Breaking: Canada to seek climate change deal with President-elect Obama
One day after the United States voted Barack Obama as their next president, Canadian government officials are saying that the time is ripe for a continent-wide solution to global warming.
Sounds good, but unfortunately there are some major gaps between what Canada is proposing and the much more aggressive plan out in Obama's election platform.
Yet, in what might be the overstatement of the year, Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon said there are plenty of similarities between Obama’s climate position and the Canadian government’s. Not.
You can look here for a complete comparison of Obama's fairly impressive climate commitments, as well as the comparatively embarrassing plan of inaction favored by the Canadian Conservative Party administration of Prime Minister Stephen Harper. But what you'll find is a bad fit between a new U.S. leader intent upon changing his country's direction and a Canadian leader who may be the only resident north of the 49th parallel who will regret the departure of U.S. President and part-time oil company lobbyist George W. Bush.
Little more than a year ago, Canada was collaborating with the U.S. and Australia in an international effort to block climate change action. The Australians replaced their backsliding government with one more committed to global responsibility and now U.S. voters have done the same.
That leaves only Canada playing the part of selfish oil sheik in a threatened world. We can only hope that Obama's leadership forces the Canadian government to recognize that it, too, has a responsibility to join the international effort to address climate change - in good faith and in our lifetime.
Harmonization
A further complication arises because of overlapping jurisdictions. US states, Canadian provinces, and regional initiatives are all working on climate change mitigation. To some extent, this federal government-to-government bid seems designed to supplant that. Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon has expressed the hope that a Canada-US deal could “provide uniformity and supplant the patchwork of plans that are being implemented in various states and provinces.” While uniformly good policies would certainly be a step forward, there is the distinct danger that more innovative and committed jurisdictions will be forced down towards mediocrity, and that time will be wasted as reorganization occurs.
More:
http://www.sindark.com/2008/11/06/the-oil-sands-in-the-obama-era/
Wow, the USA taking a more
Wow, the USA taking a more liberal stance than Canada...I never thought I'd live to see the day!
Talk about trying to cover
Talk about trying to cover their asses! What Harper and his cronies are trying to do is slow down the Obama train. They're so worried that if the Obama Administration (get used to it, righties!) makes such great progress on the climate change file, that Harper (and Canada as a byproduct) will be seen as a global pariah.
If I were Obama, I'd consider it and push the Harperites as far as he can to get Harper to actually start doing something significant on the file. (I know the previous Liberal governments hadn't really done anything on the file, with the exception of the 2004-2005 period, but that's no excuse for inaction by the Conservatives. Playing political games with an issue so urgent shows poor judgment, lack of morality, and zero conscience whatsoever.)
CONGRATULATIONS, BARACK OBAMA!!! CONGRATULATIONS, USA!!!
Harper is not particularly
Harper is not particularly popular. Dion was simply unpopular. No offense to Dion, but people don't make popularity decisions based only on the quality of a candidate's ideas.
Now that Harper has run out of money to through out the back of his truck, I imagine he'll quickly become very unpopular.
Bush has probably been more
Bush has probably been more instrumental in preventing Canada from doing anything about climate change than we realize.
I just wonder if Harper would be as popular now that there has been such a political shift in the U.S. I'm guessing not.