"What's important is the scale of the assault on knowledge, and on our ability to know about ourselves and to advance our understanding of our world," said James Turk, executive director of the Canadian Association of University Teachers.

In the past five years the federal government has dismissed more than 2,000 scientists, and numerous of programs and world-renowned research facilities have lost their funding. Programs that monitored things such as smoke stack emissions, food inspections, oil spills, water quality, and climate change have been drastically cut or shut down altogether.

Scientists went public with concerns that irreplaceable science could be lost when Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) libraries are closed.DFO plans to shut down seven of its 11 libraries by 2015. Already, stories have emerged about books and reports thrown into dumpsters and the general public being allowed to rummage through bookshelves.

"It makes no sense, financially or otherwise to close down libraries that hold millions if not hundreds of millions of dollars of research from studies over such a long period of time." said Kelly Whelan-Enns, researcher and policy analyst at Manitoba Wildlands. "What you have in effect is a muzzling of science and a profound restriction of anyone's ability to access the information. Information that supports action contrary to further development of the toxic bitumen tar sands projects may be most at risk."