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Canada’s climate bill flattened

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“Spitting mad,” is how the Victoria Times Colonist described Andrew Weaver, a climate modeller at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, following the news that Canada’s climate change bill had been defeated in the Senate late on Tuesday. “Retiring with a bottle of Jack Daniel’s sounds good right now,” Weaver said. The Climate Change Accountability Act called for greenhouse gas emissions cuts with a short-term target of 25% below the 1990 level by 2020, and a long-term target of 80% below the 1990 level by 2050. For nearly a year and a half it had shuttled between the House of Commons … Read more…

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Cold cash for cold science

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The recent funding wrap-up from the international polar year (IPY) has left many Canadian researchers scratching their heads, trying to find a way to continue their arctic science projects. A new grant from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada may help close that research-funding gap. In its announcement yesterday, NSERC opened a competition to fund large-scale research with a focus—for this round of funding—on northern earth systems. The Discovery Frontiers initiative will heft Can$4 million over five years on the successful research team to study the physical, chemical, biological and social factors that affect the North and its … Read more…

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Canada urged to tackle scientific misconduct

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More education, advice and transparency needed to improve integrity. As cases of questionable conduct among scientists stack up around the globe, a report commissioned by the Canadian government calls for a rethink of the country’s research system to boost honesty and curb misconduct. The recommendations, if implemented, would relax privacy laws that hamper the identification of individuals and institutions found guilty of research misconduct, and create an independent council to promote best practices and prevent research misconduct. The Council of Canadian Academies (CCA) — a not-for-profit corporation based in Ottawa that independently assesses science relevant to public issues — released … Read more…

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Taxing times for Canadian postdocs

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Trainee researchers struggle to make ends meet after the government clarifies tax rules for grants. Staff, student or employee? The employment status of Canadian postdoctoral researchers remains unclear — and many are struggling with the tax issues that arise from the ambiguity. Some of Canada’s postdocs are categorized as associates with benefits, others are fellows with no employee status and, until recently, some had a tax-exempt status on a par with students. “We fall into this no-man’s land,” says Marianne Stanford, chair of the Canadian Association of Postdoctoral Scholars (CAPS) and a postdoctoral fellow at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute … Read more…

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River metals linked to tar sand extraction

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Researchers find that pollutants in Canada’s Athabasca River are not from natural sources. Oil-mining operations in Canada’s main tar sands region are releasing a range of heavy and toxic metals — including mercury, arsenic and lead — into a nearby river and its watershed, according to a new study. Research published online yesterday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows that 13 elements classified as priority pollutants (PPEs) by the US Environmental Protection Agency were found in the Athabasca River in the province of Alberta1. Seven of these were present at high enough concentrations to put aquatic … Read more…