The tarring of Canada's image in Copenhagen

Posted By KIMBERLEY LOVE

Posted 5 hours ago

Maybe Santa slipped a few lumps of coal in Stephen Harper's stocking this Christmas. Or a hefty scoop of tar sands. The Copenhagen summit has now been packed up and put away and Canada's prime minister managed to distinguish himself -- in all the wrong ways. In the eyes of the rest of the world -- and many of us here at home -- Mr. Harper is on the Naughty List.

I'm an optimist, I suppose, and I hoped until the dying hours of Copenhagen that we might, in the end, be surprised by hope and cooperation. That we would, after all, come away from the world's great round table with an action plan that put the future of the planet ahead of the quarterly reports to big-oil shareholders, for example. As it turns out, the failure of Copenhagen has been squarely set on the shoulders of Canada.

The big story in Copenhagen was the tarring of Canada's environmental image under Stephen Harper. Once the impetus and the inspiration for a climate deal, Canada became the biggest obstacle to the negotiations. In the past several days, we've won the Fossil Award (again), and been tagged by the Yes Men with a prank that made international headlines for catching Canada with its political pants down at the talks. Worst of all, other world leaders are openly critical of Canada -- and baffled that the thoughtful leadership of Canada in Kyoto has been replaced by an obstructionist Canadian government.

The reason for our new laggard reputation? Everyone at the table in Copenhagen -- and most of us here at home -- realize that Canada's economic and environmental policy are now effectively being driven from the Alberta oil patch.

The problem -- in a nutshell -- is that Mr. Harper has an oil policy, rather than an environmental policy.

I've been to the oil sands in Fort McMurray. In winter. It's not exactly a hot tourist destination. The last leg of the flight -- on a plane so small I thought they'd ask us to flap our arms for takeoff -- was like flying into oblivion. We arrived to a town that was very dark, absolutely frigid -- and existed for only one reason: the tar sands. Business kept me there only a few days, but it was a remarkable experience.

It's hard to grasp the scale of what's going on in the tar sands. Everything is oversized. I'm a fairly tall woman, but the top of my head barely reaches the axle on the trucks used to move the bitumen-soaked sands around. The equipment there makes our combines look like so many dinky toys. Everything about the place -- the deposits, the machinery, the water requirements, the emissions, the economy -- is massive.

The oil sands of Alberta have been an economic boom in Harper's home province, and -- to be fair -- provide some energy stability for the rest of Canada. The question is: at what cost?

Outside of Canada, other nations are starting to talk about our "dirty oil": a reference to the environmental toll of extracting and processing the bitumen. Critics point out that the tar sands expansion not only costs the environment -- it throws enormous volumes of carbon into the atmosphere -- but it also focuses attention on the wrong issue. We should not, they argue, be looking at how we can extract more oil from the ground; we should be looking at alternative energy solutions. Just before showing up in Denmark for the climate talks, Harper was in China -- actually promoting the tar sands. That display of narrow, economic self-interest was hardly a gesture of good faith going into the international negotiations. This week, it emerged that Harper's government was looking at actually reducing the targets for the oil and gas industry.

All this might be acceptable -- we don't necessarily live for the admiring glances of other nations -- if this was just a domestic issue. If our inaction wasn't costing the planet, damaging our neighbours, and stealing the future from our children.

And while he would have us believe that protecting the oil sands somehow benefits Canadians outside of Alberta, that scheme doesn't really pencil out. Beyond the obvious -- an oil extraction process which emits three times the CO2 of conventional oil production -- there will be other costs. I think we should probably conclude, for example, that provinces like Ontario will be expected to shoulder an extra share of the burden to cut total emissions. I have some idea how that will go over here. But Mr. Harper is king of "wedge" politics and west versus east is one of his most popular themes: at least as early as his "firewall around Alberta" remarks.

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Maybe Mr. Harper believes his position is politically expedient -- that Canadians just don't care enough about climate change to call him to task on this. But a national poll last month (The Globe and Mail, Nov. 23) concluded that Canadians aren't on-side with Mr. Harper on this issue. In fact, three-quarters of Canadians polled expressed "embarrassment" over Canada's lack of leadership on climate change.

Perhaps this is because our government's position on climate change is profoundly out of step with values that many would simply call "Canadian." After all, climate change is also an issue of social justice. Developed nations are responsible for the vast majority of the current problem, and we have benefited from the carbon-producing industries that have enriched us. Now, global warming trends are already associated with drought, hunger, dislocation and human misery in several parts of the world: most notably in places like sub-Saharan Africa. And the future prospects are more ominous. In the analysis of people such as such as Gwyn Dyer, allowing global temperatures to rise more than two degrees will produce a humanitarian nightmare. And without an agreement in Copenhagen this year, it's broadly expected within the scientific community that we will overshoot the two degree threshold.

Consider, too, that climate change is also a security issue. We spend billions of dollars per year on our security forces and missions, presumably in the pursuit of collective security for ourselves and our allies around the world. But what happens to that security, I wonder, when millions of destitute, displaced "climate refugees" begin to migrate across international borders?

According to the November poll, most Canadians (in sharp contrast to our federal government) recognize climate change as a leadership issue. Climate change is only one of the many issues that we will need to deal with through multilateral negotiations with other nations. There's trade, human rights, the management of global fisheries, nuclear proliferation, and any number of more obscure issues upon which Canada was once consulted as a thoughtful, respected leader. We are, after all, the country that led the world discussion in restricting the use of landmines, worldwide. We hosted the Montreal summit on CFCs and ozone depletion: a summit that resulted in worldwide action leading to a reversal and repair of the ozone hole. Canada built a reputation for diplomatic leadership -- and we've squandered it in a very public way in Copenhagen. This week, Mr. Harper didn't even deliver the Canadian position himself. The heads of state of more than 50 countries took the podium to speak personally to their country's commitment. Mr. Harper went to a party instead, and sent Jim Prentice to the podium. Our time slot to speak was near midnight; no one expected much from Canada . . . and they weren't disappointed.

It's perfectly evident to the world that on climate change we've become an international laggard and an evident force of obstruction to a meaningful international accord. The frame that our Prime Minister (member for Calgary Southwest), and his Minister of the Environment, Jim Prentice (member for Calgary Centre North) have offered us is one that Canadians are not even buying. It's certainly not one that has any prospect of improving our reputation at and beyond Copenhagen.

On the debit side of the ledger, we may well have squandered our last, best chance to make a difference, and Canada had a leading role in what will be remembered as a sorry chapter in our collective history.

Let's remember, though, that hope also rests with Canadians -- not the government, but with people like those here in Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound -- who recognize both the threat of climate change, and the opportunities for communities like ours to become a part of the solution.

Kimberley Love is the Federal Liberal Candidate for Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound. She is hosting a workshop session on the Liberal "Clean Energy Economy" platform later this winter.