Friday, November 10, 2006

How Embarrassing

This should be a truly embarrassing display:
Parliament Hill's feud over the environment is set to become a side-show on the international stage next week when government leaders from around the globe huddle in Kenya.

All three opposition parties plan to follow Environment Minister Rona Ambrose to the UN Climate Change Conference in Nairobi and tell the world the government's position on global warming doesn't jibe with most Canadians.

"Canadians are divided and the majority of them think that, first of all, the Conservative government isn't doing a very good job on climate change," said Liberal environment critic John Godfrey. "So what we will do is reflect the majority of Canadians' opinions at the Nairobi meeting

Throw in a representative from Quebec, and you have the Conservatives thoroughly disgraced on the world stage. Harper and Ambrose can run, but it would seem they will finally face the music. Just imagine the spectacle of our government saying one thing, while reporters flock to politicians and environmentalists, eager to unravel the spin. With no credibility at home, and little on the world stage, this development should cement Ambrose's irrelevance to the discussion.

18 comments:

CuriosityCat said...

With due respect to the Bloc, NDP and Liberals, this is wrong. Whether they like it or not, the Tories are the government of Canada, duly elected. To send delegations to an international body to undermine the legally elected government of our country is misguided and insulting to all voters.

They should stay home and pass legislation to ensure different policies are made the law of the land.

Karen said...

Well, it will be interesting to see how this is handled and I hope the answer is tactfully.

While making the point of where most Canadians stand may assist in holding other countries to honour their committments, a huge display of being disjointed would not serve us well, IMO.

Btw, did you hear that the conservatives have named David Chernushenko of the Green Party, to head a Blue Ribbon round table?

Anonymous said...

Liberals have no right to criticize anybody on the enviornment. 10 years, 6.5 BILLION dollars($250 million unaccounted for) and GHG climbed 27%. What hypocrites. It is disgusting. But Canadians expect no less from them.

Steve V said...

I have no problem with the opposition undermining the government, especially a fragile minority. It is not insulting to voters, because most of them favor Kyoto and the stakes are too high to let the Tories piss away any progress. I hope the protest is done honorably, and it could actually show the world that Canada is still serious about its legal obligations to a signed treaty.

jeff

Blah, blah, blah. I challenge you to contrast the Conservative proposal with any of the ones offered by the Liberal leadership candidates. What is hypocritical is for the Tories to laud the importance of climate change, yet come to office with NO plan, NO ideas and NO urgency. The Conservative plan- we don't like Kyoto, how rich!

Karen said...

Liberals, jeff, have EVERY right to say what ever they choose. You see, everyone, around the globe is affected.

For the umpteenth time, there was a plan, but then, there was an election. Did it take too long? Yes! Can Liberals agree on that? Yes!

You see, unlike your party, we are able to criticise our own, look to the future and want something to work. We are not living in the past.

ex-ndip:Maybe the Cons should have continued with the Liberal plan

You have!, if your complaint is that the Lib's did nothing.

no one was saying a thing, the MSM included. Uh, the Harper camp included! I don't remember all this outrage during the last election. It was not even on Harper's radar and you guy's are back pedalling, spinning, and spewing so much, it must be really uncomfortable.

Steve, I guess this trip might be more threatening than I thought, given the Conservative reaction here.

Steve V said...

knb

Chernushenko's appointment was interesting, sort of like the Wajid Khan announcement. Jeff articulates the Tory position, attack the Liberals. That's the problem, all they do is attack, but fail to adopt any alterative (see pathetic Bluebook, if you can find the two lines on the environment). I doubt Canadians are responding positively to all the negativity, they want to see a plan and are universally rejecting this transparent shell game.

wilson said...

'To send delegations to an international body to undermine the legally elected government of our country is misguided and insulting to all voters.'

Well said cat.

The Bloc and Dippers have always been protest parties, the Liberals now join them.

This move validates the 60% of Canaidans who said Libs were not yet ready to govern.

Karen said...

This move validates the 60% of Canaidans who said Libs were not yet ready to govern.

Nice spin...won't work. It just points to the fact that less than 40%, voted for your team...you are in the minority, your government holds a minority and all other parties are the mainstream of Canada.

Spin all you like, the majority of Canada will rebel, the more you stand for what most of us don't.

Steve V said...

Actually, 70% didn't have confidence in the Liberals, but on the other hand 64% failed to endorse Harper, hardly a strong mandate from the people.

wayward son said...

I don't know. I think the parties which represent more then two thirds of Canadian voters (including the Green Party) should be there to tell the world that these bunch of ass-bags don't represent any more than a small minority when it comes to public opinion on the environment.

