Wow.... Is this going too far?

[Shakeyhands]

I am really surprised to read this, does he not think at some point that this will come back to bite him?

Scientist silenced; 15 Kyoto programs axed

A scientist with Environment Canada was ordered not to launch his global warming-themed novel Thursday at the same time the Conservative government was quietly axing a number of Kyoto programs.

The bizarre sequence of events on the eve of the Easter long weekend provided an ironic end-note to the week in which Prime Minister Stephen Harper introduced his first piece of legislation — aimed at improving accountability and transparency in government.

Link to Story

[shoop]

Conveniently the Red Star did not print the full quote from the Minister's representative.

"Due process for this event was not followed and that's why it was cancelled,'' said Ryan Sparrow, a spokesman for Environment Minister Rona Ambrose . Publicity for the planned book launch identified Tushingham as an Evironment Canada scientist, Sparrow said, "and it was assumed that he would be representing the position of the department. "We would not have objected to Mr. Tushingham's appreance if he had been referred to as a private citizen.''

Maybe the publisher can relaunch the event.

This guy shouldn't be making money off his credentials as an Environment Canada scientist if he isn't willing to follow proper protocol in getting events approved.

[Riverwind]

This guy shouldn't be making money off his credentials as an Environment Canada scientist if he isn't willing to follow proper protocol in getting events approved.

It is actually worse: this guy was coming to talk about a work of _fiction_ yet he was being billed as a scientist.

[August1991]

From link above:

Publisher Elizabeth Margaris said that Mark Tushingham, whose day job is as an Environment Canada scientist, was ordered not to appear at the National Press Club to give a speech discussing his science fiction story about global warming in the not-too-distant future.

"He got a directive from the department, cautioning him not to come to this meeting today," said Margaris of DreamCatcher Publishers.

"So I guess we're being stifled. This is incredible, I've never heard of such a thing," she said.

Day job?

Call me old-fashioned but it seems to me that if a person accepts to work for the civil service, and the duty to undertake the public's business, and exercice all the authority and perks that provides, then one gives up the right to express personal opinions in public.

I would not want to face a tax collector, a policeman or a judge who had written an article opposing Internet forums and the people who post to them.

When we deal with government bureaucrats, we should expect impartiality.

If this guy wants to write controversial novels, he should resign and find another day job.

[Nocrap]

From link above:

Publisher Elizabeth Margaris said that Mark Tushingham, whose day job is as an Environment Canada scientist, was ordered not to appear at the National Press Club to give a speech discussing his science fiction story about global warming in the not-too-distant future.

"He got a directive from the department, cautioning him not to come to this meeting today," said Margaris of DreamCatcher Publishers.

"So I guess we're being stifled. This is incredible, I've never heard of such a thing," she said.

Day job?

Call me old-fashioned but it seems to me that if a person accepts to work for the civil service, and the duty to undertake the public's business, and exercice all the authority and perks that provides, then one gives up the right to express personal opinions in public.

I would not want to face a tax collector, a policeman or a judge who had written an article opposing Internet forums and the people who post to them.

When we deal with government bureaucrats, we should expect impartiality.

If this guy wants to write controversial novels, he should resign and find another day job.

Call me old-fashioned but it seems to me that if a person accepts to work for the civil service, and the duty to undertake the public's business, and exercice all the authority and perks that provides, then one gives up the right to express personal opinions in public.

Nobody, but nobody should ever be forced to give up their right to express personal opinions in public. For Heaven sake - it is fiction. It is a novel. He's not exposing government corruption or giving away military secrets. This is not a totalitarian government, though it is certainly heading in that direction.

Canadians should NEVER allow this type of censorship. I don't care if he is a civil servant or not. Mr. Harper is not paying his salary, we are; and civil servants should enjoy the same rights and freedoms as the rest of us!

Does he honestly believe that this book will have any influence on our opposition to the the CPC's decision to scrap Kyoto. There will be protest with or without the book. This censorship just adds more fuel to the fire.

