John Baird better get busy on the environmental file if the Harper Cons are going to be accepted as authentically engaged. The Decima poll reported on in the Toronto Star today shows the Dion Liberals approach is making sense to most Canadians who see the Dion "carrot and stick" approach. Tax incentives and breaks for good environmental behaviours and changes balanced by penalties for bad behaviours.
Canadians get the Dion message that the economy and the environment are intertwined in a complex relationship and they are not mutually exclusive or in a zero-sum game where what is good for one is therefore bad for the other.
If the Cons are to become credible on the environment they are going to have to change a lot of their political culture and quickly. Preston Manning has been strongly advocating this for change in Conservative eco-consciousness for a couple of years now. It has been falling on deaf ears as the Harper Cons have been more interested in running down the old Liberal party than running as a viable and preferred governing alternative.
The intensity of the public’s commitment to the environment as the top policy issue is more dramatic than the fact it is all of a sudden #1. The line is forming very quickly for the hearts and minds of Canadians on this issue and the early trends are not promising for the Harper Cons according to this report.
One poll doesn’t decide anything. But most Canadians have decided the environment is the big issue for them now. They are engaged and watching the political parties on this issue and they will reward or punish politicians at the polls as they see fit. The implications are clear for all politicians be they federal, provincial or municipal they need to be on top of the issues and govern accordingly.
Over to you Mr. Baird...Canada is watching
This Liberal agenda has nothing to do with the good of the environment.
ReplyDeleteIgnorant politicians are dangerous to the public and John Baird should not listen to the polls when comes to doing what needs doing.In this case at least.Global warming is not new and was the cause of "The great famine" of the middle ages which killed millions and had nothing to do with man made ozone thining pollutants or greenhouse gases.
Get a brain to go with that education
Baird's job is to do nothing on the environment and to blame the Chretien government for all of the environments problems. He will try to neutralize the issue by blaming the Liberals and hoping no one notices the absence of a CON plan.
ReplyDeleteHe is a robo-partisan not a policy wonk.
Dion applies a very much old-school command-and-control top-down approach to governing, at least when it relates to the environment.
ReplyDeleteI heard him speak in Calgary on Friday. He seems earnest. And he did attempt to portray a "carrot-and-not-just-a-stick" approach. But to my mind, the stick was more in evidence. When confronted by an honest comment talking about evidence of ocean temperatures decreasing and the amount of CO2 being released relative to other gases, he glossed over that and went back to his prepared script.
I'm sorry, but I just can't take seriously anyone who truly believes that an "emissions-trading" market is going to create wealth AND help the environment. It may do some of the former (more like transfer wealth than create it) and will do nothing for the latter. To me, talk of emissions-trading is very analogous to the hype of the internet mania of the late 1990's (counting number of "eyeballs" and such). Sending money to such paragons of democratic virtue as Russia in order to buy your way out of limiting CO2 emissions - yes, it is as silly as it sounds.
In this case, I do not believe a bad plan is preferable to no plan.
It is the federal CONS that bought the emission trading most recently... buying "off-sets" for travel, hmmm might be a sincere idea... but why from NJ why not in Canada?
ReplyDeleteForget CO2 for the moment, guys... have you always lived indoors? Always in a City? Anyone who camps or hunts or fishes in Alberta has to be seeing environmental degradation... this is about more than CO2 it is about finding better ways to make money AND keep our air, land and water as clean as possible.