Timeline

Click here to download the low-resolution PDF version of the timeline graphic.

February 2013: DFO proposed strict confidentiality rules on a Canada-U.S. Arctic Science project. The U.S. scientist involved refused to sign saying that the new rules went against academic freedom and could result in muzzling.
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/technology/story.html?id=7960978

February 2013: Democracy Watch and the University of Victoria Environmental Law Centre submitted a letter to the Information Commissioner asking her to investigate whether government policies on science-communication are legal under the Access to Information Act.
http://www.elc.uvic.ca/press/documents/2012-03-04-Democracy-Watch_OIPLtr...

February 2013: New rules came into effect making it more difficult for DFO scientists to collaborate with non-government scientists and giving new powers to the department managers to stop research from being published even when it has already been peer-reviewed and accepted by a scientific journal.
http://www.ipolitics.ca/2013/02/07/new-policy-gives-government-power-to-...

January 2013: Silence of the Labs. (Ryerson Review of Journalism)
http://www.rrj.ca/m25739/

January 2013: Editorial from the Royal Society of Canada calling for government scientists to be unshackled.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/commentary/unshackle-government-scientist...

July 2012: Death of Evidence events took place across the country.
http://www.deathofevidence.ca/

April 2012: Scientists attending the Polar Year conference in Montreal were shadowed by media relations officers.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/story/2012/04/24/scientists-muzzl...

March 2012: Ottawa Citizen reporter Tom Spears submitted a Freedom of Information request to find out why he didn’t receive an answer to his simple questions about a joint National Research Council and NASA study on snowfall patterns.
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/technology/Canadian+bureaucracy+joint+study...
http://www.scribd.com/doc/89708162/A-simple-question-a-blizzard-of-burea...

March 2012: The prestigious international science journal Nature published an editorial criticizing Canada’s muzzling of scientists.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v483/n7387/full/483006a.html

February 2012: Many organizations representing scientists and science journalists signed a letter to Prime Minister Harper asking that government scientists be unmuzzled.
http://www.ipolitics.ca/2012/02/16/prime-minister-please-stop-muzzling-s...

Fall 2011: Environment Canada environmental scientist David Tarasick was prevented from speaking publicly about his research on the ozone layer that was published in the journal Nature.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/story/2012/04/24/scientists-muzzl...

July 2011: Kristi Miller, a scientist at the Department of Fisheries and Oceans had her work on salmon published in the prestigious journal Science but was not allowed to discuss her research publicly.
http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/Ottawa+silences+scientist+over+We...

September 2010: Scott Dallimore, a geoscientist at Natural Resources Canada was prevented from doing media interviews for his research on a 13,000-year-old flood published in Nature.
http://blogs.nature.com/news/2010/09/canadian_government_muzzling_s.html

November 2007: Environment Canada implemented new guidelines stating that the department would speak with one voice, and that voice would come from the communications people. These new rules meant that all media requests to speak to scientists had to go through the media relations people.
http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=55e49c18-cb8d-45d...