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:

1. Eliminated Canada’s international commitment to mitigate climate change, including the repeal of the 2007 Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act.
2. Undermined global climate negotiations to avoid climate action.
3. Failed to create a plan to address climate change.
4. Eliminated energy conservation and efficiency and renewable energy funding while continuing subsidies to fossil fuels.
5. Eliminated funding for the Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences.
6. Eliminated the climate adaptation research group within Environment Canada.
7. Eliminated scientists in Natural Resources Canada to study ice core data.
8. Cut hundreds of millions of dollars from Environment Canada.
9. Repealed the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, weakening the federal environmental assessment process.
10. Eliminated accepted criteria for compulsory environmental assessments, leaving such reviews to the discretion of the Minister of the Environment and political appointees.
11. Eliminated the jobs of hundreds of scientists working for various government departments that focus on the environment and wildlife.
12. Weakened elements of the Species at Risk Act.
13. 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.
14. Allowing the federal cabinet, rather than the National Energy Board, to make decisions about approvals for major pipeline projects.
15. Introduced cuts to ozone monitoring.
16. Ended monitoring of smoke stack emissions.
17. Eliminated the Hazardous Materials Information Review Commission.
18. Weakened the Fisheries Act in the areas of habitat protection and eliminated the marine contaminants program.
19. Fired all DFO habitat officers in British Columbia.
20. 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.
21. Reduced federal protection of waterways to a small number of water bodies and rivers.
22. Parks Canada no longer has to conduct periodic environmental audits or management plan reviews.
23. Eliminated funding for the National Round Table on the Economy and the Environment.
24. Eliminated support for the Experimental Lakes Program.
25. Eliminated funding for a dozen Arctic science research stations. Closed the Polar Arctic and Environmental Laboratory and the Yukon Research Lab.
26. Started privatization and eliminated ecological staff positions in National Parks.
27. Made a systemic effort to cut research, information and analysis with respect to environmental issues.
28. Attacked environmental and First Nations organizations for critiquing resource development.
29. Provided the Canada Revenue Agency with an extra $8 million to crack down on environmental charities.
30. Provided oil companies with unprecedented access to senior government leaders.
31. Muzzled government scientists who have been conducting research on various climate and environmental issues.
32. Cut funding to the Network on Women’s Health and the Environment.
33. Cut funding of the Canadian Environmental Network.
34. 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.
35. 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.
36. The minister can accept or refuse the land designation after receiving a resolution from the band council.
37. Eliminated the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration, the Indian Head Tree Nursery and the PFRA pasture management program on millions of acres of sensitive grasslands.
38. Provided unprecedented support to industries to exploit natural resources with minimal environmental oversight.

Originally printed in the Star Pheonix.

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For example, the ice-breakers were promised in 2005 and again in 2008, and have been delayed once again. China, with no Arctic coastline at all, now has icebreakers in Canada’s waters while our Coast Guard’s Amundsen is in dry dock.

The construction of the deepwater port naval port in Nanisivik promised in 2007 has yet to be begun, despite promises it would begin two years ago. Also two years ago, the Prime Minister announced a major new satellite project, the Radarstat Constellation Mission. It now appears to be mired in budgetary delays.

In one of the more recent bizarre announcements, Stephen Harper promised the creation of a new Canadian High Arctic Research Station (CHARS) to be built in Cambridge Bay, Nunavut. It was first pledged in the 2007 Speech from the Throne claiming the government would “build a world-class Arctic research station that will be on the cutting edge of Arctic issues, including environmental science and resource development.”

It is bizarre because at the same time that the Harper Conservatives are pledging millions to build a new research facility from the ground up, they are shutting down the internationally renowned PEARL (Polar Environmental and Atmospheric Research Laboratory). PEARL recently had $10-million invested in state of the art equipment to monitor ozone depletion and the build up of greenhouse gases. Closing it down is a scandal.

Part of Harper’s vision is clearly the exploitation of fossil fuel resources in the Arctic. Last spring, licences were opened up to start the planning for prospecting and exploration to tap into the oil and gas now increasingly accessible as the ice shrinks.

A quite different view of the Arctic comes from the scientific community. The Arctic faces new pressures for resource exploitation, from fisheries to oil and gas. Far from being an economic bonanza, the rapidly disappearing summer ice is a disaster. On Aug. 26, we reached an all-time loss of Arctic Sea ice. The melt represents a loss of more than 40 per cent of summer ice extent in the past decade alone. The melting of Arctic ice had been an anticipated climate change impact for decades, but the pace at which the ice is melting exceeds earlier projections. The explanation lies in the impact of positive feed-back loops. The loss of ice compromises the albedo effect, a cooling effect. The white ice bounces the sun’s heat back to space, whereas the dark ocean water absorbs it, speeding the warming. Less ice equals warmer waters, melting more ice.

The loss of Arctic ice has devastating impacts on the entire planet. Research at Rutgers University identified the mechanism by which the melting Arctic is impacting areas far to the south through increasingly serious extreme weather events. It turns out the difference between Arctic cold and Equatorial heat has kept the jet stream moving fast and relatively horizontally over mid-latitudes.

With the warming Arctic, the difference has gone wobbly and so has the jet stream. Fires, floods, and droughts have increased globally as the jet stream slows down due to a warming Arctic. Moving more slowly it lies in lazy loops, leaving high pressure and low pressure zones in place for unusually long periods of time. It is too early to diagnose the causes of the ferocity of Hurricane Sandy, but clearly the melting of the Arctic is implicated.

