It's Not About Politics. It's About the Planet

I have been watching, with increasing dismay, the diminishing level of political discourse on the issues surrounding climate change in national Canadian politics. The “debate” is not on the issues, the merits of policy options or the design of the way forward. It is almost entirely concentrated on efforts to define the “other guy” in negative terms for some less than adequate political “advantage.”

The Cons have a big television buy for their Attack Ads, attempting to position Dion as the guy who is totally responsible for all Liberal alleged lack of action on environment policy for the past 13 years. The Liberal rebuttal is Harper is merely a born-again environmentalist of political convenience but not a true believer and therefore not to be trusted.

The facts and evidence in support of each position are thin at best but that is not the issue really. There is plenty of blame to go around but time for action is a-wastin’ and we need some definitive action and serious competent political leadership with a larger vision and a longer view than the pending election.

My sense is Canadians will reward resolute, stringent and responsible regulations on GHG limits. The policy we need must encourage and provide incentives for what is nothing short of a culture change in how we live as part of nature and not as its “masters.” That is what polls are saying will be rewarded by the majority of citizen's at election time.

The people are much farther ahead of the politicians in seeing it is time to act on the issues of climate change. We know this is about “us” as much as it is about “them.” We know “we” as individuals, families, communities, countries and enterprises have to change first. We can’t afford to wait for “them” to move first and we have precious little leverage on others save persuasion and market forces.

We need our biggest brains, our most creative minds and our wisest thinkers to be unleashed and able to focus to help design a different way forward. We don’t need more communications consultants commissioned to produce misleading manufactured political rhetoric.

The policy framework for all of this is simple to see but difficult to deliver. It has to link economic growth to enhanced ecological outcomes and provide for improve social cohesion – on a local, national and international context. No big Whoop! (sic)

The chance to actually rethink our operational definitions of success and progress is upon us. Growth without concern for all the costs involved and the integrated ecological implications is no longer "on." The public policy change parade is forming and is at the tipping point for a new public policy approach.

The new approach must balance economic well being, ensure ecological enhancement and advance our social cohesion. The practical people, be they in business, politics or social activist, who can get in front of that parade with credibility and ability, will be the new leaders and agents of this change.

We need to attract, nurture and reward a different kind of person to come into politics if we want to change the nature of how we are governed in our democracy. I have great respect for the abilities of all the current leaders in our federal political parties. My sense is we have good people in a poor system because the system often rewards the wrong things. It is too much about attaining and exercising power for its own sake and not enough about defining progress and measuring achievements for the sake of us all.

This will only change when citizenship becomes something we all value and return to using its power to make a difference. The political system is only as good as the express expectations and the forceful insistence's of its citizens.

Hancock Meets Clement; Renner Meets Baird and Boutilier Briefs Stelmach

Interesting developments in the offing on the fed-prov front with a raft of new meetings. The Alberta and Federal Ministers of Environment (Renner and Baird) and Health (Hancock and Clement) Ministers are about to meet. These meetings include provincial Ministers who are not the rookies in Cabinet but the issues are serious and they represent the top two priority issues facing the country. No indication yet as to the agendas will be but given the times and the pressures, they will likely be significant…especially with all the elections coming in the near future.

Interesting that Prime Minister Harper is giving a major speech tomorrow to the Canadian Club in Ottawa. This is just before the Council of the Federation First Minister's conference call on Wednesday. Harper's presentation is being billed as "equivalent to a Throne Speech." You can't tell me that is coincidence. Curious as to what he has to say, especially to the Premiers in this speech. My guess is they are his primary intended audience.

The Council of the Federation meeting scheduled for Feb 7 has been reduced to a conference call due to scheduling problems. Too bad because it would have been interesting to see how new Premier Stelmach would make out on his debut First Ministers meetings. I would be anxious, at many levels, to see how Premier Stelmach would be served by his newly minted Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs Guy (Alberta as the Bad Boy of Confederation) Boutilier. Stelmach has done this Intergovernmental job, and by all accounts was pretty good at it so his expectations of his new Minister will be very high.

Speaking of Minister Boutilier, we see he is about to be seized with a challenge on the aboriginal aspect of his portfolio. The foster child care for aboriginal children have seen Grand Chief Phil Fontaine make demands for better responses to the needs of aboriginal children at risk. Given that the issue is receiving front page coverage, it would not be a surprise if this was a “walk on” agenda item at the First Ministers meeting on Wednesday.

