Everybody in Alberni-Qualicum got a lame-ass flyer from our MP, Dr. James Lunney, last week. It contains all of about 40 words (Dr. Lunney doesn’t like to tax his constituents with nuance) and is headlined Canada: an economic star (quoting The Economist magazine).
The above is my response on the clip-and-mail return coupon provided, urging the good doctor and his party toward some progressive — or at the very least, non-obstructionist — action on the most pressing problem of the world’s many pressing problems.
I filled it out before i’d even read an article, In defence of the oilsands, published today by Mike de Souza in the Ottawa Citizen. It begins (emphases mine):
Three major departments in the federal government have been actively co-ordinating a communications strategy with Alberta and its fossil-fuel industry to fight international global-warming policies that “target” oilsands production, newly released federal documents reveal.The documents, obtained by Postmedia News, suggest that Environment Canada, Natural Resources Canada as well as the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, have collaborated on an “advocacy strategy” in the United States to promote the oilsands and discourage environmental-protection policies.
“The activities of the oilsands sector has emerged as one of the high priority files for the federal government,” wrote Natural Resources Canada policy adviser Paul Khanna in an e-mail, on behalf of Kevin Stringer, the director of Petroleum Resources in the same department.
So our national government, according to this FOI-procured information, has directed at least three major ministries — including the apparently irony-proof Environment Canada — to go to bat worldwide for tar sands oil, all while doing essentially nothing to address Canada’s ever-rising greenhouse gas emissions.
Really, folks … is a strong economy going to do us any good at all if the ecosystem is crumbling around us? Maybe we’ll be the last to die, fighting off all the starving, thirsty climate refugees. But is that something to hand down to our kids? Granted, yes, economically we are in not bad shape (compared with the rest of the world), and kudos where deserved. But unless we use that economic strength to a sensible end, we are acting insanely.
Do you hear me, Dr. Lunney? Your patient, this country, is acting insane. What would you prescribe?
I post this here just in case people from outside Canada find it. I want you to know that the people of Canada — 79 percent of us, according to the linked article — want positive action on climate change. Our politically ingenious but sociopathic government does not even remotely speak for us.
Greg Blee 