Tom Fletcher cites Stephen Harper as saying, “…decisions on these kinds of projects are made through an independent evaluation conducted by scientists into the economic costs and risks that are associated with the project.”
What this says, in other words, is that scientists – who are inarguably much brighter than economists – are now going to judge the economic risks and costs of the project. That raises a few concerns.
First, this is a government that has laid off hundreds of scientists while requiring those still working for the government to vet all their responses through a media person. Secondly, large corporations, from tobacco through to the oil companies are known to hire scientists as lobbyists to push their own view through the media, quite successfully in many cases.
Is this “independent” evaluation coming from muzzled scientists whose responses are already written for them?
Or is it coming from scientists who have been bought and paid for the ‘correct’ response?
As in the case of climate science and the oil companies, and bioengineering, many of these scientists do not have degrees in fields actually related to the topic under question.
A third concern: if the scientists’ mandate is to discuss the economic risks and costs, whatever happened to the environmental risks and costs? It is the nature of large corporations to ignore the costs of environmental and cultural damage as they increase their own profit line.
If said science truly does its work, it is much more probable that an accounting of environmental and cultural costs and risks will far outweigh the short-term economic benefits for the corporations – and even shorter economic benefits for those buying into the project.
The final real concern for Harper is of course political – how to present this case so it does not look like his decision, deflecting any flack away from his next electoral chances.
Jim Miles
Vernon
