go along to get along! Such vainglorious nose-thumbing at the international community’s efforts to tame a very present threat to hundreds of millions of the world’s poorest and most desperate is nothing short of incomprehensible.’

Another former Ambassador to the United Nations, Paul Heinbecker, agreed that the move was both inexplicable and bound to confirm to the international community that Canada cared nothing for climate action, nor for the fate of Africa.

The UN itself was shocked. Noting that Canada will now be the only nation on earth not part of the convention, it, in typically understated diplomat-speak, called Canada’s decision ‘regrettable.’

It turns out our notice of intent was sent on January 14. The treaty requires only a 90-day period for full withdrawal so we exit the treaty on April 14, right in the middle of an important scientific review of the threat of desertification and drought, running April 9-19. ‘The next gathering of the scientific conference … is expected to deliver a major breakthrough by presenting the first ever cost-benefit analysis of desertification and sustainable land management,’ an UNCCD statement had commented, of the review and of Canada’s withdrawal.

‘Canada played crucial roles in both processes. Crucially, these processes have also moved the actions taken by parties to a result-based management approach where performance and impact are not only measured using indicators, but also assessed and monitored every two years.’

The rumours in Ottawa is that all our multilateral commitments are under review. I have heard well-connected folks express fear that we may withdraw from the United Nations Environment Programme and UNESCO. To block further erosion of our role in the world, we need to ensure that the reaction to this cutting and running from the problems of the world will not disappear as a one-day headline.

The post Canada Goes Rogue appeared first on Elizabeth May.

The thing that shocks me most about the budget is that I cannot find any tables that tell us, department by department, where the money will be spent. I have never in my life seen a budget that did not include the budget.

I wonder if my colleague has any comments.

Francis Scarpaleggia: Mr. Speaker, when I worked on my speech this the weekend, I looked furiously for some numbers and some comparative tables that would allow us to get some kind of an historical perspective on what was being done and noticed the exact same thing.

There seems to be an effort of subterfuge, to basically hide the realities of this budget in an historical context. I find that quite ironic. While the government is hiding what it is doing, it is spending large sums of money promoting itself and its supposed good works on television. Even a small portion of that advertising money could have been used to keep the ELA going, which is known as the best freshwater laboratory in the world. It is a travesty that it is being shut down.

The post The Budget appeared first on Elizabeth May.

Did the support of 24 per cent of the electorate on election day give the federal government a mandate for its radical project to gut environmental protection? Apparently. In our apathy-inducing first-past-the-post political system a small minority can translate into a big majority, which can disregard public opinion and do whatever it wants.

Here is a list of what the feds have accomplished so far in their three-pronged environmental strategy of deregulation, cutting information and research and targeting dissenting voices:

