Beware the lurking agenda

Lately the Canada's Left of Fascist Government has taken to being underhanded.  Well that is not exactly true, in the past when it was just right of centre, it was slightly progressive, it was after all the Progressive Conservatives.  Since it dropped the Progressive it adopted the near Fascist type policies.  Okay I will admit it is not like the conservative policies of a true fascist like government and it is not as bad as the American Right, but for Canada it is bad.  

For starters, they have been putting a muzzle on our scientists.  Scientists that work for e government must apply to the government if they wish to speak to the media, and the act of application does not mean they will succeed, more often than not they are denied.  The muzzle has since been extended to government libraries and other government sectors.  They are not allowed to discuss their research and they are decidedly not allowed to attend conferences.  

Mostly this has been aimed at scientists that were doing research on the environment and the climate.  According to our government, there is no proof that the climate is changing and it's proof is that their scientists, our scientists are not telling the public anything.  Also, projects that studied the environment have been quietly shut down and funding reallocated.  Funding for pure science has been cut off and the funding has been redirected towards science that has "results".  Results, however, are goals that are defined by the government and end up making money for private businesses.

Don't get me wrong, shoring up Canadian businesses with hard scientific breakthroughs is important, but it is not as important as pure science, which is money making in unforeseen ways and usually to a much greater degree than directed science.  Directed science that helps oil companies exploit the wealth of the Oil Sands.

Another thing this Government has been doing is limiting the time that can be spent on environmental assessments for resource development and public hearings as well in an attempt to fast-track resource exploitation.  This is great for multi-national companies as it speeds these processes that can take years to about six months and allows them to create large toxic tailing ponds at the site of development.

One of the government research facilities that they tried to shut down last year was the Experimental Lakes Area, which is a series of lakes that have a watershed to themselves that does not flow into any major river or empty into any ocean; they are completely self contained.  These one hundred to two hundred lakes were set aside to allow scientist to carry out horrific experiments to try to understand how real lakes and real environments work when they are tampered with.  It is unique in the world and scientists from around the world came there to understand how pollution affects the world.  It was here that they proved the harmful effects of phosphorus on the ecosystem and it could be at this research station that many detrimental effects of the type of pollution that mines and oil production produce could be understood; they might also hold the answers on how to best clean up this pollution too.  

Science is not the only thing that is endangered by this government, civil liberties are being cut back one item at a time.  Just this week, the government put forward a Bill, a proposed law that would protect people from Cyber Bullying, at least that is how the government framed it.  There is a lot of real protections listed in this Bill, but there are a lot more things in it too.  Amongst the provisions that require the permission of any explicit images of the people portrayed and updates of  harassment laws to include Internet, social media and future unspecified technologies, but it also allows the police to seize computers and search internet search histories without a Court Order, like it is now.  Also added is a provision that allows the police to track people and computer usage without justifying the breach of civil liberties to a judge.  And these are just a few of the things that have been discovered hiding in this Bill a day after it was introduced.

I remember when the current leader of this country was merely the Leader of the Opposition and complained bitterly when the Liberals, the right of centre party, introduced Omnibus legislation, bills that contained a few hundred separate changes to laws that were brought in and passed as one law.  Now that he is in control, he does not stop at a few hundred changes, several hundred to almost a thousand separate changes to laws in one bill that is handily passed because they have force of numbers.  Promises of electoral reforms that they campaigned on lie forgotten along the road where they received a clear majority, never mind that the majority of people never voted for them.