[margrace]

Well they are just working for their boses aren't they. Evidently a huge windfarm on the east coast of the US has been stopped by the oil lobby in that country. So what do we expect, these people certainly do not care if you or I can survive.

Oil is big money and anyone who does anything to stop it will pay big time. Look for the cancellations of Suzuki's programs on the CBC

[scribblet]

From link above:

Publisher Elizabeth Margaris said that Mark Tushingham, whose day job is as an Environment Canada scientist, was ordered not to appear at the National Press Club to give a speech discussing his science fiction story about global warming in the not-too-distant future.

"He got a directive from the department, cautioning him not to come to this meeting today," said Margaris of DreamCatcher Publishers.

"So I guess we're being stifled. This is incredible, I've never heard of such a thing," she said.

Day job?

Call me old-fashioned but it seems to me that if a person accepts to work for the civil service, and the duty to undertake the public's business, and exercice all the authority and perks that provides, then one gives up the right to express personal opinions in public.

I would not want to face a tax collector, a policeman or a judge who had written an article opposing Internet forums and the people who post to them.

When we deal with government bureaucrats, we should expect impartiality.

If this guy wants to write controversial novels, he should resign and find another day job.

You make a good point, most companies would require a confidentiality agreement for some positions, I wonder if the gov't requires it. If they don't, they should.

[Canuck E Stan]

Nobody, but nobody should ever be forced to give up their right to express personal opinions in public. For Heaven sake - it is fiction. It is a novel. He's not exposing government corruption or giving away military secrets. This is not a totalitarian government, though it is certainly heading in that direction.

Scientist silenced; 15 Kyoto programs axed

It's amazing how the media(in this case the Toronto Star and the Globe and Mail) can mix a story related to fiction with non-fiction and make it sound like one is related to the other. My first question is, the National Press gallery a normal place for an author to launch a book of fiction? Add quotes in the story:

"It is clear the Conservative government has no plans to listen to expert advice from their own department and is willing to sacrifice sound environmental policy to partisan ideology," said Brison.

Is Brison refering to the author of the fictional novel or the Kyoto cutback portion?

Add to all this:

Leading environmentalists from across Canada say the opposition parties should defeat the government if it abandons the effort to meet Canada's Kyoto commitments.

Canada can meet its emissions-cutting target under the Kyoto Protocol despite government claims to the contrary, activists from eight environmental groups told a news conference Wednesday.

But never revealing who these "Leading Environmentalists" or the "eight environmental groups" are.Nor explaining how these groups plan for Canada to meet its emission-cutting target under the Kyoto Protocol.

One could say the media is just "trolling" their stories in order to build on getting a anti-(conservative)government response from the public.

To bad today's media can't report the news without trying to "make" the news.

[mcqueen625]

From link above:

Publisher Elizabeth Margaris said that Mark Tushingham, whose day job is as an Environment Canada scientist, was ordered not to appear at the National Press Club to give a speech discussing his science fiction story about global warming in the not-too-distant future.

"He got a directive from the department, cautioning him not to come to this meeting today," said Margaris of DreamCatcher Publishers.

"So I guess we're being stifled. This is incredible, I've never heard of such a thing," she said.

Day job?

Call me old-fashioned but it seems to me that if a person accepts to work for the civil service, and the duty to undertake the public's business, and exercice all the authority and perks that provides, then one gives up the right to express personal opinions in public.

I would not want to face a tax collector, a policeman or a judge who had written an article opposing Internet forums and the people who post to them.

When we deal with government bureaucrats, we should expect impartiality.

If this guy wants to write controversial novels, he should resign and find another day job.

Here! Here! This person does in fact work for the government and writing a novel, fiction or otherwise depicting Canada at war with the United States over global warming is just asinine, because Canada does not have, nor will it ever again have the means or the ability to wage a war against any country let alone the U.S. For starters we have many who are already questioning our commitment in Afghanistan because a few of our brave military personnel have been killed. Wait til you hear the hollering when more body-bags start coming back to Canada, the NDP will be lobbying for Canada to get out of the business of having any armed services The Liberal's well they're something else again, because they have shown since the end of WW II that they do not believe Canada needs to spend money on anything military. They would much rather waste our tax-money on useless programs like the gun registry, and allow the U.S. to protect us.

