National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy Archives | Elizabeth May

Climate change also a security threat

Craig Cantin — Mon, 20 Jan 2014 22:09:50 +0000

We deserve an energy plan, a climate plan, and the new industrial revolution of clean-tech and renewables. The first step is for Harper to get out of the way.

By Green Party Leader Elizabeth May, Green MP Bruce Hyer

What is an environmental issue? However you define it, Harper is against it.

“Environment” means different things to different people.

To some, it is the natural world for which conservation values will protect sustainable populations and ecosystems for future generations. The roots of that conservation ethic go back to the late 1800s, and Gifford Pinchot, the first dean of Yale School of Forestry. The ethic embraces “sustainable use” of forests and fish and the renewable resources that have supported economies.

Then, there’s the more modern concept of environment, stemming from Silent Spring, by Rachel Carson, published in 1962 and credited with helping launch the environmental movement in the U.S. The 1960s era of environmental awareness was actually more concerned with how human activity and new technologies-in this case toxic synthetic pesticides-threatened species, but perhaps more significantly, human health as well. Now that the publication of Silent Spring has passed the 50-year mark, it hardly is “modern” anymore. Our current use of the term “environment” has increasingly been subsumed in the media into one issue only-climate change.

Yet, climate change is not primarily an environmental issue. Sure, it involves the environment. In the same way drowning involves water, but we do not describe drowning as a “water issue.” Climate change, like drowning, is a survival issue. Climate change is an issue that can be described best as a security threat-although it involves questions of energy, economy, and the environment.

The harsh reality of our current political climate is that all the basic notions of the environment are under assault. We have entered a political era of “decision-based evidence making.” Stephen Harper’s administration has launched an unprecedented assault on government science. More than 2,000 scientists and researchers in the federal civil service have lost their jobs. Most of these scientists were working in areas of the “environment.”

All the scientists working in our national parks have been laid off. Fisheries and Oceans has lost all its habitat specialists after Bill C-38 gutted the Fisheries Act to remove habitat protection. The entire Marine Contaminants Program at DFO has been eliminated. The list is long. Mr. Harper is not just neglecting science; he is attacking any science or data or evidence that runs contrary to his beliefs or agenda.

Meanwhile, even though the only legislative change Harper has made to the Species at Risk Act was to remove the application of SARA when a pipeline is involved (also in C-38), still SARA is being more broadly undermined. Species at risk are going unprotected.

National parks no longer exclude oil and gas activity (with the tragic circumstances of the creation of Sable Island National Park.) This could be the thin end of the wedge for industrial activity in parks, in general. Meanwhile, parks are being privatized piecemeal, as is clear from the Jasper National Park “ice walk,” the Banff hot springs, and now a hotel proposal inside the national park in Jasper. Harper may have expanded national park boundaries, but he has endangered the protection of what lies inside the boundaries.

The pressure to clear away any regulatory hurdles to oil and gas expansion has led to the wholesale dismantling of decades’ worth of environmental laws and regulation. From legislation passed under prime minister John A. Macdonald (Fisheries Act and Navigable Waters Protection Act) to laws passed under former prime minister Brian Mulroney, (the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act and National Round Table on Environment and Economy), nothing is sacred. The last eight years bear witness to a devastating reversal of environmental law in Canada. It needs to be said that Canada’s laws never were as strong in environmental protection as those of the U.S. or other industrialized countries, such as Germany. In the race for the bottom, Canada has no competition.

Nowhere is the abdication of environmental responsibility as disturbing as in the area of climate change. Harper first cancelled our legally binding Kyoto targets, then withdrew from the treaty, adopted his own targets for GHG reductions in Copenhagen in 2009, and has now declared those will not be met either. True, he has not actually declared his rejection of his own targets, but the new timeline for oil and gas regulations, first promised when John Baird was environment minister nearly seven years ago (The “Turning the Corner” plan), make it clear no real effort is contemplated.