The usual fed-prov posturing can be expected but it will sure be disappointing if all we see is finger pointing. The turmoil caused by a tragic death of a 3 year old boy in Alberta’s foster care guarantee serious media scrutiny on the foster care concerns for aboriginal children. How will Alberta, namely Minister Boutilier, respond? Will Alberta actually engage and work with their Conservative brethren on this issue? The good news is Jim Prentice, the most competent of all the federal Ministers, is on the Canada side of the issue.

Let’s hope we don’t see a classic case of over promising and under delivering that seems dog the Boutilier political approach. For example, looking at his past musing on the twinning of highway 63 to Fort McMurray one has to wonder if his motivation is always just purely political and power plays.

Media reports recently say he was assuring the Fort McMurray folks the road twinning could be done in 3 years. But that was when he was a Cabinet Minister supporting Lyle Oberg, the then Infrastructure Minister, and PC Party leadership bid. Oberg is the same Minister who was turfed from caucus by his colleagues for accusing them of having political skeletons (which he failed to prove) and for using (abusing?) his portfolio to advance his leadership aspirations last spring. Well the reality sets in now that the need for hype has passed and the twinning looks like it is now stretching out to seven years and counting.

Harsh reality and patience are the defining characteristics of the good folks of Wood Buffalo and the city of Fort McMurray in particular. How much long do the citizens of Fort McMurray have to suffer? And at so may levels and in so many ways and in the face of so much growth pressure?

Alberta's Leadership on Eco Solutions

This column was publish in French in LaPresse on the weekend under the headlines:

"Egoistes, les Albertains?
Non, on manifeste dans l'Ouest une grande Volonte d'etre a l'avant-garde des solutions Pour assurer la perennite de la planete"

which roughly translates as:

The Albertans, self-centred?
No, there's an expression in the West
Of a great desire to be in the avant-garde Of solutions that assure the sustainability of the planet.

Here is the English text:

Alberta’s Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Guy Boutilier played the caricature Albertan when he declared this province to be the “bad boy” of Confederation a few weeks ago.

Boutilier’s posturing made serious people cringe and brought an extraordinary public rebuke from a noted academic who once served as a senior federal bureaucrat. Just like the real climate, the political climate in Alberta is changing. Like other Canadians, Albertans want a meaningful response to global warming, and they will punish politicians who persist in silly confrontation. Far from being the “bad boy,” Alberta demonstrates a strong will to lead the solutions for a sustainable planet.

Last October, our firm sounded Albertans on the subjects that animate them. We used conjoint analysis to get a clear idea of the depth of citizens’ attachment to the matters they considered most important. Environment clearly emerged as the Number One concern in Albertans’ minds – a result we detected three months earlier that the recent national surveys. Clearly then, Albertans are of a mind with other Canadians. Indeed our analysis suggested that environmental sustainability is not merely an issue. It has become a core value – like democracy, freedom of speech and the rule of law.

It will be necessary for our compatriots in Quebec to keep this perspective in mind in the coming weeks, as a parade of caricature Albertans clamour for attention in national media. Like you, we know that our economic prosperity goes hand in hand with environmental sustainability. In fact, influential Albertans see climate change as a business opportunity and some interesting business ideas are under development.

Large energy companies are willing to invest in carbon-capture technologies and the clean energy economy -- as long as government takes the lead in setting out the rules. In the absence of government policy leadership, what profit minded market based enterprise would be the first to undertake the risk in developing the means to slash greenhouse gas emissions, if its competitors are not required to follow suit?

Carbon capture is one such technology. We know that in Alberta, it will cost about $7.5 billion to build a capture and distribution network for CO2 sequestration. This would enable the capture of oil sands and other heavy emitter’s CO2 s, and inject it into aging conventional oil fields. As a result, oil that was not accessible by the old technology will be produced and the CO2 will replace the displaced oil. The initial price tag seems large, but it must be put in the perspective of the $100 billion being invested in developing oil sands extraction.

Oil sands should be considered as more than a petroleum source. This is the largest deposit of hydrocarbons on the planet. The oil sands could be the transition between the petroleum economy of today and the hydrogen economy of tomorrow. Bitumen coke a by-product of oil sands production is a low-cost source of hydrogen.

