From: slider@anashram.com

The government of former prime minister Stephen Harper violated its own communications and transparency rules by muzzling federal scientists, and
the Trudeau government has not made “firm commitments” to fix the problem, a federal investigation has concluded.

https://www.nationalobserver.com/2018/03/15/news/harper-government-broke-its-own-rules-muzzling-scientists-investigation-finds

The stark findings are the result of an investigation by the federal information commissioner that lasted almost five years, and are contained
in a report by former commissioner Suzanne Legault, dated Feb. 28, 2018.
The report was released March 15 by the complainant, the University of Victoria’s Environmental Law Centre, and advocacy group Democracy Watch.

Legault, who was appointed as an officer of Parliament by the Harper government, delivered the findings as she wrapped up her term as Canada's information watchdog with a responsibility to ensure federal officials
follow rules that require them to be transparent and grant access to
government records and information upon request.

The report is sure to put pressure on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's
Liberals, who won the 2015 election on a promise to end the muzzling of scientists. Once in power, the Liberals moved to scrap Harper-era communications policies, introduce changes to Canada’s access to
information law and name a chief science advisor, Mona Nemer, to ensure
public access to government science.

The Trudeau government also agreed to enshrine the right of scientists to
speak freely into their collective agreements to ensure that future
governments wouldn't be able to muzzle scientists again, without
renegotiating contracts.

The issue of muzzling has also spilled across the border where some
government scientists are now facing similar treatment at the hands of President Donald Trump's administration. Debi Daviau, president of the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada (PIPSC), the union
that represents federal scientists and professionals in Canada, has said
her members are hoping to help their U.S. counterparts learn from their experiences and cope with the apparent political interference.

In Canada, the Trudeau government's efforts to tackle government secrecy through new legislation came under criticism by Legault — who has now been replaced by Caroline Maynard — as well as other transparency advocates. Despite this, a Liberal-dominated committee approved the bill with few
changes and it now sits at second reading in the Senate, with few
remaining hurdles before it becomes law.

As well, Daviau's union recently found in a survey that, despite the moves
by the Liberals, some senior public servants are still "clinging" to the
old rules and acting as though there was never a change in government
following the 2015 federal election.

Legault personally signed off on the scientist muzzling investigation, and concluded that six of the seven government bodies her office investigated
did not follow their own communications policies in practice during the
Harper era.

“The fear observed by the (Office of the Information Commissioner) on the part of public servant investigation participants is consistent with the ‘chill’ documented in the survey of over 4,000 federal government scientists” conducted by PIPSC.

While she found the language of departmental media policies, “as written,” was “consistent with access to information values and principles,” in “practice” these policies “were not being applied by the subject institutions during the time period under investigation, in keeping with
the stated objective of responding to the information needs of the public.”

The six government bodies are: Environment and Climate Change Canada,
Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Natural Resources Canada, the National
Research Council of Canada, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and the Treasury Board Secretariat. The commissioner found that a complaint
against a seventh body, Department of National Defence, was not well
founded.

lots more/long article...

### - lol @ number 7 dept was defo cool?? (riiiight... sure it was!)

hey ya can HAVE the other 6 but just forget about 7! - okaaay! :D

so scientists have been... muzzled now?

since when? right back to the beginning i bet!

well who'd have thought it eh? those naughty governments have been keeping their pet scientists on a leash all along?! damn!

the Environment and Climate Change dept is no surprise really though, else
how could they possibly 'massage' the data released to the public when required! (hah! sarcasm! come on down!) :)

does seem kinda ironic though no? or just incredibly hypocritical??:

the investigators of TRUTH not ALLOWED to TELL the truth they FIND???

what data CAN we trust then? that ONLY 1 in 2 (up from 1 in 3 recently)
will get cancer in their own lifetime perhaps??

sure, i believe them! don't you? if ya CAN'T trust the DOCTOR then who CAN
ya trust??

fuckin' no one!

only in wallyworld folks! :D

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