1. Eliminated Canada’s international commitment to mitigate climate change, including the repeal of the 2007 Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act.
2. Undermined global climate negotiations to avoid climate action.
3. Failed to create a plan to address climate change.
4. Eliminated energy conservation and efficiency and renewable energy funding while continuing subsidies to fossil fuels.
5. Eliminated funding for the Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences.
6. Eliminated the climate adaptation research group within Environment Canada.
7. Eliminated scientists in Natural Resources Canada to study ice core data.
8. Cut hundreds of millions of dollars from Environment Canada.
9. Repealed the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, weakening the federal environmental assessment process.
10. Eliminated accepted criteria for compulsory environmental assessments, leaving such reviews to the discretion of the Minister of the Environment and political appointees.
11. Eliminated the jobs of hundreds of scientists working for various government departments that focus on the environment and wildlife.
12. Weakened elements of the Species at Risk Act.
13. Amended the Species at Risk Act and Navigable Waters Protection Act to allow the National Energy Board to assume jurisdiction of endangered species or navigable waters in the way of any pipeline.
14. Allowing the federal cabinet, rather than the National Energy Board, to make decisions about approvals for major pipeline projects.
15. Introduced cuts to ozone monitoring.
16. Ended monitoring of smoke stack emissions.
17. Eliminated the Hazardous Materials Information Review Commission.
18. Weakened the Fisheries Act in the areas of habitat protection and eliminated the marine contaminants program.
19. Fired all DFO habitat officers in British Columbia.
20. Killed the Navigable Waters Protection Act, replacing it with the Navigation Protection Act, which effectively makes major pipeline and interprovincial power line projects exempt from requirements for proponents to prove they wouldn’t damage navigable waterways.
21. Reduced federal protection of waterways to a small number of water bodies and rivers.
22. Parks Canada no longer has to conduct periodic environmental audits or management plan reviews.
23. Eliminated funding for the National Round Table on the Economy and the Environment.
24. Eliminated support for the Experimental Lakes Program.
25. Eliminated funding for a dozen Arctic science research stations. Closed the Polar Arctic and Environmental Laboratory and the Yukon Research Lab.
26. Started privatization and eliminated ecological staff positions in National Parks.
27. Made a systemic effort to cut research, information and analysis with respect to environmental issues.
28. Attacked environmental and First Nations organizations for critiquing resource development.
29. Provided the Canada Revenue Agency with an extra $8 million to crack down on environmental charities.
30. Provided oil companies with unprecedented access to senior government leaders.
31. Muzzled government scientists who have been conducting research on various climate and environmental issues.
32. Cut funding to the Network on Women’s Health and the Environment.
33. Cut funding of the Canadian Environmental Network.
34. In addition to changing the definition of “aboriginal fishery” in the Fisheries Act, without consulting First Nations governments introduced changes to the Indian Act designed to make it faster and easier for First Nations to “take advantage of economic opportunities” by leasing designated reserve lands based on a majority of votes from those in attendance at a meeting or in a referendum, instead of waiting for a majority vote from all eligible voters.
35. Gave the aboriginal affairs minister the authority to call a band meeting or referendum for the purpose of considering a surrender of the band’s territory.
36. The minister can accept or refuse the land designation after receiving a resolution from the band council.
37. Eliminated the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration, the Indian Head Tree Nursery and the PFRA pasture management program on millions of acres of sensitive grasslands.
38. Provided unprecedented support to industries to exploit natural resources with minimal environmental oversight.

Originally printed in the Star Pheonix.

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It is true that the Prime Minister has mentioned Lake Winnipeg. He has even announced $20 million for the clean-up of Lake Winnipeg. This was done in July on a trip to Manitoba when protesters had gathered to protest the closing of the Experimental Lakes Area — which was in the midst of researching what to do to save Lake Winnipeg. Those close to the issue tell me the money was largely re-profiled from other announcements, but at least, it is true that this is one environmental issue about which Stephen Harper seems acquainted.

I know that the Prime Minister is more powerful than any previous Prime Minister, but, no matter how revered by his caucus, speaking the words does not speak them into reality.

Lake Winnipeg is a long way from cleaned up – and almost as shocking as Ms. Rempel’s talking points was the fact that jaws didn’t drop on all sides of the House. I realized that Parliament, and maybe even most Canadians, do not know that Lake Winnipeg is in serious trouble.

It is the tenth largest freshwater lake in the world. Since the mid-1990s, Lake Winnipeg has experienced more frequent and more intense blooms of blue-green algae called cyanobacteria. Many species of cyanobacteria produce potent human and brain toxins that are harmful to people, pets, and wildlife. The growth of algae threatens the survival of fish in Lake Winnipeg and the lake itself. This algae is created by run-off of fertilizers, phosphorus and nitrogen, running off farmers’ fields and from the large mega-hog barns. The problem is being amplified due to climate change. As the hydrological cycle speeds up, heavier deluge rain events are more frequent, sweeping more nutrients into the lake. Observations by satellite confirm the summer blooms are covering a larger area and increasing in frequency.

The problem is that it is not clear how we can save Lake Winnipeg. It is enormous – 24,500 square kilometres. Cleaning up smaller lakes elsewhere in the world has run to billions. Meanwhile, the nutrients keep draining into the lake, the rains continue to become more intense.

Lake Winnipeg is not alone. According to some scientists, Lake Erie is now in worse shape than in 1970 when Life magazine’s cover story proclaimed “Lake Erie is dead.”

Freshwater issues we thought were solved in the 1970s are coming back – with a vengeance. And worryingly, it seems to have escaped the notice of many of us.

Meanwhile, critical research to find out what can be done to save Lake Winnipeg has been cancelled. As Ray Hesslein of the Lake Winnipeg Foundation science advisory board said quoted in the Winnipeg Free Press when the PM made his announcement:

“Much of the fundamental understanding of nutrient management in lakes so critical to the recovery of Lake Winnipeg has and is being developed at the ELA.”

