Here in Canada when the new CPC took power its leader PM Harper muzzled scientists from speaking about most things but most of all anything about climate change. It also destroyed climate data claiming the ledgers were old fashioned, but they were the only copies.

The CPC political are the old centre-right PC party that combined with more right secessionist and (evangelical) Christian political parties.

Harper is still lurking in the shadows and pulling strings decade after being ousted as Prime Minister.

> It also destroyed climate data claiming the ledgers were old fashioned, but they were the only copies.

I don't know how long ago the library of Alexandria was burned down. But what I do know is that we never learn the lesson. It's rather stupid to store public research data (i.e, excluding classified info) at a single location. There are any number of unpredictable future scenarios that can lead to this same unfortunate outcome.

Scientists and politicians should work together and agree to store and host such research data in multiple countries, including with rival nations. That should make it a lot more resilient against such eventualities. It won't cause any security risk. After all, you were going to publish it anyway. Why waste the information worth a lot of money and effort?

But instead of that, many governments and greedy corporations go after independent groups who do exactly that - scihub and internet archive, for example. We as a species possess the stupidity of stubbornly avoiding the obvious right path.

> Harper is still lurking in the shadows and pulling strings decade after being ousted as Prime Minister.

Do you mean he still has an impact or he is actively impacting things now?