Environment Beware

The Conservative platform is a carefully crafted concoction of goodies, meant to appeal and appease. Go through the document, pick an issue and find the Conservative solution, articulated in dollars. Then sift through the footnote that is the Conservative environmental policy and look hard for the expenditure. Can't find it? Thats because the Conservative plan has no allocation for the environment. None. Zero. Nada.

A Conservative government will:

* develop a Clean Air Act to legislate the reduction of smog causing pollutants such as Nitrogen Oxides, Sulphur Dioxides, and particulate matter.

* Address the issue of greenhouse gas emissions, such as carbon dioxide, with a made in Canada plan, emphasizing new technologies, developed in concert with provinces and in coordination with other major industries.

* Ensure water quality by addressing environmental issues such as the need for acquifer mapping, protection of the Great Lakes basin, banning interbasin water transfers, imposing substantial penalties for illegal bilge oil dumping, and ensure adequate watershed management and methods to ensure water quality and quantity

* Clean up federally contaminated sites and encourage the private sector to clean up brownfields

*Require 5 percent average renewable content in Canadian gasoline and diesel fuel, such as ethanol and biodiesel, by 2010.

The Conservative platform bends over backwards to throw money at every issue, which makes the omission of funds for the environment all the more revealing. Clearly, the Conservatives treat the environment as a nuisance issue. How else can you explain the promise to clean up federally contaminated sites for free? Where is the expenditure, or better yet, have you taken the time to understand the cost?

Greenhouse gas emissions require a "made in Canada" approach. Is that so? Are our emissions a unique sub-type of the other worldly emissions? This lame rhetoric is just code for massive loopholes for industry and avoiding arbitrary targets. If you want to invest in new technologies, it seems like common sense that you need an investment. At the very least you need to articulate what incentives you would offer industry to change its practices. The Conservative platform offers no details, which speaks to their lack of concern for the environment.

Mark my words, and pray for a minority, because these characters approach the environment in the same way as the American administration. Natural places are seen through the prism of economic opportunity to be exploited. Where a conflict between environment and economy exists, profit trumps all. This Conservative environmental platform is a joke, pure and simple. The punchline is this platform doesn't even attempt to hide it.