posted Jan 14, 2014, 7:12 AM by SOS SaveOceanScience
[
updated Jan 14, 2014, 7:12 AM
]
Globe editorial
The Globe and Mail
Published
Monday, Jan. 13 2014, 8:00 PM EST
Last updated
Monday, Jan. 13 2014, 10:51 PM EST
In principle, Ottawa’s decision to shut seven seldom-used aquatics
research libraries seems logical. Operated by the Department of
Fisheries and Oceans, they cost about $430,000 a year to run. Fewer than
a dozen non-DFO employees visit each year. At a time when DFO has been
told to cut its budget by $80-million, and documents can easily be
digitally archived, the math of maintaining bricks and mortar just
doesn’t add up.
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But the federal government has managed to fumble all of this so
spectacularly that the library closings have come to resemble scenes
from a dystopian sci-fi novel. Stacks of academic books being tossed
into dumpsters; scientists complaining of a campaign to muzzle them;
decades’ worth of environmental research junked. Most people manage to
clean out their basements with more finesse. Ottawa could have
avoided the current controversy if it had calmly consulted with federal
scientists, beforehand. DFO could have circulated an inventory of the
collection and sought scientific advice to determine what’s important –
what could be consolidated or digitized and what was redundant. Instead,
Canadians are left with the impression of oblivious bureaucrats,
hastily presiding over a chaotic and irreversible cull of scientific
research. It’s a small story, but it’s telling. And it is symptomatic of
a broader, troubling tendency: the Conservative government’s propensity
to push through on policy without much consultation. Two years ago, the
Prime Minister announced sweeping changes to the Old Age Security
system – at a speech in Switzerland. An overhaul of employment insurance
rules was similarly done with little study, and no parliamentary
scrutiny. The downsizing of the libraries – a relatively small line item
in DFO’s budget – should have been orderly and transparent process.
Instead, it looked like a rummage sale.
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