“The government is cutting science jobs and ignoring scientific advice. The Prime Minister does not even meet with his chief science adviser. I want the government to stop these cuts and listen to scientists before making decisions that harm nature and human health.”

“Mr. Speaker, I am pursuing a question I first asked on April 14. I have been concerned for some time that the new Liberal government has less respect for science than previous governments had. We recently mourned the death of our colleague Dr. Kirsty Duncan. In all the eulogies, people remembered her as the first minister of science in Canada. We may note, and I hate to say this, that she will be the last minister of science in Canada, because there is not one now. The gravitas, the importance, of scientific briefings and scientific advice from core government departments that are science-based is sorely lacking. This is reflected in the cuts to Environment and Climate Change and to Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, to basic scientific research. Whole branches of science are being shut down in this country. A scientific expert, an anthropologist and taxonomist, contacted me because the whole national collection of insects in the Diptera order has been shut down. There are no scientists to pick up this work. They have all been laid off. An international petition was launched; 495 scientists from 47 different countries are raising the alarm about Canada’s dropping the ball. It may seem to people that it is obscure to keep track of what species of insect we have in our collection, but it can cause enormous economic damage when we lose the brainpower to know which insect is which. If it is an exotic species that does not belong in a particular forest, we need to know about it soon, and we need to take action. There are cuts across the board. An open letter was sent just today to the Prime Minister’s office, from 425 scientists from many jurisdictions, including internationally, concerned that the cuts to the ocean protection plan mean that we simply will not be able to understand and protect our marine environment. These are serious matters, and I asked the Prime Minister, in April, if he had ever consulted his chief science adviser about these cuts. The hon. parliamentary secretary made a good go of it, saying that, in general, people appreciated the advice of Dr. Mona Nemer, the Prime Minister’s chief science adviser. However, since I asked the question, I have had it verified that the Prime Minister has not once sat down to meet with his chief science adviser. This is deeply worrying. Changes are being proposed, such as in the massive discussion documents issued May 8, that would have profound impacts, endangering endangered species. Also, we are losing the precautionary principle. If we look, buried in the omnibus budget bill, Bill C-30, we find the single biggest assault on bringing evidence and science to bear on the dangers of pesticides to human health and the environment. However, buried in an omnibus bill, it will be studied only by the finance committee, which had no time to hear from witnesses really concerned about this issue. With that, I ask the government again, will it please rethink, stop and be concerned? The precautionary principle has been recognized by the Supreme Court of Canada as fundamental to our legal jurisprudence. In this country, we do not want to find ourselves once again with decision-based evidence-making. We need to look at the science and do our research first, before we decide we have to build whatever fast and not be concerned with what the scientists are warning us will occur if we fail to think first, plan well and then build.”

“The committee that protects endangered wildlife does not have enough money to do its work. Because of budget cuts, it had to cut its required meetings from two a year down to one. It cannot keep up with helping animals that need protection, like the southern resident killer whales.”

“Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. friend, and he is a friend, the parliamentary secretary. Let me give him an example right now that is not hypothetical. None of the wonderful press releases he has mentioned has done a single thing to allow the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada to have a budget sufficient enough to hold the meetings it is required to hold by law. It is supposed to assess and monitor species at risk along a continuum from threatened to critically endangered, but these top-notch scientists have to meet to do that. The committee did not have a budget to meet, so it has gone from two meetings required a year down to one, and it is not going to have enough time to plow through the backlog of species that need attention, need recovery plans and need habitat attention. At the same time that the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada cannot meet, we see a discussion paper that says maybe it is okay to lose the southern resident killer whales. It is not acceptable.”