What's Safe?

Opinion: Safety in Canada needs to be restored.

In my past few blogs: Greening Canada, Freedom of Research, and Protect Our Waters, I've been sharing some basic ideas on what Canada needs to do to restore Government, and our economy, after our Stephen Harper Government. One of the biggest targets that Stephen aimed at was science. Canada was a world leader, before it was quietly muzzled and broken. By oppressing reality, one can enable ideology. 

If we don't have the metrics to determine if something is “bad”, it must be “good”? Was that Stephens thinking? When Stephen Harper ignorantly eliminated the long form census, it wasn't to brand future libertarians on “small government” and privacy, it was to hide the truth, and nothing but the truth, from Canada.

As evidenced by Canada's blind faith in safety, and the magical self-regulating free market, there are many examples of risks our Government should not take with our future. It's troubling to see the results of this contempt of duty to protect Canada. We have unsafe infrastructure, unsafe oil trains, unsafe pipelines, unsafe mining operations, unsafe food supplements that are untested, unsafe & untested designer synthetic drugs delivered by untested e-cigarettes, unreliable population data critical to national security, etc. It's a mess. If we need safer streets, we need better science-based road designs.

Canada needs to control which companies can operate here, and which products are safe to sell. Today, I noticed a hashtag trending on twitter, #GreenEconomyON. Some corporations, touting green solutions for Ontario. The irony is that one actually polluted our Great Lakes with untested products. They themselves stopped producing the product, which is positive, but only after years of public activism. Shouldn't corporations and products be proved safe before we can let them operate or sell products? Shouldn't the Board be responsible? Shouldn't they take ownership of their activities?

Without a higher standard, and quality science to measure safety, Canada will continue to play this dangerous, sometimes deadly, sometimes toxic, game with our future. If we want a safer Canada, we need to use a scientific approach.

Enjoy!

Freedom of Research

Opinion: Canada needs freedom in science research

Yesterday, in my blog Greening Canada, I talked a little about our nation moving past our Stephen Harper Government and fast tracking repairs to make Canada competitive again, with respect to green culture. How do we fix Canada? How can we optimize that repair? If we take smart first steps, our recovery will be stronger.

With all the environmental issues I outlined in my blog, of primary importance is fixing the damage that Stephen Harper did to our proud science history and core competence. Of most importance is freedom of pure science research. As we see, some research takes decades to become “amazing” when the Nobel Prizes are awarded. What I find amazing are the incredible minds that came up with these ideas, designed an experiment, picked the winning method, decades earlier. Asking why is a powerful tool. It can also power our economy.

Basic science research delivers tiny discoveries. In doing such basic work, new ideas or even other discoveries are often a result; inventing X that fails, but makes Y a winner and makes billion. It's complex, what seems like a useless idea my help unlock something bigger. More importantly, research pushes our understanding of critical questions.

Canada has a proud science history, even the highest scientific literacy rates in the world. Smart countries will evolve and adapt and improve. Science finds a way, when scientists are free to ask “why?”. Growing our knowledge benefits everyone, it can also make incredible improvements for everyone.

Our National Research Council & Health Sciences Research needs to be audited and restored to give Canada the tools we need to drive a smarter, less risk averse, and more profitable economy. Investing in dead horses won't win this race.

Enjoy!