Yet, on the Prime Minister’s Arctic visits, climate change is never mentioned. Of course, moving to open up the Arctic to oil and gas is to throw fuel on the fire that is warming the Earth and melting the Arctic. Last spring, the federal government moved to boost offshore petroleum development in Arctic waters. The National Energy Board announced it would weaken its policy requiring proof of an ability to build a relief well in the same season prior to drilling. This creates unacceptable levels of risk for the Arctic. Norway requires proven capability to initiate a relief well within 12 days of any accident. It seems the industry has more concerns for safety than the Conservative government. Total SA, the French oil giant, withdrew from its planned oil exploitation in Greenland, noting that the costs of any accident outweighed any benefit.

Similarly, Royal Dutch Shell abandoned its plans to drill off Alaska after a $4.5-billion investment continued to fail technologically. The reality is that drilling for oil in the Arctic is highly dangerous as, for much of the year, any response to an emergency will be impossible. Industry experts confirm that the private sector would not be interested in the Arctic at all—if not for subsidies.

As Canada takes the chair in the Arctic Council, it is my hope that Aglukkaq will champion a vision for a sustainable Arctic.

We need to work for an oil spill prevention strategy, for affordable food and Inuit rights, and a fisheries management strategy, within a precautionary and stewardship approach. And we have to stop ignoring the threat of a rapidly-warming climate.

Elizabeth May is the Leader of the Green Party of Canada and the Member of Parliament for Saanich-Gulf Islands.
Originally printed in the Hill Times.

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“Democracy depends on informed opinion. Informed opinion relies on understanding all the evidence, not just that which supports a political objective or ideology. Science provides much of the best evidence, without regard to political agendas or ideology,” stated Dr. Andrew Weaver. “The only scientific evidence the Harper Conservatives want the public to know about is that which supports their political objectives and ideology. That’s not science, that’s propaganda.”

“An advanced, modern democratic society needs decisions to be based on the best information available. Harper’s agenda seems to be focused on eliminating any institutions that bring forward information that might contradict or constrain his agenda for unfettered fossil fuel and resource extraction in Canada,” stated MP Elizabeth May. “Instead of making decisions based on the best available information, their goal is to eliminate the best available information so they can implement pre-made decisions based on their ideology.”

The Harper Conservatives have embarked on a systematic program to impede and divert the flow of scientific information to Canadians through two major strategies.

The first strategy involves the gutting of scientific research institutions and programs that uncover scientific evidence. Examples of this include:

• The end of funding to the Canadian Foundation of Climate and Atmospheric Science
• The elimination of the Adaptation research group within Environment Canada
• Cuts to ozone monitoring
• Closure of the Polar Environment Arctic Research Laboratory (PEARL) in Eureka
• End of federal funding for the world renowned Experimental Lakes Area near Kenora, Ontario
• The elimination of the marine contaminants program within the 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
• Other major funding cuts research programs at Environment Canada, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Library and Archives Canada, the National Research Council Canada, Statistics Canada, and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.
• Decisions to close major natural and social science research institutions such as the world-renowned Experimental Lakes Area, the National Council of Welfare and the First Nations Statistical Institute.
• Cutting the mandatory long-form national census.

Harper’s second strategy is to impede the bringing forward of scientific evidence into the public debate. Examples:

• Shutting down the National Round Table on Environment and Economy (NRTEE), an arm’s length advisory body providing independent advice on environmental protection and economic development, because the government didn’t like its advice.
• Not renewing the National Science Advisor in 2008.
• Dozens of instances of censoring of, impeded access to, and coercion of government scientists, a practice which Minister of Environment Peter Kent has justified as merely in keeping with “established practice”.

Rally organizer Ken Wu expects that the political momentum against the Harper’s cuts to scientific programs and institutions will continue to grow in the future.

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Crucial to this worrying discovery, were measurements taken by Environment  Canada’s Ozonesonde program, whose sole manager, along with nearly 800  other Environment Canada scientists, recently received a letter of  notice that his position was potentially subject to being cut. These  recently announced cuts will critically undermine Canada’s ability to  monitor the Arctic ozone levels, essential data that is relied on by  scientists worldwide. These recent cuts are consistent with a longer  term trend, dating back to 2007, of the Harper government clamping down  on Canada’s scientists by requiring all senior federal scientists to  request governmental permission before speaking to media.

“Although the Environment Minister insists that the government is not attempting  to muzzle its scientists, it appears that the 776 ‘adjustment letters’ that were sent out to Environment Canada staff are casting doubt on  their jobs which, coupled with the gag orders, have created a very  troubling cloud over government science”, says Green Party Leader  Elizabeth May. “If the government actually respects the work of its  scientists, as the Environment Minister claimed repeatedly today during  Question Period, then it would not be threatening to eliminate their  jobs or the important work that they’re doing.”

The study’s authors attribute the hole to unusually long-lasting cold  conditions in the lower stratosphere, the causes of which are still  poorly understood. But given the global climatic disruptions and  instability recently observed, which continue to result from increasing  human intervention into the climatic system, this recently observed  phenomenon would fit within this trend.

The underlying point of this discovery is that the impacts of a changing  climate are not well enough understood, and the emergence of an Arctic  ozone hole warrants much further study. Yet this critical discovery has  been made at precisely the time that Environment Canada stands to lose  much of its capacity to collect and monitor data on Canada’s climate and atmosphere. The Green Party of Canada calls on the government to  recognize the critical importance of the work done by Environment Canada scientists, and to immediately rescind all of the 776 notice letters  sent out to staff.

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