Dear Editor,

Commissioner Bruce Cohen’s scathing report castigates the Conservatives for the collapse of the Fraser River sockeye salmon run and the subsequent omnibus C-38 which can only make environmental conditions much worse.

Mr Cohen has a big disadvantage, despite three years, $26 million, three million documents, and 100 days of evidence after listening to almost 900 public submissions, his 1,000-page report is, after all, only science – and we all know how much credence Conservatives have in science. For them it is simply: what does the Bible say about any issue – and if it is not covered, then it can not be a problem, because God would have put it in the Bible if there were a problem.

These people live in a bubble that sees nothing they do not want to see or want you to see, and Canada will be ever the worst for that dangerously simplistic, naive view of the world.

Everything they do has the same naive, simplistic ignorance stamped on it, and Canada will pay dearly for this regressive government for decades, possibly forever.

Take a simple monetary measuring stick, such as shutting down an important scientific study like the Experimental Lakes Area, a collection of 58 lakes near Kenora which is considered a scientific “jewel” in northern Ontario and which has put Canada at the forefront of global freshwater lake research. The project costs $2 million a year and employs 17 scientists, and is considered a very important study by the more enlightened governments of the world – but in their wisdom, the Conservatives have decided that it is a waste of money, so at a cost of $50 million they are shutting it down.

I guess that makes sense to our economist prime minister, at least using Conservative math.

There is, no doubt, a more sinister reason, such as the freshwater scientists not being able to tell Canadians how much damage that pipelines, super tankers, and oil extraction are damaging the Canadian environment.

Wayne Clark, Maple Ridge