iPOLITICS, By Peter Anderson

The debate underway over the future of a field at Ottawa’s Central Experimental Farm promises to shed light on the new Liberal government’s promises for real change, respect for scientists and a return to transparency. 

Late last month, the Ottawa Hospital announced that public consultations will take place early next year regarding the design of a new Civic campus planned for experimental plots used in climate change research that feeds into the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. No consultations have been held in the year since John Baird announced that up to 60 acres would be severed from the Experimental Farm. Baird’s gift represents the worst impulses of his government: silencing scientists and eschewing transparency in decision-making.

In line with the Conservative government’s practices, only a small handful of civil servants with the NCC, the Ottawa Hospital and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada were aware of the transfer before the press conference. Everyone from federal scientists to the provincial and municipal governments, the Friends of the Farm and the Farm’s Advisory Council were left in the dark.

When the Friends initially spoke out against the transfer, the Conservative government quietly threatened to dissolve them.

The scientists who have dedicated their working lives to decades-long international research projects on the composition of soil, tilling practices, and climate change learned they were losing their fields through the press release. When one scientist confronted his manager he was told “they [the NCC and Hospital] didn’t care” about the loss of invaluable research land.

Environment Minister Catherine McKenna — also the MP for Ottawa Centre, which includes the Experimental Farm — Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly and Agriculture Minister Lawrence MacAulay together have a unique opportunity to demonstrate their government’s commitment to science and governmental transparency in how they approach the future of the Experimental Farm.

The Central Experimental Farm is one of the longest continuously operating agricultural research stations in the world. Its soils are a rare and irreplaceable archive of 130 years of research in support of Canadian farmers. Its achievements include the development of Marquis wheat in the early twentieth century. More recently, its scientists have been taking part in an international partnership on the effects of climate change on agricultural practices.

Under the previous government, scientists were not allowed to speak about their research publicly, creating a vacuum around the important work underway on the threatened sixty acres. Any meaningful consultation must include a clear and honest statement of what is being lost.

Retired scientists in Canada and their international counterparts already have written against the severance. It’s time to give Canada’s federal agricultural scientists the opportunity to share their important research before it’s lost.

The Experimental Farm is a National Historic Site of Canada; the severance of 60 acres from the farm shows the weakness and ineffectiveness of federal heritage laws. The federal government can only protect heritage sites that it owns. If the federal government refuses to protect its own heritage sites, it sends a message that no one else should care for theirs, either.

At the core of the debate is transparency in government decision-making. Despite the Experimental Farm’s long-term management plan based on extensive public consultation, there was not even a single public consultation session before the severance was announced. Indeed, the Ottawa Hospital has fought, delayed and cancelled all attempts to hear from the public until now, insisting on no consultations until the land lease was finalized. The consultations planned for the new year are about the design — not the location — of a new campus. Any consultation that leaves the location off the table amounts to window-dressing.

During the election, Trudeau and the Liberals promised to bring real change to Ottawa, to respect government scientists, and to return transparency to the federal government. At the Central Experimental Farm, they have a golden opportunity to show Canadians what change ought to look like.

Peter Anderson is a PhD candidate in the Department of Geography and Planning at Queen’s University, Kingston