ELA

Closing ELA: An international disgrace.

/ ginny200 / 1 Comment

Scientists, both national and international, politicians inside and outside the House of Commons, patriotic organizations and ordinary concerned citizens like me line up to defend the importance of the Experimental Lakes Area. Who works there? The people who told us about acid rain and the dangers of detergents in our waterways, among other facts.

Who doesn’t want them to work there? The Harper government in the shape of the Fisheries minister Keith Ashfield. Read about it i todays Globe and Mail: http://tinyurl.com/csrz2lr

We are saving money, the Harper government cries. It costs 2 million dollars a year, folks. The new Office of Religious Freedom(Whose?) costs 5 million. How much did they squander on those jets. How much are they spending to promote the history of a war no one cares about? And what about those ads about the Action Plan that isn’t there any more.

They aren’t saving money, but I wonder who’s going to make some. Who has those logging contracts?

Replace the ELA with cleacut! What a disgrace.

Harper Government and Science: Time for a change

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So it’s the Harper government, not the Government of Canada, now. A comment on Facebook suggests today that Harper is emulating the George W. Bush attitude and behaviour towards science. The muzzling of science, supporting business at all costs, the money for religion but not for research, all of it suggests that the discredited neocon attitude is behind all of it. Now the government is tearing down the buildings of the Experimental Lakes Area. How will we know what is happening to our water if we don’t let the scientists investigate and tell us? What will we do when it is too late? 

It’s time to change the government.

Shameful decision

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Clock ticking down for renowned environmental research station – The Globe and Mail.

A line in a “budget” and a world-renowned research facility, the one that taught us about phosphates and acid rain and would have taught us how to deal with the oil sands is closing because of some politician’s scientific illiteracy and inability to face hard facts. Not everything in this world of ours can be reduced to a line in a profit and loss statement, but the members of the Harper government seem to think it can. But even it that was the way it worked, the knowledge produced by the experiments at the Experiment Lakes is far more valuable than any minimal decrease in budgetary expense.

Even if other sectors could pick up the cost, the time line imposed by the Omnibus bill is too short. I suppose the Harperites like to see people who are so much smarter than they are twisting in the wind.

It is shameful decision and a disgrace to this country.

Tragic loss to Science

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Save the Experimental Lakes Area petition | Ontario Chapter.

Please go to this website, download a petition and send it to join your voice to the many others from many countries who feel this priceless resource must not be lost.

It is difficult to understand why this project, after 50 years of productive scientific experimentation was chosen by the federal government to be closed. I don’t believe it was a financial decision, but rather one to discourage voices from the environmental community who deliver unpalatable facts to the politicians.

The lakes, the land, are irreplaceable and only ours for a short time. We don’t own them, we are charged with caring for them. We need the information the scientists bring from the ELA in order to do that.

The decision to stop funding is narrow-minded and damaging and should be reversed.