We all use oil. We will for a long time to come, but it must be used wisely, and we should all seek to reduce our consumption as much as possible, and shift to more renewable and sustainable energy sources. The sad and dispiriting irony is that if Canada embraced real action, we will create more jobs and revitalize our economy faster than by pursuing the mindless vision that puts all our eggs in the bitumen basket. Canada deserves better. We deserve an energy plan, a climate plan, and the new industrial revolution of clean-tech and renewables. We can still get there from here. The first step is for Prime Minister Stephen Harper to get out of the way.

Green Party Leader Elizabeth May represents Saanich- Gulf Islands, B.C., and Green Party MP Bruce Hyer represents Thunder Bay-Superior North, Ont.

Originally published in the Hill Times.

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NRTEE

Craig Cantin — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 21:01:49 +0000

We generate ideas and provide realistic solutions to advise governments, Parliament and Canadians. We proceed with resolve and optimism to bring Canada’s economy and environment closer together.

Leading through our process, we release innovative reports with considered advice on reconciling environmental and economic issues. Our reports provoke discussion. They also provoke change.

Our reports convey our advice.

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Feds systematically gut environmental protection

Craig Cantin — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 17:51:56 +0000

Publication Source: Star Pheonix
Author: Paul Hanley

Did the support of 24 per cent of the electorate on election day give the federal government a mandate for its radical project to gut environmental protection? Apparently. In our apathy-inducing first-past-the-post political system a small minority can translate into a big majority, which can disregard public opinion and do whatever it wants.

Here is a list of what the feds have accomplished so far in their three-pronged environmental strategy of deregulation, cutting information and research and targeting dissenting voices:

Eliminated Canada’s international commitment to mitigate climate change, including the repeal of the 2007 Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act.
Undermined global climate negotiations to avoid climate action.
Failed to create a plan to address climate change.
Eliminated energy conservation and efficiency and renewable energy funding while continuing subsidies to fossil fuels.
Eliminated funding for the Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences.
Eliminated the climate adaptation research group within Environment Canada.
Eliminated scientists in Natural Resources Canada to study ice core data.
Cut hundreds of millions of dollars from Environment Canada.
Repealed the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, weakening the federal environmental assessment process.
Eliminated accepted criteria for compulsory environmental assessments, leaving such reviews to the discretion of the Minister of the Environment and political appointees.
Eliminated the jobs of hundreds of scientists working for various government departments that focus on the environment and wildlife.
Weakened elements of the Species at Risk Act.
Amended the Species at Risk Act and Navigable Waters Protection Act to allow the National Energy Board to assume jurisdiction of endangered species or navigable waters in the way of any pipeline.
Allowing the federal cabinet, rather than the National Energy Board, to make decisions about approvals for major pipeline projects.
Introduced cuts to ozone monitoring.
Ended monitoring of smoke stack emissions.
Eliminated the Hazardous Materials Information Review Commission.
Weakened the Fisheries Act in the areas of habitat protection and eliminated the marine contaminants program.
Fired all DFO habitat officers in British Columbia.
Killed the Navigable Waters Protection Act, replacing it with the Navigation Protection Act, which effectively makes major pipeline and interprovincial power line projects exempt from requirements for proponents to prove they wouldn’t damage navigable waterways.
Reduced federal protection of waterways to a small number of water bodies and rivers.
Parks Canada no longer has to conduct periodic environmental audits or management plan reviews.
Eliminated funding for the National Round Table on the Economy and the Environment.
Eliminated support for the Experimental Lakes Program.
Eliminated funding for a dozen Arctic science research stations. Closed the Polar Arctic and Environmental Laboratory and the Yukon Research Lab.
Started privatization and eliminated ecological staff positions in National Parks.
Made a systemic effort to cut research, information and analysis with respect to environmental issues.
Attacked environmental and First Nations organizations for critiquing resource development.
Provided the Canada Revenue Agency with an extra $8 million to crack down on environmental charities.
Provided oil companies with unprecedented access to senior government leaders.
Muzzled government scientists who have been conducting research on various climate and environmental issues.
Cut funding to the Network on Women’s Health and the Environment.
Cut funding of the Canadian Environmental Network.
In addition to changing the definition of “aboriginal fishery” in the Fisheries Act, without consulting First Nations governments introduced changes to the Indian Act designed to make it faster and easier for First Nations to “take advantage of economic opportunities” by leasing designated reserve lands based on a majority of votes from those in attendance at a meeting or in a referendum, instead of waiting for a majority vote from all eligible voters.
Gave the aboriginal affairs minister the authority to call a band meeting or referendum for the purpose of considering a surrender of the band’s territory.
The minister can accept or refuse the land designation after receiving a resolution from the band council.
Eliminated the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration, the Indian Head Tree Nursery and the PFRA pasture management program on millions of acres of sensitive grasslands.
Provided unprecedented support to industries to exploit natural resources with minimal environmental oversight.

