Government media minders are being dispatched to an international polar conference in Montreal to monitor and record what Environment Canada scientists say to reporters

Is this for real happening in Canada in year 2012??? "Government media minders are being dispatched to an international polar conference in Montreal to monitor and record what Environment Canada scientists say to reporters." http://www.canada.com/news/national/6500175/story.html ""Until now such a crude heavy-handed approach to muzzle Canadian scientists, prior to a significant international Arctic science conference hosted by Canada, would have been unthinkable,” says a senior scientist, who has worked for Environment Canada for decades. He asked not to be identified due to the possibility of repercussions from Ottawa.
“The memo is clearly designed to intimidate government scientists from Environment Canada,” he says. “Why they would do such an unethical thing, I can’t even begin to imagine, but it is enormously embarrassing to us in the international world of science."
Climatologist Andrew Weaver, at the University of Victoria, agrees.
“It’s going from bad to worse,” says Weaver, a vocal critic of the way the federal government has been silencing and muzzling scientists in recent years. He describes the email instructions to the polar scientists as “unbelievable.”
He also says the instructions are also “absurd” since anyone — including a journalist — is allowed to ask questions after presentations at scientific conferences. It is also common for the media to conduct impromptu interviews with speakers immediately following sessions to clarify details before filing stories on tight deadlines.
Having media minders take charge of arranging interviews and sending recordings to Ottawa is reminiscent of the way the Soviets used to send KGB agents to conferences with scientists during the Cold War, says Weaver. “It’s an affront to democracy.”"