Ex-NIDP - the MSM and the general public were not hard on the liberals yet because they at least had the hope that the Liberals would eventually do something. The Conservatives saying that they were backing out of Kyoto caused the population and media to ask questions such as: Why? Once they asked why they then had to look at what the Conservatives were doing about climate change which they found to be: Nothing.

As for your constant yammering on every blog about an article in CFP (which has consistently bashed anything to do with the environment) which has supposed scientists disagreeing with Gore's documentary. It basically talks about one scientist - Bob Carter, from Australia, who is NOT a climate scientist, but a scientist in Marine Geophysics, who has been proven wrong about the crap he says countless times. The majority of actual climate scientists seem to agree with almost all of what Gore represented in his documentary.
The author of the article you quote is Tom Harris the Executive director of Natural Resources Stewardship Project - which has well known connections to "Friends of Science" and is likely funded by the same oil companies, but NRSP won't release the info of who funds them. Harris also used to work for a APCO a PR firm which mainly represents the interests of big oil and big tobacco. If you beliee a thing he says, and you clearly believe everything he says without any skepticism, I feel sad for you. You seem to have this need to search out the most loony people when it comes to climate change.

Karen said...

wayward son, thank you.

I cannot say I feel sad for ex-ndip...pity maybe.

For all of your rational thought, this person will either run away, or attack with more nonsense.

If I can find merit in trolls it's this...you find your centre, dispell the nonsense, reiterate your beliefs to yourself and go forward. That's okay!

Hmmm, just went to post, Steve, did you always have word verification on?

Steve V said...

I just put it on because I am getting all these spam posts. I'll turn it off tomorrow :)

wilson said...

Gee knb, same can be said of the last Liberal government:

Martin Liberals 2004 minority government 38.73%

''It just points to the fact that less than 40%, voted for your team...you are in the minority, your government holds a minority and all other parties are the mainstream of Canada.
Spin all you like, the majority of Canada will rebel, the more you stand for what most of us don't.
''

And now there is a minority Conservative government that NEVER undermined the governing Liberals on the international stage.
Liberals will be viewed as a protest party.

Steve V said...

"Conservative government that NEVER undermined the governing Liberals on the international stage.

What about that windbag Premier who undercut our decision not to fight in Iraq, supported by Harper? Did you forget that one?

wayward son said...

"And now there is a minority Conservative government that NEVER undermined the governing Liberals on the international stage.
Liberals will be viewed as a protest party."

So I take it that the letter to the wallstreet journal by Stephen Harper and Stockwell Day (March 29, 2003) bashing the government stance on Iraq didn't happen? Or does it not matter because the Liberals had a majority at that time?

"Gee knb, same can be said of the last Liberal government:"

The difference being that the overwhelming majority of Canadians support Kyoto and are at odds with the minority government on this issue. As opposed to when Harper and Day bashed the government position on Iraq in the WSJ, despite the fact that the majority of Canadians opposed the Iraq war and therefore supported the government.

Anonymous said...

Only 11% of Canadians believe that Kyoto "goes to far" (environics). Yet that is what The New Conservative Government is putting out there as the voice of Canadians.

Yes, someone should go and tell the world we haven't all gone mad.

Steve V said...

Such is the case, when you fail to live up to your international obligations. I think it important to let the world know that our government is only a temporary condition, and by next summer we will be back as an honest party.

Anonymous said...

Wow, that must have been a heavy rock X-ndip crawled out of -- long time no read, trog! Yep, Libs record on the environment was sketchy at best, but it at least accepted the concept that it was an important file. Signing kyoto was step one, but getting re-elected and working with the provinces may have set Martin's plan back abit. Dion had made progress.
But let's see the other side of another coin here -- Canadians let you Cons have the keys to the finances again. Hmmm, lets remember back when the last Cons ran the gov't engine into the ground, what was the deficit and debt like? Yah, that sure doesn't sound like someone who should be back in charge. Yep, ok, maybe it was a DIFFERENT group of Cons. So lets check your new men -- Flaherty, Baird... Huge HIDDEN deficit left after they vamoosed. Can we draw an obvious conclusion that YOUR TEAM are moronic money managers? But we are giving you another kick at the can and praying YOUR TEAM doesn't f**k up too badly.
As to Liberals on the environmental file, the record remains still better than the obfuscation and polished mirror that Harpor and his hardigans are trying to foist off on us.
As Steve said, having NO PLAN after 13 years is NO EXCUSE.