Tag Archives: Emma Hogbin

Canada Election 2011, science writers, and an update on Peer Review Radio Candidate Interviews

Leave a reply

Emily Chung (CBC News online) wrote up an April 26, 2011 article highlighting an open letter that the Canadian Science Writers Association (CSWA) have sent during this election 2011 campaign season to Conservative leader, Steven Harper; Green party leader, Elizabeth May; Liberal leader, Michael Ignatieff; and NDP leader, Jack Layton about the ‘muzzle’ place on federal scientists (from the article),

A group representing 500 science journalists and communicators across Canada sent an open letter Tuesday to Conservative Leader Stephen Harper, Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff, NDP Leader Jack Layton and Green Party Leader Elizabeth May documenting recent instances where they say federal scientists have been barred from talking about research funded by taxpayers.

“We urge you to free the scientists to speak,” the letter said. “Take off the muzzles and eliminate the script writers and allow scientists — they do have PhDs after all — to speak for themselves.”

Kathryn O’Hara, president of the association, said openness and transparency are issues that haven’t come up much in the election campaign, and her group felt it was important to ask about them.

The federal government spends billions each year on scientific research, and taxpayers must be able to examine the results, she said, otherwise, “how can you get a real sense of … value in money going toward science?”

The public also needs to be able to see whether government policy is based on evidence uncovered using taxpayer money, she added.

It’s good to see science writers getting the topic of science into the election coverage. I’m a little puzzled that the science policy centre folks (Canadian Science Policy Centre) don’t seem to have organized an ‘ask your candidates about science campaign’ or composed questions and sent their own open letter to the federal parties or devised some other tactic to highlight science and science policy in this election campaign.

One more bit about science and the Canada 2011 federal election, Peer Review Radio has now posted two interviews with candidates answering questions about science policy and their respective parties. The interviews with Scott Bradley, running for the Liberal Party in Ottawa-Centre and Emma Hogbin running for the Green Party in Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound are each about 22 minutes long. The show producer and host, Adrian J. Ebsary promises to post the interviews with me, Marie-Claire Shanahan, and other interested science policy observers soon. Unfortunately, he was not able to broadcast the interviews as he hoped.

#SciLxn41; Peer Review Radio’s end of season broadcast on April 26, 2011

Leave a reply

Tomorrow, April 26, 2011, at 9 am PST (12 noon EST) Peer Review Radio will be broadcasting its last show of the season (scroll down and over to the right for your choice of listening to it live or, later, as a podcast), a programme on science policy in the 2011 Canadian Federal Election.

Adrian J. Ebsary is producing and hosting the show, which will feature interviews with me, Marie-Claire Shanahan, science education professor at the University of Alberta and blogger at Boundary Vision, amongst others discussing science policy, science education, and more as they relate to the platforms of the Bloc Québécois, Conservative, Green, Liberal, and NDP federal parties in this 2011 election season.

Unfortunately, we were not able to get candidates from each of the federal parties to talk to us about their party’s 2011 election platform and science policy. Two candidates did agree to discuss it but due to CRTC rules, all the parties must be given equal broadcast time, so Adrian is not able to include them in the broadcast. Consequently, interviews with Scott Bradley, Liberal party candidate running in Ottawa Centre, and Emma Hobgin, Green party candidate in Owen Sound and the party’s shadow Science Minister, will be distributed after the programme has aired via Youtube. That’s the current plan, if anything changes, I’ll keep you posted.

Meanwhile, there’s an April 24, 2011 article in the Times-Colonist (a Victoria, BC newspaper) by Postmedia News reporter, Mike De Souza about Australian scientist Tim Flannery’s bafflement over the lack of discussion about science issues such as the environment and climate change in the federal election campaigns. From the article,

A best-selling Australian author who is known as the “rock star” of modern science is baffled to see Canada’s election campaign side-stepping around climate change and environmental issues.

In an interview with Postmedia News, Tim Flannery, recently appointed as chief commisioner of the Australian government’s climate commission, says the environment is one of the top issues everywhere he travels.

But after arriving in North America earlier this month to promote his new book, Here on Earth, he noted from the recent federal leaders debates that Canada’s political climate was different than what he saw during a visit three years ago.

“I watched (the debates) with great interest but I was mystified to see that the environment just didn’t rank at all,” said Flannery, who leads the commission that engages the Australian public in discussions about climate change.