Opinion Leader: Desperately seeking independent science advice

The recent ‘non announcement' of the closing of the Office of the National Science Advisor (ONSA) has some parts of the science policy world all a twitter. On January 23, Jim Prentice, the minister of Industry, announced through an ‘Info Bulletin' the decision to wind up the office. This was ostensibly occasioned by the decision of the current, and only, national science advisor, Dr Arthur Carty, to retire effective March 3. It was almost assuredly the other way around.

"With the establishment of the new Science, Technology and Innovation Council (STIC), the roles and responsibilities of a number of federal advisory bodies, including the [ONSA], were reviewed," states the bulletin. "In this context, the [ONSA] will be phased out … and the STIC will function as a single external committee [sic], providing the government with independent and integrated advice on science and technology."

This will leave Canada virtually alone in the G-8 in not having a ‘chief scientist' at the centre of government with access to the most senior politicians. However, as noted by other commentators such as Peter Calamai of the Toronto Star (R$, November 28/07), it's questionable whether Carty ever had access to the Prime Minister, even when the ONSA was created by Paul Martin and situated in the Privy Council Office (PCO).

With a limited mandate and no central authority to weigh in, advise or co-ordinate advice on science-based policy issues such as climate change, genetically modified foods or reproductive technologies, the ONSA was a largely ineffectual institution. True, Carty did play a central role in finding significant money for Canada to play an important role in the International Polar Year, but…

The hand wringing by some, such as Bob McDonald, host of CBC radio's Quirks & Quarks, attempts to show that this phenomenon is largely a Harper government ‘thing'.

"Eliminating the National Science Advisor is the latest in a string of events showing how our current government, at least at the top level, does not seem to be interested in the scientific perspective," wrote McDonald.

This perspective fails to recognize that successive Canadian governments and senior bureaucrats have had very mixed views on the value of truly independent S&T and related policy advice.

During WWII and the early post war period, the role of science advisor was performed by the National Research Council and its president. In the early 1960's, there was a ‘Science Secretariat' in PCO that actually had access to the clerk of the PCO and senior cabinet ministers including the PM. In 1966, Pierre Trudeau established the Science Council of Canada (SCC) followed by the Ministry of State for Science and Technology (MOSST) in 1971 — a significant expansion of the Science Secretariat with its own junior minister. The SCC, in particular, was a well respected science advisory body — at least outside government.

In 1983, then PM Brian Mulroney folded MOSST into the new Department of Industry, Science and Technology where it eroded over time. In 1992, the Mulroney government abolished the SCC and replaced it with an ‘advisory board' with its secretariat in Industry Canada. Jean Chrétien did little more than shuffle the deck by abolishing Mulroney's advisory board and establishing two new advisory groups — one of senior bureaucrats responsible for science and research and one of external appointees. The secretariats for both were part of the Industry Canada bureaucracy, hardly ‘arms length'.

Harper has also shuffled this deck by creating the Science, Technology and Innovation Council (STIC), again with its secretariat inside Industry Canada. While its mandate is to advise the government on S&T issues, it has no mandate to initiate work and its advice will be confidential to the government and the bureaucracy. Three of its members are federal deputy ministers, two of them lawyers. This is hardly the open, public, arms-length institution that is needed in an advanced country in this technological age.

One noteworthy attempt at arms-length science advice is the Council of Canadian Academies, nominally founded by the Royal Society of Canada in 2004. It's a valiant effort but dependent on government not Parliament for its money. The 12-member board includes four ‘proposed' by the minister of Industry and only two from the ‘general public'. Its mandate is to do ‘science assessments'. It currently has five under way, all at the behest of government departments and none yet published.

Both the United States and the United Kingdom have models we should look at. In the US there are two particularly important institutions. The first is the National Academies of Science, Engineering and the Institute of Medicine and its associated National Research Council. Founded in 1863 as the National Academy of Sciences, they " perform an unparalleled public service by bringing together committees of experts in all areas of scientific and technological endeavor". It is trusted by both political parties and has done work at the behest of the US Congress, executive branch departments and agencies and the US Supreme Court. It can initiate its own work and is seen by all to be non-partisan. It is a self perpetuating organization truly arms-length from government.

The second institution is the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) situated in the Executive Office of the President which advises the president and the Cabinet on matters of policy related to or driven by S&T. The director of OSTP is appointed by the president although the office exists by statute. While the director may not always have the direct ear of the president he/she does have access to those that do.

The United Kingdom has similar institutions in the Royal Society, founded in 1660 as a self perpetuating institution funded largely by Parliament. The chief scientist reports and provides science-based advice to the PM and his/her Cabinet.

Canada needs a body like the OSTP or the British chief scientist with the clout to convene and co-ordinate S&T-based policy advice across government. We also need a public S&T advisory body truly at arms-length from government, with the resources to initiate its own work in areas of importance to Canada and Canadians, not just addressing subjects proposed by line departments. Right now we have neither. We need both institutions with legislated mandates and the resources to carry out those mandates without interference from self serving science bureaucrats.

Victor Bradley is a consultant specializing in trade, regulatory and S&T policy. He spent 30 years working on S&T policy in the federal government.