Originally printed in the Star Pheonix.

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Why oil supertankers have no place on the British Columbia coastline

Craig Cantin — Sun, 02 Dec 2012 17:40:17 +0000

Ideally, Canadians would have an opportunity to discuss what energy decisions are most in our national interest: to export bitumen crude as fast as possible? To refine the crude in Canada creating tens of thousands of jobs here? To continue to allow Eastern Canada to be dependent on Nigeria, Angola and Venezuela for oil supplies, or to improve the pipeline infrastructure heading east from Alberta to serve the rest of Canada?

We are not going to have that opportunity. With the 2012 budget, Stephen Harper’s Conservatives have made it clear (as if it were not abundantly clear already) that discussion about Canada’s energy policy will be viewed by them as tantamount to a direct attack on the national interest. To point out that ignoring the climate crisis actually hurts our economy with costs by 2020 of over $5 billion/year (conservatively), as the National Round Table on Environment and Economy (NRTEE) did, is sufficient cause for execution. Given the small cost of the NRTEE, its origins in the Mulroney era, and its mandate to bring industry leaders together with labour, environmental groups and others to find multi-stakeholder consensus, the decision to kill it was a shock. Environment Minister Peter Kent’s defence of the decision (obviously not his decision) that we no longer need such an advisory body because we have the internet is a joke.

For an environmental group to organize to protect the environment of British Columbia is to become targeted for “sanctions” under the Canada Revenue Agency, with $8 million set aside for going after environmental groups. As the Globe and Mail pointed out “witch hunts do not come cheap.” The CRA has been conducting a steady campaign of harassment against environmental charities for years. Audits have been frequent for years, with the desired chilling effect on public criticisms of government policy. Does Mr. Harper really need to direct $8 million more to equip CRA for even greater levels of harassment?

The decisions have all been made. The problem is that in asserting that oil supertankers can safely traverse British Columbia’s northern coastal waters, the Prime Minister is ignoring quite substantial evidence.

Transport Canada shocked experts through a facile conclusion delivered to the Joint Review Panel hearings on the Enbridge supertanker scheme. No doubt at the direction of their political masters, Transport Canada told the panel it saw no “regulatory difficulties” with the proposal. The document tabled to the review process in defence of this pre-ordained conclusion is a shoddy piece of work. There is no reference to the 1972 moratorium on oil tankers, respected by every federal and BC government since then. The conclusion the route is safe is based on the width and depth of channels and whether supertankers can actually fit through them. The only discussion of weather and wave and storms is to suggest that (over time) a system of weather warnings will be set up to warn tankers to stay in port if it’s stormy. How the tankers are to handle the extreme conditions known to come out of nowhere in the area is simply not discussed.

In that it has ignored Environment Canada’s Marine Weather Hazards Manual which states that the Hecate Strait (through which the supertankers must pass) is “the fourth most dangerous body of water in the world.”

Author John Vaillant in his classic The Golden Spruce described the Hecate Strait as “a malevolent weather factory: on a regular basis its unique combination of wind, tide, shoals, and shallows produces a kind of destructive synergy that has few parallels elsewhere in nature.” He goes on to describe how “blind rollers” – enormous waves that come out of nowhere — can expose the sea floor of Hecate Strait. The submission to the review process never even mentions the Hecate Strait.

