Here’s the text of the motion:

That this House:

1. agree with many Canadians and the International Energy Agency that there is grave concern with the impacts of a 2 degree rise in global average temperatures;
2. condemn the lack of effective action by successive federal governments since 1998 to address emissions and meet our Kyoto commitments; and
3. call on the government to immediately table its federal climate change adaptation plan.

There are three clauses and I have trouble with each one of them. Before parsing the motion to explain the difficulties with all three clauses, let me point out the overwhelming problem: the motion does not call on Stephen Harper’s administration to do anything about the threat of rising greenhouse gases.

The action part of the motion calls for the government to “immediately” (that sounds good!) “table its federal climate change adaptation plan.”  (whoops, where did the action go?)

An “adaptation plan” is all about how to adapt to climate change.  I have long called, as has the Green Party, for a climate adaptation plan.  But I would never call for an adaptation plan with no parallel effort to reduce the climate change impacts to which we will have to adapt.  To do so is to announce we are throwing in the towel. We are abandoning efforts to reduce carbon pollution and will only do what we can to hold back rising seas, adjust to dropping water levels in the Great Lakes and Georgian Bay, plant drought resistant crops, brace ourselves for increased forest fires, loss of Arctic ice, permafrost melt, etc.

It is mind-boggling that the NDP motion failed to call for action.  Did they forget that part?  Were they worried a call for real action to fight global warming would create space for a public policy discussion about carbon pricing and a carbon tax?  Or did they think “adaptation plan” meant some kind of GHG reduction plan? If so, they are out of touch with the key concepts of climate policy in place since the 1992 U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change.

Back to the top.  The first clause is so sloppily worded it minimizes, rather than underscores, why 2 degrees global average temperature increase really matters.  Why start the sentence with something as weak as “agree with many Canadians and the International Energy Agency?” Why not mention “consensus of the world’s climate scientists, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the International Energy Agency, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the commitment to avoid a global average temperature increase of 2 degrees C that Canada made in the Copenhagen Accord.”

Weak drafting is one thing, but the next part is much worse: “there is grave concern with the impacts of a 2 degrees rise in global average temperatures.”   There is grave concern? With the impacts?? That’s it?  How about an accurate statement, like this:

“Scientists have concluded that for human civilization to have reasonable odds of avoiding collapse due to the catastrophic impacts of runaway global warming, concentrations of greenhouse gas in the atmosphere must be held below those levels associated with a 2 degrees rise in global average temperature increase, as compared to pre-Industrialized levels.  In fact, in order to preserve Arctic ice, we should strive to keep global average temperature increases below a 1.5 degree rise.”

The way the NDP motion is worded it seems to assume we are going to have a 2 degree rise, and that there are grave concerns with impacts.  It fails to connect 2 degrees with the triggering of runaway global warming, which is a much bigger problem than the immediate impacts of 2 degrees on its own.

Then there’s the second clause.  This is a transparent attempt to wedge the Liberals on the issue.  That’s politics and I guess I should be used to it by now.  But when an issue is as important as whether our children have a liveable world, I am sick and tired of this petty garbage.  The Liberals have a lousy record on climate.  Chretien ratified Kyoto, full marks for that, but he did not put forward a plan. As Executive Director of Sierra Club of Canada, I spent years demanding action and criticizing the failure of the Liberals to act.  Then Paul Martin did act and his environment minister, Stephane Dion, put forward a credible plan in 2005.  And in 2006, Harper killed that plan.  That one phrase would not have caused me to vote against the motion, if there had been a call for real action to reduce GHG.  But predictably and tragically it reveals the real goal of the NDP opposition day motion: to make the Liberals look bad by writing a motion in a way the NDP knew the Liberals would vote against.

Why does that matter?  Well, it’s like this.  If you care about climate, you draft a motion in order to create the maximum possible opportunity for it to pass.  You don’t play stupid games.

