Stephen Harper and the Conservatives enjoy decent support in the polls. I suspect much of this is due to widespread – and justified – distrust of the Liberals in the West, combined with the belief that Mr. Harper is a Conservative.  But is he really? Are you getting what you’re voting for?

Canada is the biggest obstructor worldwide when it comes to action on global warming. This is deadly serious for many reasons. Even if Mr. Harper has bamboozled you into thinking that global warming is not happening, not human-caused, not a cause for concern, a giant socialist conspiracy, or some other claptrap, or if you believe that the Canadian government is doing the responsible thing about climate change, think again. You have been fooled by a master. Don’t believe politicians; go ask the scientists.

If you think this is no big deal, you should know that a “concerted campaign has now begun to expel Canada from the Commonwealth.” Canada is in danger of being kicked out of the Commonwealth thanks to Stephen Harper. How is that for a kick in the gut to those who thought he was a patriotic Canadian? The family that includes our sister countries Great Britain, Australia, and New Zealand is actively working to throw us out. We’re like a heroin addict that the family can no longer tolerate because of our destructive behaviour. We are being shunned.

This is grossly irresponsible and dangerous behaviour. France has already suggested that the European Union impose sanctions against countries that do not meet Kyoto targets. Do we really want Canada taxed on trade with the EU, a larger market than the United States? China and India have also threatened repercussions.

Canada has received the Fossil Award of the Year for sabotaging climate talks. Dozens of developing countries get up and leave the room when Canada talks. That is not just embarrassing, it is shameful.

To be fair, the Liberals talked a good game but did absolutely nothing about reducing our emissions after signing Kyoto, and the new guy, Mr. Ignatieff, also will do nothing. Imagine if Mr. Chretien had redirected tar sands subsidies to solar and wind development after signing the Kyoto Accord: we would have poured billions into those now exploding industries and would be a world leader.  For eleven years we would have been investing in clean energy, green technology, clean and green jobs and businesses. The prairies would be energy superpowers – for wind and solar, which the prairies have plenty of – and could be exporting clean electricity to the United States and the rest of Canada. Many thousands of clean manufacturing jobs would have been created in the prairies. Auto subsidies could have been redirected into electric trains and electric cars: Ontario and Quebec would be leading manufacturers of both, rather than currently bailing out American auto companies being run into the ground by crooked fossils. But Mr. Chretien and his Liberal successors were busy dumping money elsewhere.

Stephen Harper and his cronies are phony Conservatives. Mr. Ignatieff is trying to come across as a Conservative, but he and his party cannot be trusted either. In fact, I believe that both operate with a predator morality, common among politicians and today’s CEOs, in which winning is the only importance. They will tell you whatever you want to hear in order to get elected, after which they will do whatever they want to do.

The prairies can do better than this opportunist from Toronto who saw the big money in Big Oil. The prairies gave us both Tommy Douglas and the Reform Party, seemingly at opposite ends of the political spectrum. But in reality, both attempt to make government serve the people. Real Conservatives would be working to conserve all that is good about Canada, not just rich people’s money.

Please come up with a new grassroots party that combines sensible and limited government with one that does its original job: protecting Canadians. Mr. Harper and the Conservatives are actively harming Canada, and the Liberals are no better.

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Tags: climate change, commonwealth, Conservative Party, global warming, kyoto, tar sands

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009 at 1:48 pm and is filed under Canada and the World, Environment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.