Department of Fisheries and Oceans review of the threat to humpback whales in 2005 named the proposed tanker traffic to Kitimat as a threat to whale recovery. Humpback whales are listed as a species at risk in the threatened category. Scientists actually think the fin whales may be even more at risk of tanker collisions. The Transport Canada document suggests they will have whale spotters to warn a captain to avoid a whale. Really? Whale spotters can see whales in fog? At night? In a gale? No wonder that even in the report to the review panel contains concerns from DFO and recommends that Enbridge continue to work on this problem.

Lastly, Transport Canada’s conclusions are based on a long list of safety features, including using two tug boats to assist in supertanker navigation, which are voluntary. Enbridge will not own or control the tankers, but asserts its approach to tanker approval will ensure safety of the tankers it does not control.

Some people may buy this bland reassurance. It is a lot easier if you only care about selling bitumen crude to China, and a lot harder if you care about the existing tens of thousands of BC jobs dependent on a healthy coastal ecosystem. In fact, if you care about keeping BC’s coast oil-free, it is impossible.

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Spared the axe: the arguments that helped save the Plant Health Centre

Craig Cantin — Thu, 15 Nov 2012 15:03:56 +0000

We had some very good news at the end of October. Agriculture minister Gerry Ritz confirmed that the Plant Health Centre on the Saanich Peninsula would not be closed after all. As this is the 100th year of the centre’s existence, it was very happy news indeed!

In spring 2012, Ritz announced that the Plant Health Centre on East Saanich Road would be shut down as part of budgetary austerity measures. The axe was swinging wildly in the wake of the March 2012 budget. We lost jobs in Parks Canada, losing critical capacity in the Gulf Islands National Park. The entire Marine Contaminants Programme, with 80 scientists across Canada under the leadership of Dr Peter Ross at the Institute for Ocean Science, was cancelled. The National Round Table on Environment and Economy was killed. And critical science and research facilities, from the PEARL lab in the Arctic to the Experimental Lakes Area in western Ontario, were on the hit list.

So many cuts all at once have the effect Naomi Klein described in Shock Doctrine–it becomes hard to think clearly with the repeated body blows of repealed laws, omnibus bills and lost programmes and facilities—radical agenda can be imposed as civil society is shell-shocked.

It is even more difficult to fight back in Harper’s Canada because civil servants are not allowed to speak to Members of Parliament–even their own.

In the case of the Plant Health Centre, the new plan was to transfer all the functions of the centre to Summerland, BC. It would mean the loss of about 40 jobs in the area, including contract and part-time staff. I have learned a lot about the Plant Health Centre (PHC) since the announcement of its pending execution, but I knew then that it is the national facility for the quarantine of viruses for fruit growing-plants and trees. Not being able to speak to personnel at the PHC, right after the news of the cuts, I stopped by the centre and helped myself to all the public information brochures in the lobby and went online for the description of the mandate of the Plant Health Centre.

Two things immediately struck me. Firstly, that the Plant Health Centre is run by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, while the Summerland facility was run by Agriculture Canada (potential for inter-agency rivalry?) and, secondly, that the isolation of viruses on Vancouver Island made more sense than having that function in the heart of the fruit growing Okanagan region. I began to see the possibility for persuading the minister to change his mind.

Now, before I share all the rest of the developments, I want to emphasize that I do not know which factors swayed Minister Ritz. As my mom always said, ‘you can accomplish anything you want if you do not care who gets the credit.’ So, at the request of our dauntless Island Tides publisher, Christa Grace-Warrick, I will share what steps I took, while not claiming saving the centre was due to my efforts. I can be sure that, at least, my efforts didn’t hurt!

