Canada creates science-minister post | Hacker News Reader

Canada creates science-minister post

nature.com

70 pointsDrScump31 comments

It will be interesting to see how this plays out in practice. One of the constraints on the Cabinet is that Trudeau promised that it would be gender-balanced; unfortunately, the pool of MPs from which he was selecting Cabinet members was not (134 men vs. 50 women; the imbalance is even worse if you look at experienced MPs).

There are six major portfolios -- Finance, Treasury Board, Justice, Foreign Affairs, Defence, and Intergovernmental relations -- and of those five of the ministers are men. Then there are 11 portfolios which I'd say are important but fairly self-contained -- things like International Trade, Health, and Fisheries -- and 6/11 of those are held by men. The other 14 posts are what would typically be considered "junior minister" positions, and that's where most of the women ended up. [1]

This gives me a strong impression that some people were brought in as "diversity representatives" and then portfolios were created in order to justify their presence, rather than the portfolios being created because they were deemed important and then the best qualified candidates sought to fill them; it would be nice to think otherwise, but I've learned to be cynical where politics is concerned. Unfortunately, while inviting people to the table has great optics, it doesn't necessarily result in anyone listening to them once they arrive.

[1] You can argue about which portfolios are major vs. minor vs. junior; there's no hard rules here. But I don't think you could find a plausible classification which didn't show a heavy skew towards males filling the most important roles.

If anything, I consider that a positive sign, that Trudeau is focussing on meritocratic rather than purely political concerns. One of the worries about him was that he would bend to political correctness, and make a hash of everything.

Well, he still might - but being a bit practical minded is pretty good. And his new Minister of Defense looks pretty Bad Ass. http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/harjit-sajjan...

Fair enough. I'd prefer to get rid of the "fake" portfolios and simply have "Minister without portfolio" for the members who are added for the purpose of diversity, though.

You could also see it as a chance to "train" female junior ministers and will allow them in a couple of years to have a more important portfolio.

This is assuming that the current distribution has been based mostly on experience and nothing else, which is probably not the case of course.

Sure. My point is, it's not clear if we have a Minister of Science because Trudeau thinks science is that important, or just because it's a convenient excuse to add someone to Cabinet.

Why not both?

In this instance - as long as he's not censoring government scientists or the Minister of Science, it's pretty huge compared to the train wreck we were on. Likewise with the other roles, a good leader/manager will let people shine and support them when they need support.

I think it's more about appearing more science friendly than Harper.

Alternatively, could this particular post could be seen as a signal in contrast to some of the very anti scientific policies of his predecessor ?

I agree that defaulting to "it's probably just politics" is rational and usually correct.

However I'm cheered by what this government thinks is pragmatic politics versus what the previous government thought.

You are probably not wrong overall (if blunt) but his approach sounds consistent: if women MPs are overall more junior, it makes sense to give them junior ministries first, and try to promote them faster, rather than leapfrog what sounds like a steep learning experience.

It’s been tried elsewhere, and the success rate is less than it could be — but that has certainly more to do with how politics changed recently.

I hope they all do an awesome job and grow with their experiences.

I agree, my MP was nominated to Small Business and Tourism, arguably she has no experience in either whatsoever and being a 2nd generation immigrant woman may have been the deciding factor for her nomination.

Still I'll be moderately optimist (see the example of the MP in Quebec who was in Vegas at election time since she 'had no chance' and didn't speak French, apparently she has been very successful and won again) until actions and facts speak.

This is something of a reaction to the last ten years of anti-science rhetoric from the former governing party. I'm happy to see it in place and especially happy that we are no longer muzzling our scientists.

Yes, and also (former PM) Harper's abysmal record on climate change.

Just wondering, won't this create even more politicization of science?

Well, the previous guy was quite bad for science [1] [2] [3]. Perhaps you can elaborate as to how things could get worse?

[1] http://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/hundreds-of-world-s-scientist... [2] http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/research-library-s-clo... [3] http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/research-cutbacks-by-gover...

