Canadian scientists protest budget cuts

The billions of dollars that US President Obama’s stimulus bill has given to science is having an unintended effect across the Canadian border. More than 2,000 Canadian scientists have signed an open letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper , decrying national budget cuts in science. More than $145 million was cut from Canadian science agencies in this year’s budget.

The letter contrasts the 40% increase in funds the US National Science Foundation is getting ($3 billion on top of its current $6.9 billion) “with Canada’s ‘“stimulus budget’ cutting Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council’s by 5%.”

“When US researchers are being actively approached for ideas to use the stimulus money to think big and to hire and retain their researchers, their Canadian counterparts are now scrambling to identify budget cuts for their Labs, while worrying about the future of their graduating students,” says the letter. “These cuts are huge steps backward for Canadian Science and we ask the government to immediately develop a multi-year plan to significantlyincrease this country’s R&D investment through our granting councils.”

The letter also points out that the Obama administration has appointed leading and Nobel Prize–winning scientists to his cabinet and as his advisers, and sought the input of the directors of NSF and the National Institutes of Health in his budget discussions. “We need a similar approach in Canada,” say the Canadian scientists, “where top research scientists and humanists can help shape directions in Ottawa for research funding.”

Paul Guinnessy