Canada
jdupuis | September 26, 2017Deja vu all over again. Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.
Canadian science under the Harper government from 2006 to 2015 was a horrific era of cuts and closures and muzzling and a whole lot of other attack on science.
One of the most egregious was the threat to close the PEARL arctic research station. (PEARL website) Fortunately, the outcry was so fierce that the Harper government extended PEARL's funding for five years. Well, guess what? The five years is up and PEARL is threatened with closure once more.
Canadian science under the Justin Trudeau Liberals has shown signs…
jdupuis | December 20, 2016I don't have the time right now to do this justice, so I'll just lay out the story over the last year or so and let you, faithful reader, follow the thread. This is an amazing story.
This is an amazing initiative at the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital at McGill University in Montreal.
From the press release:
McGill University announces a transformative $20 million donation to the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital
Tanenbaum Open Science Institute to open new horizons and accelerate discovery in neuroscience
The Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau, was present…
jdupuis | November 17, 2016Just a quick post to get a recent set of presentation slides up here on the blog.
Earlier this week a colleague in the Science and Technologies Studies program here at York hosted me in her fourth year undergraduate seminar class. Rather than my accustomed and normal role of librarian (I happen to be the STS liaison librarian at the moment), I was invited to appear as seminar subject. In other words, she wanted me to talk about my long history of science policy advocacy and activism and a little about how I feel about the current Canadian government.
Which I sort of did, I guess. I also…
jdupuis | November 11, 2016Update 2017.01.31: First post-inauguration chronology post is done, covering the first week of the Trump administration.
From the point of view of someone sitting North of the Canadian/US border, the results of this week's US Federal election are somewhat terrifying. And honestly and truly as a Canadian and a Torontonian, I say this without a bit of smugness. Been there, done that, if not quite on the same scale.
And by done that, I mean that I've often seen my mission to document important stories in the world. In the past, mostly Canadian or mostly in the library world and all basically…
jdupuis | August 30, 2016One of the real highlights for me every year is the late-summer announcement of the Lane Anderson Awards short list. Celebrating science books is a good thing. Celebrating Canadian writers is a good thing. Somehow in 2016, sunny ways and all, celebrating Canadian science writers seems like the best thing of all.
Some info on the award:
The Lane Anderson Award — created by the Fitzhenry Family Foundation — honours the very best science writing in Canada today, both in the adult and young reader categories. The winner in each category receives $10,000.
And the shortlist from their website here…
jdupuis | August 21, 2016Are We Feeling Collective Grief Over Climate Change?
Astrophysicist wins Twitter burn of the year with her reply to climate change skeptic
The Point of No Return: Climate Change Nightmares Are Already Here
Dazzling blue lakes are forming in Antarctica — and they’ve got scientists worried
The Galileo gambit and other stories: the three main tactics of climate denial
Greenland Melt Could Expose Hazardous Cold War Waste
Time for the hard work on meaningful climate policy
Effective climate change regulation: Let’s transform Canadian cars
Suncor and province discuss “stranding” some oilsands…
jdupuis | August 2, 2016I'm afraid the answer to that might be "Yes." Perhaps I'm the only one who's still interested and perhaps not, but there seems to be little movement towards launching a review of Canadian Science Library infrastructure.
Why do I think such a review is a good idea?
First of all, I've documented the devastation wrought on that infrastructure under the Conservatives. Not only do I chronicle the destruction, but at the same time you can clearly see from the assembled articles I link to in that post how much the various opposition parties -- including the now-in-government Liberals -- used those…
jdupuis | July 25, 2016How climate change may be fueling Canada’s fire season
Environmentalists, automakers applaud Ontario's $8.3B climate change plan
Views from people on the frontlines of climate change
How B.C.'s Climate Plan is Being Co-opted by Big Oil
Once a climate doubter, Tory leadership contender Maxime Bernier now plans to consult scientists
Climate change initiatives a $7-trillion funding opportunity for capital markets: Carney
Nearly Twenty Canadian Companies Sign On to Carbon Pricing Leadership Coalition
If You Want To Fight Climate Change, Don't Fight Pipelines
These are the best arguments from the…
jdupuis | June 22, 2016One of the key faults of the Harper Conservatives' science policy was their emphasis on applied research to the detriment of basic, curiosity driven research. Obviously there needs to be a balance between any government's approach to those two kinds of research, neither polar opposite is appropriate. But the Conservatives were way out of wack with their policy, significantly favouring commercially-driven, industrial-partnership-focused, applied research. The signature policy in that vein was their transformation of the National Research Council into a Concierge to Industry.
Thankfully the…
jdupuis | May 30, 2016I'll be attending upcoming Canadian Library Association National Forum, a kind of sunset conference as CLA reimagines and recreates itself. The idea is to take the pulse of Canadian librarians on the important issues in the library-related landscape. I'll be curating the session on Canada's National Digital Strategy, including presentations by me and two others, Emily Landriault and Bobby Glushko.
The details are below.
