Rally in Vancouver today in support of scientists who claim they’re being muzzled

VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – They’ve insisted for years the federal government has prevented them from sharing sometimes ground-breaking research; scientists want to bring the issue to the forefront.

Rallies are happening across the country — including here in Vancouver — today in support of scientists who claim they’re being muzzled.

They say it’s time for it to stop.

Former biologist, Steven Campana claims he experienced measures that seem to have no other purpose than to control and demoralize government scientists.

“I have certainly a number of concerns, one of which is muzzling. But basically, I think it boils down to this: the government has been paying for scientific research through tax dollars from Canadians. And the scientists are doing research — in some cases, world-class research on various issues of interest to Canadians — and we are not given routine permission to speak about that to the public. We have to go through a very involved approval policy, and more often than not, approval is not given to talk about the research that we’re doing.”

“I’m not talking right now about issues dealing with policy or anything that might critique what the government is doing. That’s not fair game, I think everybody realizes that and there’s no attempt to do that. I’m just talking about speaking about the facts of the research and what’s being found to let Canadians here about some of the great research that’s being done,” he adds.

Campana claims several times, his requests to talk to the media about research were denied without reason, and he was formally disciplined for attending a conference he paid to go to while on vacation.

“Given that I head up the Canadian Shark Research Laboratory — sharks being very topical — I was routinely handling about 30 or so media interviews a year on sharks. Over the last five years, I’d say I’ve been averaging about three. So, it’s a 90 per cent drop in terms of the number of permissions I’ve been getting.”

Campana says over the last few years, the problem has gotten worse, adding we’re seeing a “death spiral” of government science.

You can expect to see hundreds packed into Library Square during the noon hour today.

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