"We give you money, but you spend it like we tell you. Now we need a report that tells this thing X is good."

Good for scientists is not necessarily good for science.

Some issues in science are already very politicized, with the left and the right being on different sides of an argument, often with religious fervor.

A separate portfolio and government bureaucracy means more money and power to the party in charge in terms of influencing science, which could easily be misused for harrassing scientists and institutions. There is also the implicit threat of cutting off funding for research, effectively silencing any viewpoints that may be against the agenda of the party in charge.

Just to illustrate, if in your opinion the "previous guy" was bad for science, imagine him in charge of this bureaucracy, with Lois Lerner-type harrassment and promotion of research that would be offensive to other political parties.

The "last guy" did what you described already. The federal government has always had significant control over funding levels of both government scientific agencies, as well as funding for research, just with the responsibility diffused among different ministries and agencies. The Harper government introduced significant cuts in funding from both pools, regardless of the degree of centralization of responsibility.

They already had a Minister of Mobile Gaming post, so what?

> Kirsty Duncan, a medical geographer at the University of Toronto, will be the first to hold the job. Duncan, who contributed to the 2001 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

Climate change, not a surprise.

> “If we take it at face value, we now have two ministers responsible for science,” says Rees Kassen

Sure do, might have something to do with this being about winning an election.

You'd think that if anywhere on Earth stands to benefit from global warming it's Canada.

Not really, we'd just be the poster children of those polar bears on melting icebergs. :/

That's potentially true unfortunately, largely due to opening of the Northwest Passage: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northwest_Passage

Actually - it depends.

Climate Change is intensifying the summers and winters in canada.

Notice the increased number of forest fires per year.

And the winters will also be worse.

Lower Mainland B.C. had a water shortage; skiing around Vancouver was dreadful early last winter because it was too warm so recreation and tourism impacted; more frequent and severe floods in the Prairies; more summer storms leading to localized floods in southern Ontario; etc etc.

Up north might get warmer but it would still be a huge undertaking to move impacted people from the south where they currently live.

To put some context into that: In the last 10 years, Alberta has had a "1-in-200-year" flood in 2005 (https://ec.gc.ca/meteo-weather/default.asp?lang=En&n=A4DD5AB...) followed by a three-times-heavier flood in 2013 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_Alberta_floods, https://ec.gc.ca/meteo-weather/default.asp?lang=En&n=5BA5EAF...).

Just because it's cold in the winter doesn't mean global warming will be good.

I'd say that the Maritime provinces have been taking more of the flood/storm damage the last few years. The 2013 flood in Southern Alberta was (or so I was told) was due to a sudden set of warm days in the mountains, and a great deal of the snow suddenly melted. That was a bit of a one off weather event. If you google storms in the maritime provinces for the past few years, you can see that they have been hit far harder than Alberta. http://www.theweathernetwork.com/news/articles/atlantic-stor... http://www.journalpioneer.com/News/Local/2014-03-27/article-... http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/prince-edward-island/storms-co... http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/maritimes-soake... are just a few examples

We farm on Vancouver Island and the drought we experienced this summer (effective no rain from May through September) is going to hit us hard, as the hay crops we took off are significantly less than previous years. We do irrigate some of our pastures and hay fields, but grass regrowth was very obviously affected.

By September, hay was going for 50-60% more than it had been at the END of the previous year's season. There will probably be a dire shortage come February/March 2016. This will eventually translate itself into rising food prices. Normally, one would be able to import hay from Alberta or Washington, but they've also just come out of a poor growing season.

Apparently a country's peak productivity corresponds to a temperature of 13 degrees Celsius. [1]

So, in isolation you are correct, as higher average temperatures for cold places like Canada or the Scandinavian countries increase, they might actually increase productivity. However, this will be undermined by the instability and worsening productivity of the rest of the world.

We're all in this together.

[1] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-21/climate-ch...

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