Fund science

Dear editor:
Cuts to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) reduce Canada’s ability to do science and our ability to protect the natural world.
Seven DFO libraries, including the Eric Marshall Library of the Freshwater Institute at the University of Manitoba and the St. Andrews Biological Station in St. Andrews, N.B., are being closed down.
Burt Ayles, former regional director for freshwater, described the Marshall library as “world class” and “the best in Canada.”
The federal government also is closing Environment Canada libraries from Calgary to New Brunswick.
DFO minister Gail Shea claims that closing libraries is value for taxpayers, yet the St. Andrews Station is brand new and cost several million taxpayer dollars.
Minister Shea also has said that research is now done online. However, Dr. Peter Wells, of the International Ocean Institute at Dalhousie University, states that much of the DFO library material was never available digitally.
The holdings of the shuttered libraries go back decades, and provide baseline data upon which to record and evaluate changes brought about by the introduction of chemicals, invasive species, and long-term processes like climate change and the acidification of the oceans.
DFO has de-funded world-class research laboratories, including the Experimental Lakes Area (ELA), the only whole-lake freshwater lab of its kind in the world; the marine contaminants program, led by Dr. Peter Ross, who revealed PCB contamination of killer whales; and the Polar Environment Atmospheric Research Lab (PEARL), the furthest northern Arctic research lab in the world.
These programs, said Dr. Ross, allow us to keep “our finger on the pulse of what’s happening” in the natural world, and enable scientists to advise governments on how to maintain vibrant economies and minimize hazards to human health and to the health of the land, fish, and animals.
These labs are living libraries, for taking samples, recording, and creating data available now and to future generations of scientists from across the world.
About the threat to close ELA, Israeli oceanographers and lake scientists said that the federal government “is stamping out the ability of the world scientific community to conduct the research required to formulate sound environmental policies.”
They are right.
Protecting the natural world requires a global, co-operative effort. Canada has the scientists, the labs, and a track record of global contributions.
Let us continue to fund science and create real value for Canadians.
(Signed),
Peter Kirby,
Jim Johnson, and
Dave Schwartz
Kenora, Ont.