A descent into the Dark Ages is how Burnaby council views the federal government's decision to shut down national libraries, at its last council meeting.
On Jan. 27, council asked Mayor Derek Corrigan to write a "strong" letter protesting the closure of federal libraries and the destruction of research and other records, to the prime minister and minister of fisheries and oceans.
The environment committee had raised particular concern about the closure of seven of 11 regional department of fisheries and oceans libraries - which housed decades of aquatic research - among the other types of national libraries that have closed their doors.
"I heard a rumour that Prime Minister Stephen Harper is trying to get rid of any evidence of evolution," Corrigan quipped. "You know, I remember someone else who was involved in book burning."
Coun. Nick Volkow said ignorance is becoming an integral part of public policy, as far as the federal government is concerned.
"We have a number of libraries that have a 100-year history of collecting information in regards to freshwater environments, lakes, and then all of a sudden out of the blue for an alleged savings, if you can believe it, of $430,000, they are basically trashing libraries that took over 100 years to develop in this country," he said. "They're throwing material out using the excuse, 'Well, it's all right because it's all being digitized, and in digitizing this, more and more Canadians will be able to have access to it.'"
Volkow said the federal government is doing this "under the cover of darkness," and the closures also mean the country is losing librarians.
Coun. Anne Kang said many of the concerns stem from purging the library books.
"I've read online and in the newspapers, is that basically only five per cent of these documents were actually processed," she said. "And another concern by scientists is that they haven't received information on how they could receive or have access to these digitized reports."
Due to copyright laws, many documents cannot be digitized, which means many of the documents will disappear, Kang said.
"People have witnessed that research and reports were scooped up and given away for free to private companies, or they were destroyed, being hauled down to dumpsters - and that is before these material were digitized," Kang added. "Libraries are very valuable to our communities."
Coun. Pietro Calndino expressed his dismay over the situation.
"It's barbaric," he said. "I don't use that term lightly because it actually brings us back to the times of the barbarian invasions, back to the Dark Ages. They say you can't move back the clock, but here it is, the Harper government is bringing us back to the Dark Ages."
On Jan. 7, Gail Shea, minister of fisheries and oceans, released a statement to correct the "serious misinformation ... spread recently about the consolidation of Department of Fisheries and Oceans libraries."
"The primary users of DFO libraries, over 86 per cent are employees of the department," she said. "An average of only five to 12 people who work outside of DFO visited our 11 libraries each year. It is not fair to taxpayers to make them pay for libraries that so few people actually used."
Shea said users prefer to access digitized materials, and duplicate materials were offered to other libraries and third parties, if they wanted them.
"It is absolutely false to insinuate that any books were burnt," she noted.
However, according to several media reports, council isn't alone in being skeptical as many other scientists have questioned the federal government's claims.
