Prime Minister Stephen Harper deserves praise and criticism for his handling of the issue of climate change since winning power in 2006.
Ironically, the praise he deserves is for refusing to take a so-called “leadership” role on global warming, for which he is constantly attacked by the Liberals, NDP, Bloc and Greens.
The criticism he deserves is for not doing something that would make them even angrier.
That is, denouncing — as prime minister — the Kyoto accord and everything it has spawned as terrible public policy, which is unfairly punitive to a big, cold, northern, oil-exporting, sparsely populated country like Canada.
Let’s start by giving Harper credit where it’s due, since he’s the only political leader who makes any sense on this issue.
To understand why, think of the economic chaos we’d be in today had Harper caved in to Liberal demands in 2006 that he implement the Kyoto deal they signed in 1998, ratified in 2002, and then ignored until they lost power.
This meant Harper inherited a fiasco in which we were 30% over our Kyoto emission target when he took office.
It also meant he had just two years to start lowering Canada’s carbon dioxide emissions to an average of 6% below 1990 levels between 2008 and 2012.
Many people wrongly interpret this as meaning Harper had until 2012 to lower emissions to the prescribed Kyoto level, but that’s not what the deal signed by Jean Chretien — who must have been inhaling greenhouse gas at the time — said.
Requiring Canada to lower emissions to an average of 6% below 1990 levels annually between 2008 and 2012, meant that for every year that target wasn’t achieved starting in 2008, even larger emission cuts would have been necessary in subsequent years to make up the difference by 2012.
Complying with this, which the Liberals committed us to but never implemented, would have meant a ruinous, government-imposed economic slowdown on the country, starting in 2006, which, combined with the 2008 global recession, would have devastated our economy.
http://www.torontosun.com/comment/columnists/lorrie_goldstein/2011/04/12/17969336.html
Canada could definitely use a warmer climate. If they drink the Kool Aide, they are acting in opposition to what is in their national interest, even assuming there is some truth to the greenhouse gas bologna.
Having never voted Conservative (or PC or Reform) or even considered it, were the party platforms to become Conservative = No carbon tax and Liberal = Carbon tax; I would happily change my stripe and vote for Harper.
(Any chance of our getting the hell out of Afghanistan?)
You may rest assured that Conservative = no carbon tax. That would be a suicide move as they obviously have a very strong base in the west where energy and other resource sectors compose a large % of the economy.
Getting out of Afghanistan. Probably not. We should have just encouraged our good neighbours and friends to the south to drop about 1/2 dozen nukes on the place, rolled over, then went back to bed.
I certainly wouldn’t have lost any sleep.
Carbon Tax is utterly irresponsible and economy destroying not to mention based upon fraudulent data fabrication and data mannipulation closed non-showing of their alleged evidence lack of science in what is effectively their trust us anti-scientific-method. No thanks to Carbon Tax and no thanks to closed anti-scientific-method based trust us science.
In BC they are going to impose another $10 per ton of CO2 emitted on top of the $20 per ton already taxed now on us. It’s an utter scam.
A ton of coal produces 2.93 times the mass in CO2 by the carbon combining with oxygen from the atmosphere. “1 kg coal emits 2.93 kg CO2” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal#Carbon_intensity).
That means on top of the price per ton of coal (http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/coal/page/coalnews/coalmar.html), in BC there is now $58.60 in carbon tax and soon to be $87.90 per ton carbon tax.
Now of course that tax doesn’t just apply to coal but soon to almost all combustion that produces CO2 from hydrocarbon based fuels. Trucking companies, construction sites, heck even gardening companies. It’s pervasive and invasive upon the economy.
It’s a huge sucking sound shutting down the economy. How do we let these “idiots” get elected?