The politicians in Canada have discovered a new game called "I Can Be Greener Than You". Everyday without fail you can open a newspaper or turn on the television news and you'll see either one of the four party leaders playing it. If they happen to be tied up with actually governing, the environment minister and the official opposition party critics will be run out for commentary.
As Prime Minister, Steven Harper should have an advantage in the game of one-upmanship as he gets first crack at the press every day. But instead of making any great steps that would put the opposition on the defensive, he ends up responding to their proposals not the other way round.
The impression that this gives is that the Conservative Party of Canada, Harper's political party, doesn't care enough to come up with anything of real substance on the issue. The other problem that Steven Harper and the Conservative Party of Canada have is bridging their credibility gap when it comes to environmental issues.
They are the same government after all that after only a couple of months in power announced that they were going to renege on Canada's commitment to the Kyoto Accord. They offered up a Clean Air act instead, that was so ineffective it wouldn't even kick in until seven years from now, and even then it would be partially voluntary which meant there was no guarantee of any results.
In fact their biggest effort in this new game has been to discredit the new Liberal Party leader Stephane Dion. For all the Conservative Party posturing about how they don't worry about polls, this guy absolutely terrifies them. Ever since his election as leader in December of 2006, he's pulled the Liberal party up by the bootstraps and kept them ahead ever since. On top of that he was pushing the environment as a key issue even before he was elected leader.
Of course the other reason Dion worries the Conservatives so much is that he was Minister of The Environment for close to two years. While he didn't do anything spectacular at that time, he at least prevented the slashing and burning of programming that has occurred in the first year of the Conservative Government. Considering that both of his Prime Ministers were intent on cutting the budget that in of itself is an accomplishment.
Article comments
1 - Deano
One of the key problems with all this mostly empty posturing is that once an election has passed, the votes are in, the governing party will actually have to look at whether they want to or can realistically implement any of these policies with any sustainable positive impact.
The cold reality is that most people's support of environmental programmes lapses once it starts to impact on their bottom line. Green issues have moved through waves of popularity and "importance" before but how many people would trade in their SUV's or suffer an economic loss for an environmental abstraction is very debatable - whether it is a Liberal one of a Conservative one.
Kyoto was an interesting example. Despite the Liberal much vaunted "support" for Kyoto, they made little effort to meet their committments. They bluntly never expected to have to meet them and correctly weighed that the political fallout would probably be mininal. In that context, Kyoto and other efforts ahve been vacant and empty gestures, political performance art rather then policy. I unfortunately see little sign that the current political dance will be effectively different.
2 - JimBobby
Whooee! RichardFeller, yer on the money a hunnert percents worth. I figger yer writin' fer a Merkan audience an' yer doin' a dang decent job o' tellin' 'em what's what here in Canajun polyticks.
The publick 'pinion pools is sayin' not too many Canajuns is buyin' the new green Tories.
Now, jest today Harpoon’s all puffy up on his hind legs shellin’ out $1.5 Bn fer eco-votegettin’. I’m a cynical sumbitch an’ the first thing popped inta my cynical head when I seen this headline was that they give that much t’ the tar sands development each an’ every year. They give even more t’ other big oil tax breaks an’ exploration subsudies.
A billion an’ a half ain’t peanuts but the environment’s been shortchanged by this an’ the previous gummint fer decades while at the selfsame time they been pumpin’ billions inta the dirtiest industries we got - oil an’ car-makin’.
PitBull Baird, the Enviro-minister, sez he won’t go fer any carbon tax or a carbon tradin’ scheme, neither.
I figger $1.5 Bn might get a few studies done an’ mebbe even do some real good by gettin’ sum alternative energy generation started up. It sounds like a lot but when you stack it up against the money Harpoon’s sendin’ t’ the warlords an’ opium growers in Afstan, it ain’t huge.
Here in my neck o’ the woods, gummint’s gonna give away a billion bucks to 650 rich tobacka farmers so’s they’ll quit growin’ tobacka.
The Bushman’s spent $500,000,000,000 in EyeRack. That’s five hunnert billion. I keep askin’ myself what the carbon footprint o’ these here Afstan an’ EyeRack Wars is.
I recorded me up a new song today an’ posted it up on my little boog. It’s all ’bout Minister Baird an’ it’s called “How Much is that Pit Bull in the Window?” Drop by an’ listen t’ my screechin' sumtime.
JimBobby
3 - Emry
"I keep askin' myself what the carbon footprint o' these here Afstan an' EyeRack Wars is."
I hears yuh, JimBobby.
I bin wondrin' 'bout dem deepleted uranyum clouds blowin' over everthin'.
'Taint gonna be easy singin' 'bout glowin' hearts when yer lungs is all lit up.
4 - Joe
Whooo-Weee! And I hears dat if we ain't doin' sumtin 'bout 'dat global warmin' the tempurture might go up'ards by like a whole degree or sumtin' in da next hundert years! Ah maht even lose sleep over dat!
It's all political white-wash. No wonder no-one gives a crap.