Closing the Experimental Lakes Area is like shutting down a fire station while the fire is spreading. And, memo to the PMO talking point factory: Lake Winnipeg is not saved.

The post Newsflash: Lake Winnipeg is in serious trouble appeared first on Elizabeth May.

In spring 2012, Ritz announced that the Plant Health Centre on East Saanich Road would be shut down as part of budgetary austerity measures. The axe was swinging wildly in the wake of the March 2012 budget. We lost jobs in Parks Canada, losing critical capacity in the Gulf Islands National Park. The entire Marine Contaminants Programme, with 80 scientists across Canada under the leadership of Dr Peter Ross at the Institute for Ocean Science, was cancelled. The National Round Table on Environment and Economy was killed. And critical science and research facilities, from the PEARL lab in the Arctic to the Experimental Lakes Area in western Ontario, were on the hit list.

So many cuts all at once have the effect Naomi Klein described in Shock Doctrine–it becomes hard to think clearly with the repeated body blows of repealed laws, omnibus bills and lost programmes and facilities—radical agenda can be imposed as civil society is shell-shocked.

It is even more difficult to fight back in Harper’s Canada because civil servants are not allowed to speak to Members of Parliament–even their own.

In the case of the Plant Health Centre, the new plan was to transfer all the functions of the centre to Summerland, BC. It would mean the loss of about 40 jobs in the area, including contract and part-time staff. I have learned a lot about the Plant Health Centre (PHC) since the announcement of its pending execution, but I knew then that it is the national facility for the quarantine of viruses for fruit growing-plants and trees. Not being able to speak to personnel at the PHC, right after the news of the cuts, I stopped by the centre and helped myself to all the public information brochures in the lobby and went online for the description of the mandate of the Plant Health Centre.

Two things immediately struck me. Firstly, that the Plant Health Centre is run by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, while the Summerland facility was run by Agriculture Canada (potential for inter-agency rivalry?) and, secondly, that the isolation of viruses on Vancouver Island made more sense than having that function in the heart of the fruit growing Okanagan region. I began to see the possibility for persuading the minister to change his mind.

Now, before I share all the rest of the developments, I want to emphasize that I do not know which factors swayed Minister Ritz. As my mom always said, ‘you can accomplish anything you want if you do not care who gets the credit.’ So, at the request of our dauntless Island Tides publisher, Christa Grace-Warrick, I will share what steps I took, while not claiming saving the centre was due to my efforts. I can be sure that, at least, my efforts didn’t hurt!

I wanted to assemble a science package supporting keeping the quarantine centre on the Island to share with the mostly Conservative MPs from the Okanagan. I hoped they would review the information and speak to Minister Ritz to suggest leaving things as they are, rather than risk a quarantine facility in the Okanagan. My first hurdle was finding a credible scientist willing to help me. Every scientist I approached currently working in plant virology has some relationship with Agriculture Canada and was unwilling to attach their name to my background package. But as I kept calling experts, I was told of the retired scientist, holder of the Order of British Columbia, Richard Stace-Smith. Dr Stace-Smith turned out to be my saviour. An octogenarian living in Vancouver, Dr Stace-Smith was intimately involved with the decision to place the national quarantine centre with the Plant Health Centre in 1965. At my request, he wrote a detailed, foot-noted, letter to the Prime Minister, noting:

‘The Centre for Plant Health was selected for its location because there is always a danger of serious pathogens being imported together with the plant hosts from other parts of the world. Despite using extreme precautions, pathogens may escape and the danger is reduced when imported material is tested distant from the commercial agricultural industry. It made sense in 1960 when the Plant Quarantine and Diagnostic Services was established in Saanichton and it seems to me that it makes no sense to move it to Summerland today.’

I hand delivered the letter to Stephen Harper, as well as Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz. I also put together more background details and gave packages to the five Okanagan MPs. Fortunately, through one thing or another, I was already friends with all of them. Within days, Ritz told me he would reconsider the matter.

Meanwhile, the Summerland facility was shown to be inappropriate for other reasons. It would need at least two new large greenhouses to handle the work done by the PHC, and there was not enough space for them in the current facility. The idea of cost savings began to fade.

