Presented at the 63rd Congress of the Société québécoise de science politique (SQSP), Université de Montréal, May 7, 2026. This study examines whether and how policymakers respond to scientists when climate change enters public debate, using computational analysis of 266,271 articles from 20 Canadian newspapers spanning 1978-2024.
Three discourse regimes

Climate coverage evolved from a science-led regime (1978-1988), through a contested period (1988-1997), to a politics-led regime (1997-present). The scientific frame dropped from 25% to below 6% while the political frame rose to 35-40%.

The stability paradox

Stable political coalitions suppress scientific discourse by 40%, while political instability creates windows of opportunity where scientific framing increases by 151%. Granger causality tests confirm that political coalition changes precede both political (F=21.5) and scientific (F=70.5) frame shifts.

When Climate Scientists Speak, Do Policymakers Respond?
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Code and data

All code, data, and methodology are open source.

CCF Database Canadian Climate Framing corpus
data.ccf-project.ca Interactive data explorer