I wanted to assemble a science package supporting keeping the quarantine centre on the Island to share with the mostly Conservative MPs from the Okanagan. I hoped they would review the information and speak to Minister Ritz to suggest leaving things as they are, rather than risk a quarantine facility in the Okanagan. My first hurdle was finding a credible scientist willing to help me. Every scientist I approached currently working in plant virology has some relationship with Agriculture Canada and was unwilling to attach their name to my background package. But as I kept calling experts, I was told of the retired scientist, holder of the Order of British Columbia, Richard Stace-Smith. Dr Stace-Smith turned out to be my saviour. An octogenarian living in Vancouver, Dr Stace-Smith was intimately involved with the decision to place the national quarantine centre with the Plant Health Centre in 1965. At my request, he wrote a detailed, foot-noted, letter to the Prime Minister, noting:

‘The Centre for Plant Health was selected for its location because there is always a danger of serious pathogens being imported together with the plant hosts from other parts of the world. Despite using extreme precautions, pathogens may escape and the danger is reduced when imported material is tested distant from the commercial agricultural industry. It made sense in 1960 when the Plant Quarantine and Diagnostic Services was established in Saanichton and it seems to me that it makes no sense to move it to Summerland today.’

I hand delivered the letter to Stephen Harper, as well as Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz. I also put together more background details and gave packages to the five Okanagan MPs. Fortunately, through one thing or another, I was already friends with all of them. Within days, Ritz told me he would reconsider the matter.

Meanwhile, the Summerland facility was shown to be inappropriate for other reasons. It would need at least two new large greenhouses to handle the work done by the PHC, and there was not enough space for them in the current facility. The idea of cost savings began to fade.

So, for the last few months, whenever I have seen Gerry Ritz I have asked him how the review was going. I have to say, on any issue on which I have ever approached Gerry Ritz, he has been accessible and fair. And on this wonderful reversal, I can only thank him for being willing to re-examine a flawed, hasty decision. I wish the same dynamics could work to get more money flowing back to our parks and to science. But, for now, a victory is very sweet.

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The Search for Heroes

Craig Cantin — Thu, 26 Jul 2012 14:56:37 +0000

On Wednesday, June 13, just after Question Period and before the tabling of amendments to the Omnibus Budget Bill C-38, a rally took place outside Parliament. The online advocacy group leadnow.ca had called for people, at the very last minute, to support the opposition amendments. Taking their theme from the YouTube video of Conservative MP David Wilks speaking candidly with his constituents, the rally called for Conservative MPs to step forward and be heroes. In the video, Wilks, MP for Kootenay-Columbia, told his voters that he did not like the Omnibus Budget Bill. He explained that Conservative MPs (outside of Cabinet) had no more idea than the voters themselves what would be in the bill–or any bill. And he said that as one MP, he could not make a difference. It would take 13 Conservatives to vote against the bill to make a difference, he explained.

Once the video was on Youtube, and subsequently discussed on every TV news show, Wilks’ website posted a statement of complete support for C-38.

The rally, amazingly well attended, was a boost to us as we went back into the House. It was the last time I saw daylight until Friday morning. The rally’s placards called for ‘13 heroes.’ If the search for heroes is defined by Conservative MPs voting for C-38 amendments, then there are none in Ottawa. However, that is not the case.

David Wilks was attacked in the media for caving, for failing to challenge the Prime Minister directly, despite his clear integrity and unhappiness with the ‘system.’ His statements, despite capitulation and retraction, constituted a kind of heroism in a system where everyone seems to be afraid of earning the Prime Minister’s wrath.

Currently, Ottawa is in the throes of oppression. Scientists are muzzled, but why don’t they defy bosses and speak out anyway? They are afraid of losing their jobs. Some in industry have told me they avoid public criticism of the Prime Minister because they have children working in the civil service. They are afraid for their children’s jobs. Reporters have been cowed by higher ups in their media corporations telling them to lay off criticizing the PM. They are afraid for their jobs (several reporters have lost their jobs for offending the PMO). Little wonder the members of Harper’s caucus are silent. They know from Helena Guergis’ experience just how painful, and complete, banishment can be.

I want to celebrate people of integrity who lost much by refusing to be silenced. Conservative MPs who stood up to the Prime Minister constitute a short list, and only one is still in the Conservative Caucus.

Former Nova Scotia MP Bill Casey stood on principle and voted against the 2008 budget due to the fact it violated the oil revenue-sharing contract called the Atlantic Accord. He was thrown from caucus. Casey is a man of integrity who paid a big price, but he is not the only one. MP Garth Turner was also thrown from the Conservative Party when he refused to stop blogging on issues that concerned him in 2007.

