Trudeau government hasn’t done enough to combat Harper-era muzzling of scientists: report

While the Trudeau government has expressed a desire to remove restrictions that prevented federal scientists from speaking to the media during the Harper-era, a new report suggests the government’s amendments don’t go far enough.

An inquiry conducted in the past few weeks by Canada’s former Information Commissioner, Suzanne Legault, concluded that communications policy at the federal level has not been significantly changed. In addition, while these policies were relatively in line with Access to Information principles, they weren’t being applied consistently within the media relations groups of individual departments.

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The inquiry was originally opened after the University of Victoria’s Environmental Law Centre filed a complaint under the Access of Information Act against the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA), the Department of National Defence (DND), Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC), the Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO), Natural Resources Canada (NRCan), and the National Research Council of Canada (NRc).

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“The report identifies that there is still more work to be done for the Trudeau government to go further than just un-muzzling [scientists], but to support open science communication,” said Katie Gibbs, head of science advocacy group Evidence for Democracy.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took office in 2015 promising to end the muzzling of scientists, and proceeded to make corresponding changes to Canada’s access to information laws. Gibbs explained that while Trudeau agreed to legitimize the rights of scientists to speak freely about their research, these new policies were not applied within federal  departments across the board.

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“What the government did was say at the very top level, ‘Okay, you’re un-muzzled, you’re free to speak,’ but it was not ever unanimous within departments. In some areas, you have managers who are still very much the same managers in place [as] under the Harper government, who are adhering to these former rules.” Gibbs added.

Legault made several recommendations in the report  to improve transparency.

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These include making the Chief Science Advisor independent from the executive; ensuring that government science is fully available to the public; requiring government institutions to collect data related to releasing scientific information to the public; amending the Access to Information Act to require heads of government institutions to make “public interest disclosure” of information that could affect public safety, health or environmental protection; and training public servants in their obligations when it comes to informing the public.

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Gibbs added that Evidence for Democracy is currently advocating for Science Integrity Policies, which would clarify the rules about speaking to the media and the public for all government scientists, removing any uncertainty about doing so.

“It doesn’t just work to change the rules at the top. You need to work to make sure it’s getting through all the bureaucracy,” said Gibbs.

Legault’s investigation concluded that the complaints brought against the Department of National Defence are not well-founded, while those brought against the other institutions are well-founded.