27 September 2015

Election coverage: where the parties stand on the census

Read what Maclean's has to say on where each party stands on the census and access to scientific data - www.macleans.ca/politics/election-issues-2015-a-macleans-primer-on-vanishing-data/

2 comments:

Denis Bourque said...

Hi John,

Good to see all 4 party positions (or not). If your followers want to spend a few more minutes to better understanding the issues associated with the demise of the long-form census and the loss of scientific data. I recommend reading the first suggested article entitled "Vanishing Canada: Why we’re all losers in Ottawa’s war on data" at the bottom of this Maclean's article.

By the way, nice new photo.

Denis

turner said...

Having spent most of my happiest years in the public service in science based program departments, I am horrified to see what the Harper government has done to muggle scientists and offices which used to enable research, such as libraries and archives. (And yes, LAC too.) Its tactics include back-dating legislation so that one could not know at the time one did a thing that it would shortly become illegal, (see this site: https://hrinsider.ca/articles-insight/latest-headlines/is-it-permissible-to-backdate-the-effective-date-of-a-contract) and to gutting the information sources used for research, libraries and archives, some of which contained precious copies of historic international publications in the languages of science, and even data collection itself, such as the 10 year census.

Added to that of course is the pointless, expensive and unnerving gutting of charity legislation to cripple Harper critics and opponents, and narrow the public commentary on government actions. So Harper's voice and image of the past are the only ones publicly available ....

Three times in the last few weeks I have found myself on the eastern parkway being made to pull over and wait for Harper family, or perhaps Harper himself, to leave one location and travel majestically by car to the PM residence, not having to be delayed by any road traffic, sheltered by the RCMP and easily able to avoid the small people like myself doing their ordinary activities. The extent of Harper's sense of being always "right" and truly "special" compared to people like myself matches the abandon with which he has disemboweled the federal public service science, library and data collection and archival programs. It is all shocking in a supposedly wealthy and democratic nation. Cheers anyway,
BT