Lynn Desjardins, Wojtek Gwiazda, Marc Montgomery

The Link ONLINE, Sat. Mar.14, 2015

Wojtek, Lynn, and Marc are your hosts for this edition.

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Canada’s Justice Minister Peter MacKay (left), Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Minister Steven Blaney, CSIS director Michel Coulombe and RCMP Commissioner Bob Paulson arrive at the House of Commons Public Safety Committee hearing on Bill C-51, Anti-terrorism Act Tuesday March 10, 2015. © PC/Adrian Wyld/CP

Terrorism has been the major issue of discussion this past week in the national capital.

Government ministers and other Conservative Party Members of Parliament in Ottawa, have been emphasizing the importance of passing proposed new legislations said to help protect Canadians for terrorists.

Several other politicians, civil rights groups, legal experts, indigenous groups and environmental organizations are raising a number of concerns about what they say are threats to civil liberties in the legislation known as Bill C-51.

The proposed law would increase the power of police and government authorities in terms of domestic spying, information sharing, and expand definitions of what constitutes illegal acts and threats to national security

Wojtek prepared a report on the situation.

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The Experimental Lakes Area was one of many scientific projects shut down by the current Canadian government. It was deemed so important that it was later revived by a provincial government and a non-profit © Experimental Lakes Area, Handout/Canadian Press

Scientists across Canada have been expressing concerns over government cutbacks to research, the closing of some research facilities and research libraries, and changed direction of research sought by the government towards more commercially applicable research.

Now there has been a call for the public to get involved to what some scientists are calling “the war on science”.

Lynn spoke with Natasha Myers, director of the Institute for Science and Technology Studies at York University in Toronto.

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Computerized rendering of Dawn spacecraft with ion propulsion.

Last weekend, another of the most ambitious space missions reached its target. A large NASA probe called “Dawn” approached the dwarf planet Ceres, after an eight year trajectory in our solar system.

Ceres lies in the asteroid belt beyond Mars, and scientists believe the dwarf planet, just under 1,000 km in diameter, could reveal information about the origins of the solar system, and perhaps about the universe itself.

Making the mission even more complicated was the fact the Dawn first met and orbited a huge asteroid, Vesta, about 600 kilometers in diameter. The satellite spent several months gathering data from Vesta before being sent further out to orbit Ceres.

Marc spoke with Paul Delaney, senior lecturer of physics and astronomy at York University in Toronto. The excerpt begins with his answer as to why we are interested in Ceres.

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