Green Party condemns threat to ocean research

Green Party says federal government is starving marine research programs

OTTAWA – The Green Party today accused the federal government of starving Canada's marine research programs out of existence at a time when they are desperately needed to monitor the relentless onset of global warming.

"Is it a coincidence that this government of climate change delayers and deniers is allowing Canada's ocean research capacity to melt away?" asked Green Party leader Elizabeth May.

Ms. May was commenting on a CBC report that ongoing research into the effects of climate change off Nova Scotia is threatened because of uncertainty over federal funding.

The money for a five-year, $5-million project in Lunenburg Bay came from the Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences, but the agency's future is in limbo. The federal Conservative government has not renewed its funding and the foundation has stopped accepting applications.

The CBC reported that dozens of research projects across Canada will wind down in the next few years with researchers leaving Canada to find new work.

"Throwing away all that expertise is a huge risk to take at a time when the policy questions facing the government are complex, involve areas of scientific uncertainty and require grounding in basic impartial science," said Ms. May, who noted that years of budget cuts and restructuring had already badly eroded the scientific capacity of the federal civil service.

"Despite all that, Canada is still regarded as an international leader in ocean research," she said. "It would be reprehensible to squander that hard-earned reputation, whatever the government's reason for not wanting certain research projects to continue."

Ms. May said that the Environment Minister John Baird defended cuts to research funding by saying that the science on climate change is now "settled."

"That's an even more compelling reason to maintain cutting-edge scientific research so that we can anticipate and prepare for the inevitable impacts of climate change," she said.