Question Period: Science and The Stone Age!
Science and Technology Minister Gary Goodyear continues to be hounded by Liberal criticisms of the Conservative Government’s cuts to research funding. Yesterday’s exchange between the Minister and Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff is altogether too wonderful. Ignatieff used the story of the sort-of leaving UdeM AIDS researcher to put a human face on the tragedy of research cuts. Goodyear parried by listing dollar amounts the government has invested in HIV/AIDS research and pointing out (accurately, it seems) that the researcher in question hasn’t had his funding cut. Not satisfied, Ignatieff generalized his question and asked what the government would do to “stop this exodus of our finest researchers”. Here, the Minister went back to his trusty compare-and-contrast strategy:
the last time this country faced a recession in the mid 90s the Liberal government cut scientific research by $442-million. We take a different approach, Mr. Speaker, we’ve increased funding by $5.1-billion.
Never mind that the government research funding figure has been widely discredited, we’re talking BILLIONS of dollars. Very impressive. Except the Liberal leader is not impressed:
This is the only government anywhere that doesn’t seem to understand that investing in science research and technology is the key to the jobs of tomorrow. President Obama is investing more, the Ontario government is investing more, and the Conservative government cut $148-million from our research granting council. How does the government expect Canada to compete in the Information Age with policies derived from the Stone Age?
Perhaps due to religious beliefs, Mr. Goodyear didn’t bother addressing the possibility of science policy evolution between the Stone and Information Ages. Instead, he counter-attacked: ”I know that member was in the United States living during the cuts under the Liberal government”.
It is really refreshing to see such enlightened debate about the merits of research funding and the question of how best to distribute it. This is a good example of why the research community should become more actively involved in public discussion of research policy – if only to raise the tenor of debate…
