March 23, 1999 - Federal Environment Minister Christine Stewart will announce today that she is restoring the voting rights of scientists on the committee that decides whether species in Canada are in danger of extinction, The Globe and Mail has learned.

The government has been criticized for politicizing the process of identifying and listing species that need the protection of governments. Recently, more than 600 scientists wrote to Prime Minister Jean Chrtien to complain that non-governmental scientists had been stripped of their voting rights on the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada.

That meant that scientists who work for the federal government and who sit on the committee would have far more influence than independent experts.

In our view, there is a danger the governments will pressure their staff scientists to vote the right way, the letter said.

There are times when protecting a species for example, the northern cod may not be popular with a government department, such as Fisheries and Oceans. The department could pressure the scientists not to put it on the list.

In a news release to be made public today, Ms. Stewart said the scientists who chair the eight sub-committees that look at plants, invertebrates, freshwater fish, marine fish, amphibians and reptiles, birds, marine mammals and terrestrial mammals will be able to vote on whether a species should be listed as threatened or endangered. (It was these scientists who complained that they had been stripped of their voting rights.)

She said the change ensures the continued scientific integrity of the committee. The government scientists will still outnumber the eight non-governmental ones.

Stewart Elgie, a lawyer with the Sierra Legal Defence Fund, welcomed the move as a good first step that meets one of the concerns voiced by the more than 600 scientists who wrote to the Prime Minister.

But he urged Ms. Stewart to take additional steps to make sure that the committee is independent when she tables endangered-species legislation she has promised for the spring. He said the new bill should require that half of all scientists on the committee not work for the government, a provision in the endangered-species bill that died on the order paper in 1997.

In their letter, the scientists urged the government to pass an endangered-species law that protects the forests, wetlands and other habitat that animals and plants need to survive. The earlier bill provided only limited habitat protection.