So, for the last few months, whenever I have seen Gerry Ritz I have asked him how the review was going. I have to say, on any issue on which I have ever approached Gerry Ritz, he has been accessible and fair. And on this wonderful reversal, I can only thank him for being willing to re-examine a flawed, hasty decision. I wish the same dynamics could work to get more money flowing back to our parks and to science. But, for now, a victory is very sweet.

The post Spared the axe: the arguments that helped save the Plant Health Centre appeared first on Elizabeth May.

“We join the Coalition to Save ELA in urging Environment Minister Kent to take immediate action to stop the Department of Fisheries and Oceans from selling the ELA to a private owner,” said Green Party Leader Elizabeth May, MP Saanich-Gulf Islands. “Like the Coalition, we fear such a transfer from public to private hands might be done while Parliament is recessed, and opposition members won’t be in Ottawa to criticize this destructive move.”

The Environmental Lakes Area is Canada’s only whole-lake, freshwater research region capable of providing the scientific information needed to keep the government and Canadians informed about issues facing our increasingly threatened environment. Transferring such a crucial facility to private, for-profit interests could alter the focus of future research and bring results into question. The ownership and use of the data will also be lost to Canadians.

To quote from the Coalition to Save the ELA: “Unless it remains funded by the government and staffed by public service scientists, the research priorities at ELA will cease to reflect public policy priorities or serve the public interest. Furthermore, the disposal of ELA and the dismantling of its science team will significantly reduce the freshwater science expertise and capacity within the Public Service of Canada.”

Tragically, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans claims that research at the ELA is “no longer aligned with its core mandate.” The Green Party joins with the Coalition to Save ELA in asking Minister Kent and Environment Canada (EC) to take the ELA under its wing where it can help EC fulfill its stated priorities.

These include addressing the implications of economic growth, climate change, and other factors on water resources. The ELA has 40 years’ worth of data on the health of and changes to our lakes. Also, EC scientists have been operating floating sampling stations on ELA lakes to integrate air and water monitoring.

“One of the primary roles of the Experimental Lakes Area has been to investigate and mitigate the impacts of Alberta’s oil-sands development on regional water bodies,” said May. “I certainly hope that the Conservatives aren’t abandoning this internationally respected field station because it might embarrass them and their pro-extraction agenda.

“This would be tragic because scientific research and findings are needed to guide public policy in the interests of all Canadians and remain in the public interest. This effective natural laboratory, needed now more than ever, simply must remain a part of the Government of Canada.”

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Former U.S. President G. W. Bush was caught on camera once referring to the “vision thing.” Some commentators have suggested Prime Minister Stephen Harper has not enunciated a clear vision. If Canadians wonder what Harper’s vision might be, look to the mania for slashing laws that might regulate the pace of fossil fuel development, to gagging and terminating scientific research that might call into question the impacts of said development, and the new obsession with attracting Chinese investment to ensure galloping growth in the oil sands. Harper has said that his goal is six million barrels of oil a day from the oil sands. This would amount to more than tripling the current levels of production. It is an odd goal for a government. It appears to me that all policy areas are subsumed to this one objective.

It did not come as a surprise that access to information requests from Postmedia’s Mike De Souza showed that, within the bureaucracy, the Enbridge Northern Gateway project was “top of mind” when drafting the 2012 budget. No wonder the repeal of the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, and its anaemic replacement within the omnibus budget bill; no wonder the gutting of the Fisheries Act, the re-working of the Navigable Water Protection Act to exclude pipelines as barriers to navigation, and the radical change of the National Energy Board Act to allow Cabinet to overturn a National Energy Board (NEB) decision. Now we hear the Species at Risk Act will be subjected to similar “streamlining.”

At the same time, there has been an unprecedented slashing of scientific capacity. Since spring 2012, allegedly due to internal decisions of the Departments of Fisheries and Oceans and Environment Canada, pink slips have been issued to more than 70 scientists across Canada in the marine contaminants program, the government has announced it will no longer support the world-class Experimental Lakes Area (58 lakes in western Ontario, the only place on the planet allowing whole lake experiments in fresh water science), the closing of the Polar Environmental Atmospheric Research Laboratory (the closest research station to the North Pole on the planet, tracking key developments on climate and ozone depletion), as well as a raft of other closuressmokestack monitoring, climate adaptation research and all the work of the Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences. The government’s only advisory body on sustainable development, the National Round Table on Environment and Economy, has also been killed.