The NDP did the same thing last week with the Canada-China Investment Treaty motion.  It rejected Liberal attempts to amend the motion such that the Liberals could vote with the NDP.  At least then, the motion was clear and I had no problem voting with the NDP, but I was furious that an issue as important as blocking ratification of the FIPA with China was sabotaged for the shortest term possible partisan gain. (And I was furious that the Liberals voted with the Conservatives… I was in a very “plague on both your Houses” mood.)

The climate crisis is a threat to our very survival.  It sickens me to see petty partisanship trump climate. For God’s sake, put forward motions that have a chance of passing and then twist arms in the Conservative caucus to get a motion that matters.

So that about covers why I couldn’t vote with the NDP.  I would have loved to have seen a unified group of MPs from all the Opposition Parties rise on principle and (hoping against hope) some of the Conservatives who understand the need for climate action might have voted with us to give the Parliamentary call for reductions in GHG a chance of passing.  But since tonight’s motion forgot to call for climate action, maybe we could take a run at a properly worded motion another day.

The post Why I voted against the NDP climate motion appeared first on Elizabeth May.

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Their voices were joined with water activists and MPs at a press conference held just before the second, 400-plus-page, omnibus budget-implementation bill, C-45, returns to the House of Commons.  Buried deep in that bill is the replacement of the 130-year-old NWPA with the Navigation Protection Act.

“This is an assault on our history, our safety, and our basic right to be informed,” stated singer-songwriter Sarah Harmer.  “Canadians’ waterways need protection, and the changes to the Navigable Waters Act remove that protection on the majority of our river and lake systems. This puts them and us at grave risk.”

“Our Federal Government is relieving itself of its duty to protect the rights of all Canadians to navigate every lake and river in Canada,” said Meredith Brown, Riverkeeper and Executive Director. “Eliminating public consultation and parliamentary review for something as important and Canadian as our public right to access water is a huge mistake.”

“Canadians expect our government to protect nature,” added John Bennett, Executive-Director, Sierra Club Canada.  “This government has no mandate to sell out the future for a few dollars today.”

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“Killing the NWPA is nothing less than an assault on Canada’s natural heritage,” said Independent MP Bruce Hyer (Thunder Bay-Superior North), an avid paddler and fisherman. “It will mean millions of streams, lakes, rivers, and other waterways will lose their protection under the law and can be dammed or in-filled without environmental oversight.  It is now open season on spawning grounds, natural aquatic nurseries, as well as creeks and streams teeming with fish and other aquatic life.”

“Just as they did with the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act and the Fisheries Act, the Harper Conservatives are removing another legal barrier to their development-at-all-costs agenda,” stated Green Party Leader Elizabeth May, MP Saanich-Gulf Island.  “They are counting on Canadians being overwhelmed by the enormous Bill C-45 and not noticing the elimination of the NWPA, but I’m sure cottagers, municipalities, the tourism industry, and others will soon be making their opposition to the Navigation Protection Act known.”

In statements read out at the press conference, Gord Downie of The Tragically Hip noted:  “… Our claim to Canada’s rivers is older than the country itself.  For the last four years, the government has been trying to find a way to pry that claim from the hands of all citizens and reserve it for a select few. If this new law passes, they finally get their wish …”

Leslie Feist, singer-songwriter warned: “ … If we lose the protection of the NWPA, we lose our opportunity to study ungoverned and unaccountable development’s possible impacts to fish, wildlife, communities, and lives. It leaves our waters open to exploitation by the first person to get there with a backhoe.”

Mark Mattson, President & Lake Ontario Waterkeeper: ”… By removing “water” from the “Navigable Waters Protection Act”, the government is removing all meaning from one of our oldest laws. I don’t think they truly understand the repercussions their actions will have. People will be hurt out there.”

The full statements are available online.

The post Top Musicians, Water Advocates, MPs Oppose Elimination of the Navigable Waters Protection Act appeared first on Elizabeth May.

