Democracy Gone Astray

Democracy, being a human construct, needs to be thought of as directionality rather than an object. As such, to understand it requires not so much a description of existing structures and/or other related phenomena but a declaration of intentionality.
This blog aims at creating labeled lists of published infringements of such intentionality, of points in time where democracy strays from its intended directionality. In addition to outright infringements, this blog also collects important contemporary information and/or discussions that impact our socio-political landscape.

All the posts here were published in the electronic media – main-stream as well as fringe, and maintain links to the original texts.

[NOTE: Due to changes I haven't caught on time in the blogging software, all of the 'Original Article' links were nullified between September 11, 2012 and December 11, 2012. My apologies.]

Friday, January 25, 2013

Conservatives selling out Canada's future for short term economic gain in oil sands and other petroleum developments, say critics

Following a 600-page report showing Canada has fallen back on support for clean-energy technology development and two months before the Prime Minister’s advisory group on the environment is dismantled permanently, MPs and critics accuse the Conservatives of promoting and financing oil sands and other petroleum exploitation for short-term economic gain “at the expense of Canada’s future.”

The Conservative government is “ideologically driven against nature” and “have put all their eggs in one basket,” said NDP MP Megan Leslie (Halifax, N.S.).

“All their focus is on the oil and gas industry, and they're absolutely neglecting other aspects of our energy sector. Even the bulk of their investments in green technology are linked to this one industry, with their heavy emphasis on carbon capture and storage,” Ms. Leslie, her party’s environment critic, told The Hill Times.

The Conservative government killed the National Roundtable on the Environment and the Economy, established in 1988 under the Progressive Conservative government of former prime minister Brian Mulroney, in last year’s federal budget.

The 25-year-old advisory group on the role of the environment and environmental protection in economic growth will wind down on March 31, after Finance Minister Jim Flaherty (Whitby-Oshawa, Ont.) announced the elimination of its $5-million budget last year.

The government’s contradictory explanations for the roundtable’s elimination added to the uproar over the decision&mdashwith Environment Minister Peter Kent (Thornhill, Ont.) saying the kind of research it produced could be obtained on the internet and public sources such as universities or think tanks.

As Green Party Leader Elizabeth May (Saanich-Gulf Islands, B.C.) argued in an interview with The Hill Times this week, Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird (Ottawa West-Nepean, Ont.) was more direct, admitting the NRTEE had produced recommendations that contradicted Conservative government policy, including a call for carbon emission pricing.

"Why should taxpayers have to pay for more than 10 reports promoting a carbon tax, something that the people of Canada have repeatedly rejected? That is a message the Liberal Party just will not accept," Mr. Baird said in response to a question by Liberal Leader Bob Rae (Toronto Centre, Ont.) during Question Period at the time. “It should agree with Canadians, it should agree with the government, no discussion of a carbon tax that would kill and hurt Canadian families.”

Since then, Ms. May and the NDP and Liberal parties in the Commons have roundly criticized Prime Minister Stephen Harper (Calgary Southwest, Alta.) and his government for subsequent measures, including two omnibus budget bills the Conservatives pushed through Parliament, which made changes to environment regulations and statutory amendments to reduce its roles and responsibilities in environmental protection while increasing Cabinet’s power to approve major oil pipeline projects.

On Jan. 21, the Pembina Institute released a 600-page report that showed Canada has fallen back also on support for clean-energy technology development under Mr. Harper since 2006.

The report noted Canada is one of the top energy research and development funders in the world, but the support is short term and thinly distributed among many uncoordinated programs. It also said the federal government has left development of a national energy program to the provincial governments.

“Despite energy research and development investments, Canada places fifth in clean energy inventions, with its companies securing only two per cent of clean energy patents granted in the United States since 2002,” the report said, compared to Korea’s five per cent, Germany’s seven per cent, Japan’s 26 per cent and the United States’ 49 per cent.

The report cited a 2010 report from the soon-to-be-defunct Roundtable on the Environment and the Economy that placed Canada sixth among the richest countries in the world, the G8, in terms of clean-energy development.

“The green energy sector deserves proper funding, but it also deserves proper co-ordination,” Ms. Leslie said. “The Pembina report and others show that the government is failing to take the green energy sector seriously.”

She said the World Economic Forum recently released a Green Investment Report, setting out an argument also for additional investment, with billions of dollars required in gradual investment to meet the global climate-change challenge.

“The World Economic Forum is no left-leaning think tank,” Ms. Leslie said. “They are strongly advocating private finance mobilization if we are to meet our climate change targets. Ironically, or just plain sadly, much of this advice echoes the advice the government received from the National Roundtable on the Environment and the Economy, until the federal government shot the messenger.”

Ms. May and the executive director of the Pembina Institute, Ed Whittingham, also argued the end of the National Rountable is an example of how Mr. Harper and his Conservatives have retracted on the environment, particularly over the past two years.

 “We’ve lost a significant source of advice,” Ms. May said.

Mr. Whittingham said the motives behind the decision were clear: the government did not want its policies challenged by a centre it was funding.

“It produced reports that disagreed with the government’s approach, so they killed it,” Mr. Whittingham said.

Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver’s (Etobicoke-Lawrence, Ont.) office took issue earlier this week with the Pembina report call for increased investment in clean-energy technology, arguing Ottawa has increased investment in technology to reduce carbon emissions.

A spokesperson for Mr. Oliver told The Globe and Mail the Conservative government has provided generous support to the sector since taking office in 2006, boosting spending to $10-billion over its period in office from about $3.5-billion in the six years before that.

But Mr. Whittingham said a significant portion of the money has been allocated to carbon capture and storage projects, which are not expected to be widely adopted in the near term.

He told The Globe and Mail many of the companies that were financed through the Sustainable Development Technology Canada fund have achieved commercial success and are now exporting to the world, but the fund is now depleted.

“Our report is not meant to take away from the existing investments—what it is trying to say is that we need more,” Mr. Whittingham said. “And if we don’t get behind this now, we’re going to miss the boat.”

Original Article
Source: hill times
Author: TIM NAUMETZ

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