Sometimes bravery in the Conservative ranks comes from refusing to vote. Albertan James Rajotte, and Ontario MPs Royale Galipeau and Pat Davidson refused to stand with their colleagues to vote that asbestos is safe. Braver to be in the room and refuse to vote, than avoid voting by not being in the House – as a number of Conservatives did.

Speaking out against Harper’s agenda is difficult even for retired MPs. Full marks to the two Progressive Conservative Fisheries Ministers Tom Siddon and John Fraser. They signed the joint letter, with Liberal former ministers Herb Dhaliwal and David Anderson, condemning the gutting of the Fisheries Act in C-38. Former Conservative MP Bob Mills, of Red Deer, was heroic agreeing to speak out to denounce the loss of the National Round Table on Environment and Economy in a press conference I organized against C-38.

The very brave are those who stood on principle to support good public policy only to be fired, forced to quit or have careers stall. The following is a partial list, a brief reminder of people who continue to live without the jobs and careers they deserve.

The former Deputy Minister of Statistics Canada, Munir Sheikh, who resigned on principle one year ago when his Minister, Tony Clement, claimed that no one in the bureaucracy had warned him that cancelling the Long Form Census would be a huge mistake. He had warned the Minister and he could not live with the lie.
Linda Keen, former head of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, fired for insisting on nuclear safety upgrades at Chalk River.
Richard Colvin, the diplomat who testified to the violations of international law in the transfer of Afghan detainees. He was berated as a Taliban stooge by the Conservatives.
Kevin Page, Parliamentary Budget Officer, who has found that merely doing his job–providing fiscal updates to Parliamentarians–has earned the PM’s wrath. He announced that he will not stay on beyond his first term.

Meanwhile, he has warned the Prime Minister that he will go to court to force release of budgetary information he believes Parliamentarians need, unless it is released before the House resumes

The Search Goes On

So many people in Saanich-Gulf Islands, and on the Coast in general, are active and engaged. With what remains of the summer, can you contact a friend or relative living in a Conservative-held riding?

Stephen Harper is planning a second omnibus bill to implement Budget 2012 for the fall. We need to urge Conservative Members of Parliament to push back and refuse to support a repeat version of C-38. We need more heroes.

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Canada still has no plan to address climate change

Craig Cantin — Mon, 16 Jul 2012 09:00:41 +0000

There is no shortage of compelling issues to discuss in a Hill Times Environmental Policy briefing. Even listing, without describing, the catalogue of assaults on environmental law and policy by the prime minister in the last 12 months is enough to occupy the whole issue.

Canada undermined global climate negotiations in Durban in December, negotiated in bad faith, and immediately announced intent to withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol when the Environment Minister touched down on Canadian soil. Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver kicked off the New Year with an assault on environmentalists and First Nations as “radicals.” The Prime Minister attacked environmental groups for accepting foreign funding, even as he courted Communist Party controlled state operations from China as investors in the oil sands. One Parliamentary Secretary said anyone opposed to pipelines and tankers was “against Canada.” When asked to withdraw the remark as un-parliamentary, she refused.

The legislative juggernaut, C-38, repealed the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, replacing a coherent piece of legislation with a discretionary formula for confusion, conflict and court cases. The gutting of the Fisheries Act raised the ire of four former federal Ministers of Fisheries. Environment Minister Peter Kent insulted the four former ministers, suggesting they had not read the Act. Mulroney era Minister Tom Siddon showed up to testify before the sub-committee on Finance and in short order made it clear he may be the only Minister who has read the act. While Fisheries Minister Keith Ashfield tried to claim the new Fisheries Act will improve habitat protection, the assault to habitat is real, underscored by the subsequent lay-off notices to all DFO habitat officers in British Columbia. The National Round Table on the Environment and Economy is scrapped. The Species at Risk Act and Navigable Waters Protection Act amended to allow the National Energy Board to assume jurisdiction of endangered species or navigable waters are in the way of any pipeline.

