Peter Calamai

Where is Canadian funding for polar year?

By Peter Calamai

The first International Polar Year, in 1882-83 was a bit of a trial for Canada. The fourth IPY, in 2007-2008, could wind up as real egg on our face. The problem, then and now, lies with a tardy and niggardly federal government response. As a result, Canada risks falling even further behind other nations in polar expertise, even though our country includes more of the Arctic than anyone but Russia.

In 1882, the Dominion government at least had the excuse that it had only been around for 15 years, had no effective presence in the polar regions and little relevant research expertise beyond the venerable Geological Survey of Canada. When the UK government inquired in June 1881 about the Royal Society setting up “a Station of Observation in British North America” as part of a circumpolar chain of magnetic and meteorological observations, Ottawa replied that Canada would be “happy to assist the British Government in any way,” short of actually spending money.

Relenting slightly the following spring, the federal government agreed to contribute up to $4,000 to cover the transportation costs of a four-man British polar research party from Halifax to Hudson Bay Station (now Fort Rae) on Slave Lake.

That was one of 13 scientific expeditions sent to various parts of the entire Arctic. Another two travelled to Antarctica. In all, a dozen nations took part in the world’s pioneering exercise to observe and elucidate natural phenomena that span artificial national borders –– such as aurora, meteorology, geomagnetism and what was called “atmospheric electricity.”

Canada was not one of them. The country did play an active role in the next two IPYs, in 1932-33 which focused on the newly-discovered Jet Stream, and in 1957-58, when the event expanded into International Geophysical Year (Remember Sputnik?).

So why has the federal government so far made no financial provision for Canada’s participation in the fourth IPY (which will actually extend more than a year into 2009)?

The concept of IPY as “an international program of coordinated, interdisciplinary scientific research and observations in the Earth’s polar regions” could have been lifted right out of the federal government’s much-ballyhooed Northern Strategy. Consider the IPY goals:

* to explore new scientific frontiers;

* to deepen our understanding of polar processes and their global linkages;

* to increase our ability to detect changes;

* to attract and develop the next generation of polar scientists, engineers and logistics experts; and,

* to capture the interest of schoolchildren, the public and decision-makers.

AMBITIOUS PLANS

To the scientific community, IPY is a chance for a big push that last came around 50 years ago. Preliminary proposals for more than 1,000 projects have already been submitted to the IPY international program office, with roughly a fifth from Canada. Unlike in previous IPYs, the Canadian organizing committee has made a conscious effort to include the social sciences and to encourage projects that directly benefit the indigenous peoples of the Arctic.

To some decision-makers in Ottawa, the ramifications from IPY are clear, not only for immediate issues like sovereignty and climate change but also for the longer term, like managing exploitation of the polar region’s natural resources.

Dr Arthur Carty, the Prime Minister’s national science advisor, has been the most high-profile IPY champion within the federal establishment. A letter from Carty to federal deputy ministers in 2003 managed to wring out enough contributions to fund the Canadian IPY secretariat at the Univ of Alberta.

Yet such tin-cup-rattling can’t finance the extra research that needs to be done by Canadians in IPY. Already Arctic researchers from Britain and the US are raising eyebrows about the apparent lack of interest from Ottawa.

The IPY failed to get a penny in the federal budget in February, although a request for $250 million had reportedly been put forward by the lead department, Indian and Northern Affairs. Since then, a scaled-back proposal to provide $150 million has been passed around among middle-level officials. Most recently insiders say the extra funding is unlikely to amount to more than $100 million.

That would still be enough for Canadian polar researchers to play a major part in the IPY. As one senior federal official explained, the money mostly doesn’t need to start flowing until late next year. What the scientists need now is a pledge that the funds will be available, so they can flesh out their 200-plus preliminary Expressions of Intent into detailed research plans, enter into international collaborations and begin scheduling the complex logistics of Arctic expeditions.

The foot-dragging over IPY at the top levels of the federal government is especially mystifying, considering recent polar science developments. The fall of 2003 saw the initial 12-month voyage of Canada’s first Arctic research icebreaker, the Amundsen, tied into a new Network of Centres of Excellence, ArcticNet, and as part of a major effort to understand the carbon cycle on the polar continental shelf.

Then in November last year, the Arctic Council formally made public an Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA) which concluded that climate in the Arctic is warming at twice the rate elsewhere on Earth. It also stated that this trend will accelerate and will affect not only the Arctic – shifting vegetation zones and ice-free year-round navigation – but also the world, through rising sea levels, more frequent violent storms in coastal regions and a slowdown in the “conveyer belt” that drives ocean circulation.

With developments like the Amundsen and ArcticNet, Canada now has the infrastructure and institutional basis for a major push in polar science. With reports like the ACIA, it has extra compelling reasons to be in the lead of IPY activity.

Instead, we are in danger of bringing up the rear. One explanation is that the research proposed for IPY centres on collecting data about the natural world. In some federal government circles, this is dismissed as mere observation, not worthy of top-dollar support.

Such misguided science policy has tripped Canada up before – not collecting enough data about Atlantic cod, not monitoring mosquito species before the outbreak of West Nile disease. The legacy from half-hearted participation in IPY would eclipse all of these past blunders.

Peter Calamai is the national science reporter for The Toronto Star.