If they have money, we have a different approach. It is a carefully executed piece of hypocrisy that requires a sanctimonious tone. The listener is somehow to suspend disbelief in the face of a counter-intuitive advanced wisdom, which is this: ‘If we are really concerned about human rights, the best way to secure improvements is through trade and forging relationships with countries that abuse human rights.’ Over and over again, Canadian governments have advocated that trading with China will cause China to absorb, as if through some mercantile osmosis, Canadian values.

No set of diplomatic criteria drove Stephen Harper to refuse to meet with Cuba in the room, while courting Communist China. If Cuba had all the money, our prime minister would be smoking cigars in Havana every chance he got.

It was not always so. Former Prime Minister Mulroney led the charge to enforce sanctions against apartheid South Africa. Against the indomitable Iron Lady herself, Mulroney succeeded in getting South Africa ejected from the Commonwealth.

It was former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien who first argued we had to trade to improve human rights as he inked a nuclear deal with the butcher of Beijing, so-called for his role in the Tiananmen Square massacre. On November 26, 1996, Chrétien made a quick visit to Shanghai and clowned around with former Chinese Premier Li Peng. Coverage of the visit noted that replying to Amnesty International’s criticism, ‘the prime minister responds that quiet diplomacy and stronger trade ties are the best way to promote political liberalization.’ (Jim Brown, ‘China deal warms China ties, sparks hot attack,’ November 27, 1996, Canadian Press.)

That nuclear deal is highly significant in light of Bill C-38. The 1996 CANDU deal marked the first time that in order to accommodate China, Canada violated its own environmental assessment laws, and, retroactively, weakened them.

In order to get China to buy two CANDU reactors, Canada lent China $1.5 billion. This was, at the time, the largest external loan in the history of Canada. The use of federal money triggered an environmental assessment under the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act (as it was before C-38.) On discovering they had accidentally triggered a mandatory environmental review, the Cabinet met in a hasty late night session and passed a regulation to change the review of projects outside Canada. In January 1997, the Sierra Club of Canada, of which I was Executive Director at the time, launched a court challenge against evading environmental assessment law to accommodate the Chinese government.

Here we are, fifteen years later, and China still does not like our environmental assessment laws. According to a 2010 report, Canada’s environmental assessment laws are a barrier to greater Chinese investment (Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Canada-China: Building a Strong Economic Partnership, July 2010.) In the 2010 Conservative budget implementation bill environmental reviews were weakened to accommodate China.

In the House, explaining why Bill C-38 must be passed, the Prime Minister said it was in order ‘to provide certainty to investors.’ (May 10, 2012). What investors would those be?

In the last few years direct ownership of Alberta oil sands by Chinese state-owned oil companies has gone from nearly nothing to over $12 billion. Chinese money is already invested in the Enbridge pipeline and tanker scheme, Petro-China wants to build the pipeline, and Suncor is talking about using lowerwaged Chinese temporary workers–just in time to drive down wages and environmental standards. Sinopec is the fifth largest corporation in the world with a board of directors appointed by the Chinese Communist polit-bureau. And now Sinopec’s 9% share in Syncrude has given it veto power over any future decision to refine Syncrude bitumen in Canada, rather than put it in tankers.

‘The servility of Canada’s political leaders…to the obvious manipulations of Chinese strategists who flaunt world trade and financial market principles and jail democracy–promoting authors for 10-year terms is a national disgrace.’ That quote was cited by Victoria writer Terry Glavin, who added, ‘It wasn’t some dweebish umbrage-taker from the Kitsilano Civil Liberties Union who wrote those words. It was Tony Campbell, the former head of the Intelligence Assessment Secretariat for the Privy Council Office.’ (‘China has our forests, now we’re sending our oilfields too,’ National Post, January 17, 2012).

So, back to that wonderful transmission of values through trade. Does anyone else notice that it seems to be working? Canada is absorbing Chinese values respecting human rights, labour laws, and environmental protections. It is indeed a national disgrace.

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