Tenure, the Canadian tar sands and ‘Ethical Oil’

Abstract

Canada, despite its long democratic tradition, has a record of attempts to suppress inconvenient scientific findings. This has intensified since 2006, when the new conservative government of Canada began its systematic and well-documented assault on the functioning, independence and integrity of the environmental science performed in federal governmental laboratories, which is largely attributed to its focus on developing Canada’s tar sands and Arctic offshore oil, while denying the reality of global warming. Academic tenure, still a major feature of Canada’s research universities, appears to be one of the few obstacles to this strategy of silencing environmental scientists concerned about this course of action.