Science hurt by N.B. budget cuts: expert

Last Updated: Monday, September 13, 2010 | 7:41 AM ET

By Daniel McHardie, CBC News

New Brunswick voters should put pressure on the five political parties to explain how they will safeguard the environment in tough economic times, according to a science expert.

R.A. Lautenschlager, an adjunct professor of Canadian Studies at Mount Allison University who has spent 35 years in environmental studies, said he's concerned about how decisions on the environment and natural resources will be made as all government departments face budget cuts.

Lautenschlager said in an analysis written for CBC News he worries that "belief-based approaches" to decision-making are replacing science-based decisions

"The health of our environment is too critical. It is the most important issue facing humanity today and politicians must lead, even if they must be pushed," Lautenschlager writes.

In the last decade, he says, budget cuts have made it difficult for civil servants "to provide the timely science-based information" need for environmental decisions.

The New Brunswick government is facing a $749-million deficit in 2010-11 and the political parties have talked at times in the Sept. 27 election campaign about the need to curtail spending in the future.

Spending reductions expected

For example, the incumbent Liberals have committed to holding spending growth to one per cent but said the budgets for health, education and seniors services would not face cuts. That means other departments could face spending reductions.

Lautenschlager says voters should be asking politicians before the provincial election whether they are willing to support the environment and science-based decisions by not cutting those budgets.

"Any commitment to these departments will require reduced support for other departments," he writes. "So, in addition to learning the willingness of politicians to support the science-based efforts of those departments, determine where they would make the cuts that would allow that support."

The election campaign has already raised examples of how decisions based on "belief" have trumped science, according to Lautenschlager.

For example, the science expert says he's heard a party promise to end aerial herbicide spraying and replace it with ground-based treatments.

This policy, Lautenschlager says, would actually do more harm to the environment.

"It would increase forest management costs significantly; require more herbicide and additional treatments to achieve similar results," he said, "increase the probability that the herbicide product used would move away from the intended treatment area … and increase environmental damage (because heavy equipment used instead would compact and rut soil — leading to erosion)."