The argument that these cuts are necessary as a matter of fiscal austerity would be more plausible if not for the reality that these cuts, cumulatively, come to less than the Harper Conservatives continue to spend on ads touting their wonderful record. Throw in the $28-million spent this year on celebrations of the bicentenary of the War of 1812, the $5-million for the 100th year of the Calgary Stampede, and another $5-million for the 100th year of the Grey Cup, and it is hard to see the elimination of scientific capacity as anything other than a pre-emptive strike against evidence.

The most dramatic proof that the only driving force of Harper’s policy is oil sands growth comes from his 180-turn on foreign policy in relation to China. When he first became Prime Minister, he was overtly frosty towards the Peoples’ Republic of China. Although I applauded his focus on pressing China on human rights, the snubbing of China was too extreme and undermined our diplomacy. Now, Stephen Harper visits China regularly, and craves the audience and photo ops with leaders he once avoided, like the now disgraced Bo Xilai. In fact, the last picture of Bo Xilai taken before his criminal charges was with Harper.

What could explain this about-face? It is the realization that there is simply not enough free market capital flowing into the oil sands. To meet the ambitious growth target (not of the industry, but of the Prime Minister), investment from China is needed. To secure that investment, concerns about human rights in China, indeed for Canadian sovereignty and national security are getting short shrift.

Tabled in the House on Sept. 26, with no debate planned, no committee review and no vote, is the Canada-China Investment Treaty. Under Foreign Affairs rules of procedure, the treaty could be ratified by order in council as soon as Nov. 2. It will bind Canada for a minimum of 15 years. If a future government wished to withdraw, a one year’s written notice is required, but any Chinese state-owned enterprises already invested in Canada receive a further 15 years benefits. What are the benefits?

Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs) will be able to launch claims for compensation if actions at the municipal, provincial or federal levels reduce their expectation of profits. These claims will first go to six-month secret diplomatic negotiations between China and Canada. If this fails, there will be a secret arbitration with three arbitrators in a hotel room somewhere deciding whether Canada’s laws or regulations have been “arbitrary.” From these rulings, there will be no appeal. Moreover, if Canada (or any level of government) wants to conserve resources, we can only do so to the extent we limit our own use of natural resources.

In short, the Prime Minister’s goal of six million barrels of oil a day from the oil sands is driving our foreign policy, our trade policy, has undermined our global climate commitments, is eviscerating our scientific capacity and is skewing our economy to one product at the expense of others. What no one seems to know is why our Prime Minister has more ambitious growth targets for the oil sands than those in the oil patch and why he has set a pace that no one can explain or defend.

Elizabeth May is the Member of Parliament for Saanich-Gulf Islands and Leader of the Green Party of Party.
Originally published in the Hill Times.

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“Democracy depends on informed opinion. Informed opinion relies on understanding all the evidence, not just that which supports a political objective or ideology. Science provides much of the best evidence, without regard to political agendas or ideology,” stated Dr. Andrew Weaver. “The only scientific evidence the Harper Conservatives want the public to know about is that which supports their political objectives and ideology. That’s not science, that’s propaganda.”

“An advanced, modern democratic society needs decisions to be based on the best information available. Harper’s agenda seems to be focused on eliminating any institutions that bring forward information that might contradict or constrain his agenda for unfettered fossil fuel and resource extraction in Canada,” stated MP Elizabeth May. “Instead of making decisions based on the best available information, their goal is to eliminate the best available information so they can implement pre-made decisions based on their ideology.”

The Harper Conservatives have embarked on a systematic program to impede and divert the flow of scientific information to Canadians through two major strategies.

The first strategy involves the gutting of scientific research institutions and programs that uncover scientific evidence. Examples of this include:

• The end of funding to the Canadian Foundation of Climate and Atmospheric Science
• The elimination of the Adaptation research group within Environment Canada
• Cuts to ozone monitoring
• Closure of the Polar Environment Arctic Research Laboratory (PEARL) in Eureka
• End of federal funding for the world renowned Experimental Lakes Area near Kenora, Ontario
• The elimination of the marine contaminants program within the DFO
• The loss of scientists in Natural Resources Canada to study ice cores data (and the hope to find a university with a large fridge willing to take the 80,000 year ice core record Canada’s government no longer wants)
• The end of monitoring smoke stack emissions
• Cut backs in the Canada Oil and Gas research group in Halifax
• Other major funding cuts research programs at Environment Canada, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Library and Archives Canada, the National Research Council Canada, Statistics Canada, and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.
• Decisions to close major natural and social science research institutions such as the world-renowned Experimental Lakes Area, the National Council of Welfare and the First Nations Statistical Institute.
• Cutting the mandatory long-form national census.