[August1991]

Nobody, but nobody should ever be forced to give up their right to express personal opinions in public. For Heaven sake - it is fiction. It is a novel. He's not exposing government corruption or giving away military secrets. This is not a totalitarian government, though it is certainly heading in that direction.

Canadians should NEVER allow this type of censorship. I don't care if he is a civil servant or not. Mr. Harper is not paying his salary, we are; and civil servants should enjoy the same rights and freedoms as the rest of us!

Sorry, I disagree.

Nocrap, you show an unfortunate misunderstanding of what government is.

If I disagree with the public opinions of a lawyer for example, I am free to hire a different lawyer. I would be surprised if a labour union or the NDP uses the services of a right-wing lawyer.

In the case of a government employee, I am not free to choose another civil servant. This is in the very nature of government.

I would expect our judges and crown prosecutors, for example, to be careful when making public prouncements. They should not only be impartial, but should also appear to be impartial. If they are not comfortable being discrete, they should find another line of work.

In the past, we gave civil servants strong job security so that they were protected from politically-motivated firings. In return, they were expected to be loyal to the State for whom they worked. They cannot take sides.

IMV, modern government has many problems and one of them is how the civil service operates. Along the same lines, I happen to think Harper's accountability legislation will not correct this problem.

[Shakeyhands]

This all is starting to sound eerily familiar.. no matter what happens, no one, and I mean no one, allows Dear Leader to be wrong. No matter what happens, he is correct... "Your Doing a great job Brownie!"

[August1991]

This all is starting to sound eerily familiar.. no matter what happens, no one, and I mean no one, allows Dear Leader to be wrong. No matter what happens, he is correct... "Your Doing a great job Brownie!"

It is not the job of a civil servant to question publicly the direction given by the minister's office. That job falls to the opposition, the media and the public at large.

I don't agree with this whistleblower legislation, and even less with the monetary inducement. (I'm not too worried however because the scheme is impractical.) If any civil servant can appoint herself Leader of the Opposition, what will happen next? This is an invitation to unworkable relationships.

The more I see of this Accountability legislation, the more underwhelmed I am. Harper seems to want to hire a whole new army of bureaucrats who will oversee the existing bureaucrats. When anyone suggests that the solution to a bureaucratic problem is to hire more bureaucrats, my general reaction is to roll my eyes.

----

Returning to this thread's topic, I realize that I'm being old-fashioned when I say that civil servants should be impartial. Federal civil servants now have the right to run as candidates in federal elections.

But I think it's a bit much for a literary agent to cry fettering of speech to create PR for her client, a civil servant who wrote a book for personal gain and to advance a clearly political agenda, using information no doubt obtained at taxpayer's expense.

[fellowtraveller]

civil servants should enjoy the same rights and freedoms as the rest of us!

And they do, plus they have an unbeatable benefit package!

But employees in the private sector do not have carte blanche to leverage their employment into personal gain. There is no way that anybody working for , say, Ford Canada would be allowed to use their position as a Ford employee to spout off publicly about the automotive world withut specific employer permission. On or off the job.

[Nocrap]

It is a FICTION! If he had written an expose on government spending within the Ministry, or specifically mentioned co-workers, it would be a different story. Because of the genre of the book I would never buy it or read it. I'm sure Ford would have no problem with an employee writing a fictional account of flying cars.

People concerned with global warming will still be concerned with global warming, with or without the publication of a FICTIONAL book. There are already lots of non-fiction books on the subject. Harper's decision to censor it, will only peak Canadians interests and if the author takes it to the Supreme Court and wins the right to have it published, you can be sure it will be a bestseller, even if it is absolute garbage. Controversy sells and Mr. Harper has given him free publicity.

As far as the author using taxpayer's money to research the effects of global warming, it's highly unlikely. In his position he is probably well educated with a strong scientific background, so brings more to the job than he takes out.