Digital Strategy and the Government of Canada
Presentation speakers
Emily Landriault: Open Government and Open Data
Bobby Glushko: Cyberbullying and Doxing
John Dupuis:…
jdupuis | May 6, 2016The town of Fort McMurray, Alberta and it's surrounding region are experiencing a horrific wildfire. Tens of thousands of people have been forced to evacuate.
The absolute most important thing in the short and medium term is to take care of the people of Fort McMurray. Yes, Fort McMurray is the hub of tar sands development in Canada. Yes, the tar sands and other fossil fuel development projects contribute to climate change. Yes, the tar sands in particular have been identified as a carbon source that needs to be left in the ground. But those aren't short and medium term considerations. Those…
jdupuis | April 16, 2016Or at least a certain corner of Canadian politics. For some definitions of "blow up."
For those not followong Canadian politics, our more-or-less socialist party, The New Democratic Party, recently held a policy convention where they also held a leadership review vote. The current leader, Tom Mulcair, lost the vote and as a result the NDP will be spending the next two years or so looking for a new leader.
What's significant from our point of view here is why he lost the vote. While the results of the last Federal election certainly played a role, the more proximate cause was a battle of…
jdupuis | January 28, 2016We have a Steacie Library Hackfest coming up and our there this year is Making a Difference with Data. And what better area to make a difference in than the environment and climate change?
I am far from an expert on this topic, so suggestions for additions (and deletions if I've added anything inappropriate) are welcome. In particular, deeper and more complete data sources for Canada would be nice to have. I would also very much like to improve coverage beyond the North American focus with a wider variety of targeted regional and national data sources.
This set of lists is not meant to be…
jdupuis | November 29, 2015I think this post might signal the birth of a new all-consuming blogging obsession -- climate change in general and specifically how the realities of climate change play out in the Canadian context, especially as it relates to public policy.
With the COP21 climate talks coming up in Paris, this seems like as good a time as any to focus more carefully and closely on what is probably the most defining issue of our times.
Not that this is the first time I've blogged about climate change. I've kept track of the issues fairly closely over the years and that has spilled into the blog, mostly in the…
jdupuis | November 4, 2015As I've extensively chronicled, Canadian government science had some pretty rough years under the government of former Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
But Canada has a new government, a new prime minister in Justin Trudeau and a new cabinet. Kirsty Duncan, an actual scientist who worked on the IPPC, has been appointed Science Minister. Come to think of it, we have a Science Minister.
The roster of ministers in other science and technology-related portfolios is also very strong. Navdeep Singh Bains at Innovation, Science and Economic Development. Lawrence MacAulay at Agriculture and Agri-Food.…
jdupuis | October 23, 2015As you can all imagine, I'm quite pleased to see the backside of the Harper government on their way out the door. Of course, the Liberals have promised a lot but only time will tell how serious they are about fixing the science-related stuff that they've promised to fix. I'll definitely be watching that and keeping track here on the blog somehow somewhere.
That being said, I was quite gratified that my various pro-science advocacy efforts in general and my war on science chronology post in particular were quite popular and widely used during the election campaign.
Obviously all the things…
jdupuis | September 30, 2015Though not explicitly tied to our current federal election campaign, the début this week of the Science Integrity Project and the publishing of their Statement of Principles for Sound Decision Making in Canada just as the campaign heats up is surely not coincidental.
In any case, election or not, this is a wonderful initiative and I support it wholeheartedly. There's lots of background on their website about the process for coming up with the principles, an FAQ and a few examples of how the principles work in practice.
From their website:
Welcome to the Science Integrity Project. Our project…
jdupuis | September 9, 2015One of the real highlights for me every year is the late-summer announcement of the Lane Anderson Awards short list.
From their website here:
Today, we are excited to announce the finalists for the best Canadian science books written in 2014.
Our jury panels evaluated submissions in two categories – adult and young readers. They arrived at their shortlist after evaluating the relevance of each book’s content to the importance of science in today’s world, as well as the author’s ability to connect the topic to the interests of the general trade reader.
The winner in each category receives a $…
jdupuis | August 21, 2015Katie Gibbs and Alana Westwood of Evidence for Democracy wrote a terrific piece in The Toronto Star a little while ago, We need a national debate on science: A question about science policy has never been asked at a federal leaders’ debate. Now more than ever that has to change.
Given the clear importance of science in our lives, why has a question about science policy never — not once — been asked in a federal leaders’ debate?
*snip*
Perhaps it’s time for another first: a debate about the state and future of Canadian science. Once a world-leader in scientific research, recent decisions have…
jdupuis | August 3, 2015It has begun.
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has called an election for October 19, 2015, kicking off a marathon 11 week election campaign. The longest campaign since the 1870s, believe it or not.
My patient readers may have noticed that over the last few years I've posted quite a bit about how science has fared under the current government. Readers will have gathered that I'm not too pleased about that state of affairs. This election signals an opportunity to (hopefully) change direction; if it's not completely possible to undo all the damage that Harper has done, we can at least…