This is less about free speech, and more along the lines of an NDA.  We&#x27;re talking about researchers employed directly by the federal government.  Canada has a public service whose role is to advise the current government and provide input into policy decisions, and then to implement whatever policy decisions came down from above.<p>By and large, though, it seemed like Harper&#x27;s government didn&#x27;t seem to really want input from the public service unless it agreed with whatever policy decisions had already been made.  If you think this is just about the environment, you&#x27;d be very wrong, too; I live in Ottawa and know people in Health Canada, in Transport Canada, in Statistics Canada - I don&#x27;t know anyone who wasn&#x27;t complaining to me about how the advice they were giving was being ignored in one way or another.