"Canada's Stephen Harper government is spending more than 60 billion dollars on new military jets and warships while slashing more than 200 million dollars in funding for research and monitoring of the environment.

Amongst the programmes now crippled is Canada's internationally renowned ozone monitoring network, which was instrumental in the discovery of the first-ever ozone hole over Canada last spring. Loss of ozone has been previously linked to increases in skin cancer.

'The proposed cuts go so far the network won't be able to do serious science,' said Thomas Duck, an atmospheric scientist at Halifax's Dalhousie University."
   
Stephen Leahy reports for IPS/Guardian Environment Network November 9, 2011. [2]