And yes I still believe that Civil Servants should have the same rights as all Canadian citizens. Should we also take away their right to vote?

He is showing a sign of weakness when he is afraid of a book that will not even have mass appeal (though it probably will now).

[August1991]

He is showing a sign of weakness when he is afraid of a book that will not even have mass appeal (though it probably will now).

The whole point of the exercise, I suspect. PR people dream of this kind of situation.

[Riverwind]

It is a FICTION! If he had written an expose on government spending within the Ministry, or specifically mentioned co-workers, it would be a different story. Because of the genre of the book I would never buy it or read it. I'm sure Ford would have no problem with an employee writing a fictional account of flying cars.

I sure Ford would have a big problem with it if the employee used his position at Ford to promote his book.

[gerryhatrick]

This is a surprise?

They played up the idea that people were "fear mongering" over Harper....pretended that it was unfounded scare tactics.

Now that he's elected they're smugly pointing out that the world hasn't ended...so all the scare tactics were lies.

This is the kind of thing people were warning about, right here.

Oh, but the world hasn't ended yet so we shouldn't worry...

[BubberMiley]

He should know better than to think he is still allowed to express his opinions. This is a Conservative government and only Ministers are allowed to express their personal opinions--oh wait, scratch that.

[August1991]

This is a surprise?

They played up the idea that people were "fear mongering" over Harper....pretended that it was unfounded scare tactics.

Now that he's elected they're smugly pointing out that the world hasn't ended...so all the scare tactics were lies.

This is the kind of thing people were warning about, right here.

Most Canadians want their civil servants to do their jobs, not spend time writing or promoting science fiction novels about war with the US.

The Left can take up this guy's case in an attempt to denigrate Harper but this will only show how the Left doesn't understand the people it claims to represent.

[Nocrap]

He is showing a sign of weakness when he is afraid of a book that will not even have mass appeal (though it probably will now).

The whole point of the exercise, I suspect. PR people dream of this kind of situation.

Oh yeah. Still don't think I'd read it, but it will definitely be assured a wide distribution. Maybe Harper should get royalties because someone will be cashing in.

[normanchateau]

I wonder how Conservatives would feel if a Liberal government silenced or fired a civil servant who had written a novel with an anti-Kyoto bias? Is it remotely possible that they might not be supportive?

[BubberMiley]

And since when does being a civil servant mean you have to give up your right to self expression in a free society? If he wrote the book on his own time, it's none of the government's business.

[shoop]

It doesn't. But the author chose to promote the book *AS* a scientist employed by the Government of Canada. He is more than free to promote it as a private citizen.

And since when does being a civil servant mean you have to give up your right to self expression in a free society? If he wrote the book on his own time, it's none of the government's business.

[normanchateau]

It doesn't. But the author chose to promote the book *AS* a scientist employed by the Government of Canada. He is more than free to promote it as a private citizen.

And since when does being a civil servant mean you have to give up your right to self expression in a free society? If he wrote the book on his own time, it's none of the government's business.

So if an Ontario university professor, whose salary is funded by the provincial government and whose research grants come from the federal government, writes a book on his own time, he must pretend to be a private citizen and not let anyone know that he's a government employee? Imagine the outcry from Conservatives if a Liberal or NDP government muzzled university professors who promoted Conservative values in their free time.

[shoop]

Normie, what's with the pathetic false analogies.

Academia is the one case where tenure exists to protect freedom of ideas. University professors are expected to publish as part of their jobs.

Try and come up with an example that isn't so weak next time.

The guy from Environment Canada is free to publish the book as a private citizen. His job does not have a requirement for publication. He can do whatever he wants on his own time.

So if an Ontario university professor, whose salary is funded by the provincial government and whose research grants come from the federal government, writes a book on his own time, he must pretend to be a private citizen and not let anyone know that he's a government employee? Imagine the outcry from Conservatives if a Liberal or NDP government muzzled university professors who promoted Conservative values in their free time.