https://williamwalterkay.substack.com/p/the-conservatives-canadas-leading
In 2017 Liberal MP Bardish Chagger introduced this motion:
“That, in the opinion of the House, climate change is a global problem that requires a global solution; and that, despite the withdrawal of the United States from the Paris Agreement, Canada remains committed to the implementation of the Agreement, as it is in the best interests of all Canadians.” (1)
To fulfill Paris commitments (as understood circa 2017) Canadians need cut greenhouse gas emissions 30% below 2005 levels by 2030. This requires sweeping, wrenching, potentially devastating, transformation. We’re far from hitting this target. Difficulties multiply if Americans don’t follow suit, given continental economic integration. On top of economic disruption, phasing-out oil will provoke political interference from down south.
Thus, only militant climate alarmists endorsed Chagger’s motion.
Pierre Poilievre, Andrew Sheer and Erin O’Toole vote “Yea.” Indeed, all Tories voted “Yea,” save for Cheryl Gallant – an outlier whom Poilievre recently excluded from his 50-member Shadow Cabinet, despite Gallant having held her seat since 2000.
Canadian Conservatives ain’t American Republicans. Of 274 Republican Senators and Representatives in the 118th Congress, 123 openly challenged the science undergirding the catastrophic anthropogenic global warming hypothesis. (2) No Conservative parliamentarian dares the same.
No Canadian advanced climate alarmism more than Conservative Prime Minister Mulroney. He signed the 1985 G7 communique that got the global warming ball bouncing. In 1988 Mulroney hosted the seminal Toronto Conference on the Changing Atmosphere; and, supervised Canada’s hyperactive participation in founding the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. His government signed and ratified the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. His Green Plan committed Canada to stabilizing greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2000. (3)
Also credit Mulroney for:
· The International Institute for Sustainable Development;
· The original (1988) Environmental Protection Act and Environmental Assessment Act;
· The Acid Rain Treaty (acid rain being the coal phase-out’s pretext pre-global warming);
· A dozen initiatives promoting parks, biodiversity, wildlife preservation etc.
Corporate Knights (Canada’s “leading sustainable-economy media and research organization”) asked 12 top environmentalists to name our greenest Prime Minister. Mulroney topped their list. (4)
Stephen Harper placated “the base” by calling Climate Change a commie plot. His record as PM speaks otherwise. While making much hay about withdrawing from Kyoto, Harper wrought: Turning the Corner: Taking Action to Fight Climate Change which accepts all alarmist precepts, and commits to reducing emissions 20% below 2006 levels by 2020, then 65% below 2006 levels by 2050. (5) Harper signed the treasonously uber-conservationist United Nation Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Harper banned incandescent lightbulbs!
Poilievre’s Policy Declaration vows to protect climate through a “transition to a low carbon-use future,” specifically through climate-friendly energy; i.e., solar, geothermal, biogas, biodiesel and hydrogen. His Declaration touts carbon capture and storage, and large-scale battery storage. Passenger rail service is proffered as a means to “reduce greenhouse gas emissions.” (6)
Canadian climate sceptics, besotted with Tories as most are, should read career hack Andrew Lawton’s biography of Poilievre wherein Lawton informs:
“The Conservatives have historically stage-managed the policy process to prevent potentially embarrassing resolutions from reaching the floor.” (7)
For those clinging to the Declaration’s equivocal phraseology, note:
“The policy declaration, or policy book, is distinct from a party’s election platform. The former is decided by party members at policy conventions, while the latter is the purview of the party leader. If a party forms government, there is no obligation to so much as look at the policy book.” (8)
There’s no internal democracy. Entrenched cliques treat “the base” like a kennel of dogs.
