Stephen Harper on the Road to Damascus

By GERRY WARNER
Cranbrook Daily Townsman
Feb. 2, 2007
So Stephen Harper wants to be the Jolly Green Giant of Canadian politics to which there can only be one logical response -- not a chance.
Oh, if it was only true that Harper had seen the light so to speak and had a conversion to the environmental cause like Saul on the Road to Damascus. But Harper's own words belie any thought of this. Don't believe me? Then read them for yourself. Less than five years ago in a 2002 fund-raising letter to members of the now defunct Canadian Alliance Party, Harper had this to say about environmentalism, Kyoto and the like: "Kyoto is essentially a socialist scheme to suck money out of wealth-producing nations," says the letter signed by the now-PM. And showing where his true loyalties lie, he goes on to say "Implementing Kyoto will cripple the oil and gas industry . . ." He also blasts the treaty for targeting carbon dioxide, which he says is "essential for life" and plays down the role of carbon in triggering climate change, saying the evidence is "tentative and contradictory" and ends the incendiary missive promising "a battle of Kyoto."
Phew! And we're supposed to believe this is the born-again, true believer who's going to lead Canada down a new road of clean air, sparkling water and sustainable development? Call me a cynic Martha, but I don't believe it. What I do believe is that, ever-the-strategist, Harper has stuck a wet finger in the air and rightly concluded what way the wind is blowing. And the wind indicates Canadians care deeply about the environment -- much more than Harper or his party ever has -- ergo the prime minister orders a green suit and declares himself a born-again environmentalist. So much so that the Kyoto hater and the Kyoto baiter is now willing to --gasp! -- climb into bed with the dreaded socialists and draft a new Clean Air Act if only those commie-loving NDP'ers will prop up his minority government a few months longer. This from the guy that complained in his fund-raising letter of the"job-killing, economy-destroying Kyoto Accord."
And it doesn't end there as Harper allowed this week he even sent his new attack dog Environment Minister John Baird to Paris to attend a key UN conference on climate change. But, as he was being battered by the opposition in Parliament last week, Harper made his loftiest pronouncement of all.
Are you ready for this?
Our new, green, super-hero said he's willing to attend a UN Summit on global warming in person if only -- and you couldn't miss the pleading tone in hisvoice -- someone would just send him an invitation. "I have not received an invitation from the United NationsSecretary-General, Harper told the Commons. "However, if we did, we would accept . . . we all realize this is a serious environmental problem that needs immediate action.
"Talk about irony! Talk about what a politician will do to survive. But let's take Canada's newest convert to the environmental cause at his word and hope that this is indeed a sincere conversion. If so, perhaps Canada will finally get the environmental leadership it needs, and who knows, maybe StephenHarper will even get re-elected with a majority. Surely an issue like global warming is too important to leave to mere politicians of any stripe.
If you talk to scientists, the evidence is overwhelming and scientists, to their credit, don't play politics with the issue.When Environment Minister Baird attended the UN conference in Paris last week he heard from a group of leading scientists, whose work on global warming inspired Kyoto, that the evidence of climate change is "unequivocal" and happening faster than expected. French President Jacques Chirac is expected to ask Baird to support creation of a new United Nations environmental agency. Baird hasn't said one way or the other so far, but his answer when it does come may well stand as a litmus test on whether the Harper government is really sincere about its new concern for the environment or is just blowing a lot of political hot air so to speak.
In Vancouver last week, the Fraser Institute, political soulmates of the Harper conservatives, put finishing touches on a report that contends human-caused global warming is a "hypothesis." The Cato Institute, a Washington-based think tank and die-hard supporter of the Bush administration, issued a statement saying "anyone who says that the planet is warming at an increasing rate is simply dead wrong."
Obviously the Cato Institute hasn't seen the shrinking glaciers of the Kootenays. Unfortunately, one also has to wonder if Stephen Harper is aware of them either?
-- 30 --