![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Happy (?) Labour Day
May. 1st, 2012 11:36 amHappy Mayday, everyone. While we in Canada officially celebrate Labour Day on the first Monday in September, for much of the world Mayday functions as their day to celebrate labour. Here, of course, Harper, Flaherty, Clement et al. are commemorating the day by handing out pink slips to thousands of federal workers. The Public Service Alliance of Canada is holding its triennial convention and other labour groups will be joining them for a downtown rally at noon.
When I retired from the public service, I opted to retain membership in my union via the Retired Members Guild. I don't think I have ever known morale to be lower amongst federal workers. "Lyin' Brian" had nothing over Stealthy Stephen. The whole notion of using babysitters - sorry, media relations officers - to screen how much of our taxpayer-funded scientific and professional research results may actually be released to us just gives me the creeps. Heaven forbid that there should be any impartial or independent studies that even hint that federal policies might be ill-advised! Do elected governments no longer have any use for the notion of bureaucrats speaking truth to power? Or even speaking objective facts that might enable the public to draw some politically unpalatable conclusions?
Scientific research has never been totally apolitical, of course. Look at Sputnik. Or the atomic bomb. I won't deny that some research - or at least, certain aspects of it - will probably always need to be kept somewhat under wraps for reasons of privacy, national or international security, risks of insider profit, whatever. But when you don't altogether trust the folks holding and hiding behind the wrapping paper, that's a problem. Yes, our government was democratically elected and eventually we can turf them out of office if the voters will it. But four or five years can seem a long time.
So if you think as I do, and if you're in a position to be able to speak out without fear of unreasonable repercussion, I urge you to support those hard-working public servants, most of whom have only ever wanted to act for the good of John and Jane Q. Public.
When I retired from the public service, I opted to retain membership in my union via the Retired Members Guild. I don't think I have ever known morale to be lower amongst federal workers. "Lyin' Brian" had nothing over Stealthy Stephen. The whole notion of using babysitters - sorry, media relations officers - to screen how much of our taxpayer-funded scientific and professional research results may actually be released to us just gives me the creeps. Heaven forbid that there should be any impartial or independent studies that even hint that federal policies might be ill-advised! Do elected governments no longer have any use for the notion of bureaucrats speaking truth to power? Or even speaking objective facts that might enable the public to draw some politically unpalatable conclusions?
Scientific research has never been totally apolitical, of course. Look at Sputnik. Or the atomic bomb. I won't deny that some research - or at least, certain aspects of it - will probably always need to be kept somewhat under wraps for reasons of privacy, national or international security, risks of insider profit, whatever. But when you don't altogether trust the folks holding and hiding behind the wrapping paper, that's a problem. Yes, our government was democratically elected and eventually we can turf them out of office if the voters will it. But four or five years can seem a long time.
So if you think as I do, and if you're in a position to be able to speak out without fear of unreasonable repercussion, I urge you to support those hard-working public servants, most of whom have only ever wanted to act for the good of John and Jane Q. Public.