Basic science and monitoring is being savaged with the end of funding to the Canadian Foundation of Climate and Atmospheric Science, elimination of the Adaptation research group within Environment Canada, the cuts to ozone monitoring, the closure of the Polar Arctic and Environmental Laboratory (PEARL) in Eureka, the sale of the 58 lakes in the globally unique Experimental Lakes Area near Kenora, Ontario, the elimination of the marine contaminants programme within DFO, the loss of scientists in Natural Resources Canada to study ice cores data (and the hope to find a university with a large fridge willing to take the 80,000 year ice core record Canada’s government no longer wants), the end of monitoring smoke stack emissions, cut backs in the Canada Oil and Gas research group in Halifax, and cuts at NSERC (Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada) resulting in the closing of the Yukon Research Lab at Yukon College in Whitehorse.

The thin end of the wedge of privatization has hit National Parks – first Jasper and then the hot springs at Banff, while cuts to ecological staff in the parks compelled former Deputy Minister Jacques Gerin to call on Harper to stop gutting National Parks.

It is a blitzkrieg of bad news as cut-backs and programme cancellation hit the core areas of federal responsibility to protect nature. The multi-faceted assault has the effect of blinding media and the public to the largest threat. In 2012, Canada still has no plan to address the threat of climate change.

While Stephen Harper has succeeded in dramatically reducing the Canadian media coverage of climate science through the muzzling of government scientists, the atmosphere does not seem to have gotten the memo. Around the world, the force and frequency of severe weather events has woken up even the mainstream US media. Fires, floods, tornadoes, heat waves are wreaking havoc on agriculture and running up the bills to the insurance industry. The culprit for much of this year’s strange weather phenomenon is the rapidly warming Arctic. As the Arctic warms the differential in temperature between the Arctic and the Equator becomes less pronounced. That causes the jet stream to lose its straight and fast course. (Francis, Vavrus study, Rutgers/Univ of Wisconsin). Slowing down, it has allowed large low pressure systems and high pressure systems to sit for far longer periods than normal in one place — causing flooding in the low pressure zones and heat waves and fires in the high zones.

Loss of agriculture, losses to floods and fires also cost the economy, as well as human lives. Despite the Prime Minister’s attempts to destroy the collection of data, the evidence of the climate crisis is all around us. We are sabotaging our children’s future – but what does it matter as long as the bitumen flows?

Elizabeth May is the Member of Parliament for Saanich-Gulf Islands and Leader of the Green Party of Canada.

First published in the Hill Times.

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(Français) Loi mammouth – Un conservateur contre C-38

Craig Cantin — Fri, 08 Jun 2012 15:38:16 +0000

Sorry, this entry is only available in Français.

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Mills speaks out to save environmental round table

Craig Cantin — Fri, 08 Jun 2012 15:21:14 +0000

Publication Source: Red Deer Advocate
Source Link: View the full original article >>
Author: Paul Cowley

Former Red Deer MP Bob Mills was in Ottawa on Thursday to go to bat for the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy, which is being killed by Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government.

“Basically, I think they made a huge mistake getting rid of it,” said Mills, reached by phone shortly after landing in Calgary that afternoon.

Mills was invited to Ottawa by Green Party Leader Elizabeth May, who organized a news conference of five current and past round table members to speak out against Bill C-38, which repeals the act that mandates the advisory body.

View the full original article >>

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Former Reform MP rakes Harper over environmental coals

Craig Cantin — Thu, 07 Jun 2012 15:40:53 +0000

Publication Source: Gloria Galloway
Source Link: View the full original article >>
Author: The Globe and Mail

Conservative politicians – including a former Reform MP who was his party’s environment critic when Stephen Harper was opposition leader – have joined more than 20 other former members in protesting the government’s decision to kill the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy.

Bob Mills, who represented the Alberta riding of Red Deer between 1993 and 2008, joined Mark Parent, an environment minister in a previous Nova Scotia Progressive Conservative government, and Green Party Leader Elizabeth May are among those who have written to the Prime Minister asking him to reconsider.

The National Round Table of the Environment Economy (NRTEE), which was established by the former Progressive Conservative government of Brian Mulroney in 1988 to promote sustainable development, is among a number of groups that lost their funding in this year’s federal budget.

View the full original article >>

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