Canada's New Science - Top Scientific Journal Not Impressed

At the start of February, I wrote a blog post or two about the Conservative government's disdain for science. Now Nature, one of the most highly respected scientific journals on the planet, has just criticized them for their anti-science policy in one of their editorials.

When the government acts this way towards researchers, offering half-measures for grad students won't solve the problem. "We need people who are well educated and we need to ensure we have enough of them to be competitive." Exactly. And if you want to keep them in Canada after they have graduated, you'd better stop censoring them at every turn.

Hard to believe, but Jim Prentice is actually a lawyer

Oh dear.
"As the Harper government prepares to introduce tougher new copyright rules, the Conservative party is being accused of using the theme song from the reality TV show The Apprentice without permission of the record company that owns it."

Even better:

"At a press conference on Sunday, the Conservatives presented an election-style attack video about the alleged costs of Stéphane Dion's spending promises, set to the musical refrain of "money, money, money, money, mo-ney. (...) The press conference was led by Industry Minister Jim Prentice, who is also responsible for overseeing reforms intended to strengthen Canada's copyright laws."

Can't beat those optics. This is much worse than the time he demonstrated that he has no idea about his government's own policy on treaty ratification.