Harper salutes coastal British Columbia ...

With a sneer and a raised middle finger.

The Harper government spent $26 million of your tax dollars investigating the reasons for the collapse of the 2009 Fraser River sockeye run. The Cohen Commission Final Report (PDF) was delivered to the Governor in Council on 31 October 2012 after 18 months of hearings and investigation. During that 18 months, scientists conducting studies into the collapse of Pacific salmon stocks made it clear that the Prime Minister's Office had interfered with and effectively gagged those scientists making any kind of public statement as to their findings and their published research. In short, the PMO was not going to let any government scientist say anything which could even be slightly construed as bad about ... fish farms on the BC coast.

The Cohen Report contained 75 sweeping recommendations to Government with deadlines and benchmarks if the Fraser River sockeye stock was to be given any chance of continued survival. And that's just about where things ended. Almost all of the recommendations have been ignored with deadlines having expired on many and other actions simply put on "hold".

Now, this. (bold mine)

The Harper government has quietly opened the door to a major expansion of B.C.’s controversial fish farm sector despite warnings by the 2012 Cohen Commission about the effects of net-based farms on wild salmon.
The decision, revealed to fish farmers by Fisheries Minister Gail Shea in October, was laid out in letters to several B.C. First Nations last week.
An official in Shea’s department said Wednesday that Ottawa has already received 11 applications for expansions or new farms.

Take clear note of how that was done. Shea told the fish farming industry back in October, 2013, that expansion of Atlantic salmon open-pen feedlots in Pacific coast waters would be approved. She informed the affected BC First Nations last week.

So much for the "duty to consult" and so much for the coast of British Columbia.

As for the Cohen Commission Report and the outstanding items. Well, the Honourable Bruce Cohen has never been invited to sit down with anyone from government to discuss his report.  The outstanding deadlines, (almost all have which have expired), will never be met. The Department of Fisheries and Oceans will continue to be in a blatant conflict of interest with a mandate to regulate and preserve wild fish stocks while at the same time promoting domestic open-pen feedlots, virtually all of which are owned by European companies.

Harper just showed British Columbians what he thinks of them. And all Canadians actually. It's your $26 million he wasted on an inquiry, the recommendations of which he had no intention of reading.

Libricide. The Harper Government's Plan to Murder Science.

How close to home does Harper's plan to transform Canada have to get before it arrives like the grim reaper on your doorstep?

It has arrived on mine.

Stephen Harper is destroying our scientific libraries.

Years ago this country thought well enough of me to end my combat service and to send me off to become a scientist. Admittedly there was an ulterior motive. I would become one of the few who could find and provide the solution to kill enemy submarines.

I was very good at it. In fact, if one brushed off the rust, I probably still am.

Over the course of four years of study and application I read more books on oceanography than you can possibly imagine. I devoured them. I simply loved them. Every single book provided the clues to the mystery I was attempting to uncover. Some of those books were old. Very old. In scouring those arcane pages a hint of something would arise and send me searching. Ancient knowledge, well documented, provided avenues to further research.

The oldest book I could find related to the subject of killing 20th Century Soviet submarines was written way back in 1785 entitled Sundry Maritime Observations. The author was one Benjamin Franklin. When I ordered it from the NOAA library no one objected. I had a reprint edition within the week.

That book put the Gulf Stream into an older perspective. It was a starting point for another probe which would open a whole new set of question in the research group with which I was working. That group created something which didn't just find a new way to detect submarines, it actually advanced medical science.

So, when Harper starts to burn the historical research, a treasure, that this country has developed and stored, he's on my doorstep.

Stephen Harper doesn't want you to know anything that would make you smarter than him. Science, and the advance of science, is sedition. The dumber you are, the more likely you are to vote for him and the knuckledusters who swear fealty to him. His future is secure if you are stupid. He relies on that.

So, there is only one reason why this is happening.

Harper is destroying historical, scientific publications.

When I asked if EVERYTHING was being digitized and recorded, the answer was NO. A culling of "non-relevant" publications was the answer.

In other words, publications which somebody, the PMO included, decided had no scientific value, was being destroyed.

How do they know? Which book has the buried secret of a scientific discovery?

The hints, the line that could lead to further discovery, is probably in one of those destroyed books. And Stephen Harper has just made sure that you and future generations will never find it.

Who burns books but one who is afraid of what is in them?

Update: Just in case you don't read the comments, Alison has provided two exceptional links which after you've read them should leave you shattered. Many thanks Alison!

 Confessions of a Science Librarian:The Canadian War on Science

 Scientists for the Right to Know