Harper’s second strategy is to impede the bringing forward of scientific evidence into the public debate. Examples:

• Shutting down the National Round Table on Environment and Economy (NRTEE), an arm’s length advisory body providing independent advice on environmental protection and economic development, because the government didn’t like its advice.
• Not renewing the National Science Advisor in 2008.
• Dozens of instances of censoring of, impeded access to, and coercion of government scientists, a practice which Minister of Environment Peter Kent has justified as merely in keeping with “established practice”.

Rally organizer Ken Wu expects that the political momentum against the Harper’s cuts to scientific programs and institutions will continue to grow in the future.

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It is in this sense that “life sciences” has become a hot commodity. While the Harper Conservatives seem allergic to any kind of science to monitor and expand our knowledge of life on earth—whether fresh water ecosystems (through the killing of federal support for the world-renowned Experimental Lakes Area), the nature of polar atmospheric chemistry in terms of ozone and greenhouse gases (through the closing of the Polar Environmental Atmospheric Research Laboratory), the build up of toxic chemicals in marine mammals (shutting down the DFO marine contaminants program), to name a few, pressing for the commercial advantage of the global pharmaceutical industry is a “life science” Mr. Harper likes.

When contemplating the proposed, and now fast-tracked, Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic Trade Agreement (CETA), many Canadians are concerned with the reality that the agreement will assist the pharmaceutical industry in retaining patent protection longer, undercutting generic drugs and driving up prices for critical medicines.

Trade agreements still masquerade as though they were about trade. Little wonder. They still get away with being described as “trade agreements.”   The term “trade agreement” should be reserved for agreements, like the 1947 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT); one of the last agreements actually about trade in goods. Ever since the Uruguay Round of the GATT, leading to the creation of the World Trade Organization, agreements have shifted from the focus on elimination of tariffs and other barriers to trade in goods, to the greater economic integration of national economies in the interest of corporate profits. And the shifting of balance away from national policies designed to improve the health of a domestic economy to assisting transnational corporations in deriving ever-higher profits is well demonstrated in the CETA provisions to aid Big Pharma.

While Canadians bemoan the “health-care crisis,” the single fastest rising component of health care is the cost of pharmaceutical drugs. The costs are “justified” by claims that the pharmaceutical industry invests an enormous amount in research that can only be captured through drug prices that far exceed the actual cost of production of the drugs in question. That allegation is false. Recent studies from around the world have debunked this claim. (Light, et al., “Will lower drug prices jeopardize drug research: a policy fact sheet,” American Journal of Bioethics, 2004.)

Meanwhile, the regulation of pharmaceutical products is failing Canadians. The excellent work by the Therapeutics Initiative at University of British Columbia is well worth replicating across Canada (www.ti.ubc.ca). Using an objective, evidence-based approach, the Therapeutics Initiative (TI) has saved lives and dollars by advising the B.C. government of drugs, approved by Health Canada, which, in their assessment, posed more risks than benefits. Due to the TI assessment, British Columbia did not approve Vioxx or cholinesterase inhibitors for Alzheimer’s patients. In fact, the TI approach was so successful that it was targeted by Big Pharma and pressure was brought to bear on the B.C. government to cease its funding.

This is not the time to abandon scientific rigour when it comes to pharmaceuticals. It is one of the largest corporate profit-centres on the planet, and its ethics are not squeaky clean. GlaxoSmithKline agreed in July to plead guilty to fraud and to pay $3-billion in the United States for illegal promotion of Paxil in what is the largest settlement ever with Big Pharma.

Giving the pharmaceutical industry more power to drive up drug costs faster is not in the public interest—not in Canada and not in Europe. The fact that we are in the midst of negotiations operating on the assumption that this is a worthy policy goal is evidence of just how unhinged the public good has become from public policy.

While discussing life sciences, we need to bring to bear actual evidence-based science in the interest of protecting life. What a novel approach.

Elizabeth May is the Leader of the Green Party of Canada and Member of Parliament for Saanich-Gulf Islands.
Originally printed in the Hill Times.

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