Like a slacker who keeps hitting “snooze” instead of facing the day, Stephen Harper sleeps while the world races ahead in the fight against climate change.
That’s the image leading environmentalists from the David Suzuki Foundation, Environmental Defence, Equiterre and PowerUP Canada presented in an op-ed that ran in the Vancouver Sun and Montreal Gazette this week.
But instead of just criticizing Harper, they also put their seal of approval on the plan the Liberal leader unveiled last Thursday in a major speech at Laval University.
It’s not really fair to blame “Canada” – it’s really the federal government that’s asleep. The Canadian public has already woken up — 62 percent of us say Ottawa should set “higher and harder targets” to reduce global warming pollution according to Harris-Decima polling this October.
Seems something of this has gotten to Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff, who recently proposed a cap and trade system in Canada that would actually reduce global warming pollution.
After months of criticizing the government without revealing his own plan, Ignatieff proposed a system that he says would be fair for all provinces and would apply to all industries. No special treatment – not even for Canada’s oil sands.
The Bloc Quebecois and federal NDP support this approach as do Canada’s largest provinces. All recognize that our economy will be stronger if we stimulate clean energy. In fact the jobs of the future depend on staying in the race.
We believe this is the right approach for Canada. It recognizes that the way toward business certainty and environmental health is to stimulate innovation and reward environmental responsibility.
Click here to read the entire op-ed.
Click here to read more words of praise on the leader’s environmental plan.
