[Nehkara]

Originally Posted by Canada 02

the last federal budget:

• $37 million in new research funding for the granting councils: the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.
• $225 million for the Canada Foundation for Innovation’s next Leading Edge/New Initiatives competition.
• $121 million in new funding for the National Research Council, along with $20 million to support IRAP, the Industrial Research Assistance Program.
• $165 million in new funding over two years for genomics research through Genome Canada.
• $70 million over three years for post-secondary internships.
• $10 million over two years for Canada’s International Education Marketing Strategy aimed at making Canadian universities an international destination of choice.
• $10 million over two years to Indspire, providing post-secondary scholarships and bursaries for First Nations and Inuit students.
• $13 million over two years to support Mitacs’ Globalink Program.

This would be great except the Harper government has told the National Research council it only wants business-oriented research being done.

And... this:

Gary Goodyear, Minister of State for Science and Technology, has consistently defended the Harper government from accusations of a War on Science by emphasizing the $5.5 billion that the Feds have provided to the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI), including another $225 million to the CFI in Economic Action Plan 2013 released on March 21.

The CFI – the key decision-maker for all science funding in Canada – has a governing body of 13 members, seven of whom are appointed by the Minister of Industry (Christian Paradis). These members then select the other six members.

This governing body then appoints seven of the 13 CFI Board of Directors, receives reports from the Board, appoints auditors, approves the Annual Report, sets strategic objectives and makes final decisions about what science projects will be funded, including at universities. According to the CFI website, the members are “similar to a company’s shareholders, but representing the Canadian public.”

But a look at the CFI members indicates that it is a highly politicized body (including a founding trustee of the Fraser Institute) that is making the decisions about what science to support with its $5.5 billion in taxpayer dollars.

CFI Co-Chair David Fung is so thoroughly embedded in China-Canada business/trade collaboration that he may as well be seen as a de facto vice-president of CNOOC (China National Offshore Oil Corp.). The other Co-Chair, Roland Hosein, is a vice-president of GE Canada, a company that is thoroughly engaged in promoting “energy export corridors” and water-privatization efforts across Canada, including GENI (September-October 2011 Watershed Sentinel) and (with Goldman Sachs) the Aqueduct Alliance (January-February 2012 Watershed Sentinel).

Meanwhile, the Board of Directors of the CFI includes the President/CEO of the Montreal Economic Institute (a perennial advocate of bulk water export), and an executive for Husky Energy (whose Hong Kong billionaire owner Li Ka-Shing is buying up water/utilities around the globe).