"You have a government that is micromanaging the message, obsessively. It seems to vet everything that goes out to the media" Margaret Muro, Canadian Science Journalist 

". . . It's so hard to get hold of scientists that a lot of my colleagues have given up," she explained.

"Ms Munro cited another example of research published in another leading scientific journal, Nature, that was published last October.

"An international team including several scientists from the government agency, Environment Canada, set out details of a hole that appeared in the ozone layer above the Arctic.

"Ms Munro said she had called one of the scientists involved who she had dealt with several times in the past. He agreed to speak to her, but said that he had been told that her request had to be put to government media relations officials in Ottawa.

"So I phoned up Ottawa and they just said no you can't talk to the guy. A couple of weeks later, he was available but by then the story had been done. So they take them out of the news cycle," she said.  

"Ms Munro also claims that journalists were denied access to scientists working for the government agency Health Canada last year, when there was concern about radiation levels reaching the country's western coast from Japan following the explosion at the Fukushima nuclear power plant. Ultimately, journalists obtained the information they sought from European agencies.

"The Postmedia News journalist obtained documents relating to interview requests using Canada's equivalent of the Freedom of Information Act. She said the documents show interview requests move up what she describes as an "increasingly thick layer of media managers, media strategists, deputy ministers, then go up to the Privy Council Office, which decides 'yes' or 'no'" . . .

"The government has never explained what the process is. They just imposed these changes and they expected us to sit back and take it," she explained.

"Professor Andrew Weaver believes that the media protocol is being used by the Canadian government to "instruct scientists to deliver a certain message, thereby taking the heat out of controversial topics".

He added:  "You can't have an informed discussion if the science isn't allowed to be communicated. Public relations message number one is that you have to set the conversation. You don't want to have a conversation on someone else's terms. And this is now being applied to science on discussions about oil sands, climate and salmon."