Hydrogen and synthetic natural gas can also be produced from Alberta's vast coal deposits -- a huge plant is being built to do just that. At the end of 2008, Honda is going to introduce a commercially-available hydrogen car. Initial plans are to install home converters that will extract hydrogen from natural gas, and fuel the car for up to a 500-km range. The emission that comes out of hydrogen combustion is water. Almost all Alberta homes are heated by natural gas and that would facilitate a conversion to a hydrogen car.

The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers is on record asking for a clear set of regulated standards for the energy industry so that its members can plan the investment they need to address climate change. The leaders among them know it will take hundreds of millions of dollars in research and development in emerging technologies to succeed in slashing greenhouse gas emissions. With this investment, they can not only meet the Kyoto targets, they can go even farther with successful carbon capture They will invest that money, if everyone has to play by the same rules and achieve the same goals.

Albertans will eagerly embrace the economic opportunities inherent in environmental stewardship, because we know full well the consequences of failure and inaction.

Satya Das et Ken Chapman
Les auteurs dirigent Cambridge Strategies Inc., groupe-conseil albertain en politique publique.

Dion's Doings and a Rebutal of the Cons Attack Ads.

Readers of my blog will know I seem to gravitate to longer posts. Well I have found a kindred spirit in longer form blogging.

This blogger, "politiquevert" provides some serious factual evidence to rebut the Harper Cons rhetoric that Dion has done nothing while in Cabinet.

Quality research and a powerful posting. Give it a read. Here is the link: http://politiquevert.wordpress.com/2007/02/04/dions-environmental-footprint-on-the-government-of-canada-website/

Another update on Dion's environmental doings...check out the video clip on this site: http://whiletheearthburns.blogspot.com/2007/02/dions-environmental-cred-video.html

Props to Nicole Martel for posting it and bringing it to my attention.

Old Time Alberta Cons Still Angst over NEP and Threaten Separation

Lorne Gunter’s tirade in the Edmonton Journal today is so far out of whack with the current realities Alberta is facing. We are working to design ways to balance growth with enhanced environmental protection and provide the social infrastructure needed to ensure a quality of life for our citizens. We have to do this all at the same time with an accelerating sense of urgency on all fronts and in appreciation of the serious consequences if we fail.

The old Reform/Alliance angst of an oppressed Alberta still causes them to trot out the NEP mantra that “Ottawa is out to get us” every time they sense a slight. It is a tired and inaccurate rant. Give it up Lorne. Alberta has grown up, matured politically - and has moved on. The old-time religion types who see an Alberta being oppressed by Ottawa at every turn, have clearly not yet moved on with the rest of the province. There are as many people revisiting the NEP in Alberta today as there are Elvis sightings in the province…and they are usually the same people.

Todd Babiak’s blog posting today, in the same newspaper, has a more realistic take on the sense and sentiment of the challenges Alberta is facing today. They are being addressed and revolve around concerns for balancing sustainable economic growth in the face of mitigating climate change and other serious ecological concerns. The short shrift that the social side of Alberta life has experienced as of late is just now coming on the political radar screen. We have insufficient resources invested in public infrastructure and the resulting decline in capacity that has befallen providers in our social services sector adds to the challenges of Alberta's growth.

There is an emerging alternative Alberta reaction to the “Ottawa is out to get us” mentality. That is the extortion mentality of Alberta separation. There is a latent 10% voter support for Albertans to "hold our breath" until we get our way - or we will taking our energy football “home” and leave Canada…so there!

Neil Waugh in the Edmonton Sun today pays homage to that sentiment in a nod to the fact there is always the Clarity Act after all. Alberta could use it if we don’t like how the world (meaning Ottawa) is bowing to our interests. None of this helping much to sustain Alberta political support for the suddenly Quebec friendly and Green Conversion of Prime Minister Harper. He signed the infamous Alberta Firewall letter, so I guess he deserves some heat from that front too.

In the mean time we have some genuine efforts and initiatives being pursued by the Alberta government and in our industrial sectors trying to catch up and get ahead of the curve on all of this. Our monthly LaPresse column outlines some of the positive efforts being made in that regard in Alberta that need recognition and encouragement.

I will post the LaPresse piece in this Blog on Monday to show what I mean.