Time for Harper to Show Some Leadership

I can understand why Stephen Harper drives "progressives" nuts with rage ... it's the bloody hypocrisy. I have no doubt that Harper & Co. are fully aware that the science that underpins the theory of Anthropogenic Global Warming is badly flawed, and each month that passes finds more holes being drilled in the foundations of the IPCC's case. Just this week, for instance, 160 physicists signed a letter to the US senate that emphatically states that there is no consensus. Yet, Harper "pretends" that he is concerned about CO2 emissions ... while in fact, he does nothing.

This is politicking at its worst ... this is dirty tricks at its worst. Even the general public now has moved way ahead of the political class in its understanding that AGW is not a fact, but rather a theory.

It's time for Stephen Harper to take a real stand, not the misleading mush that he's been dishing up ... not the talk that isn't matched with the walk.

So Stephen, what do you really believe? Do you still think as you did while in opposition that AGW is just a global power grab by transnationalists? Or, is AGW a real threat to the planet ... in which case, we'd better start taking serious action ... yesterday.

In the end, it's clear that Harper still believes what he did years ago ... that AGW is a concoction dreamed up by the transnational socialists among us; like Suzuki, like Gore, like Soros, like Obama, like Strong, and like the parasites that lurk in the halls of the UN ... otherwise, the CPC would’ve prompted serious AGW mitigating action long ago.

It's time for Steve to offer some genuine leadership ... leadership that stands up in Copenhagen and says to the world that AGW is NOT a proven fact, and that Canada WILL NOT sacrifice her economy on the altar of transnationalism simply for a theory that is collapsing with every month that passes.

Or, is it that Steve, having been around the Ottawa mandarins for some time now, is salivating at the chance to increase the power of the PMO and buy votes in Eastern and Central Canada by skimming off Western wealth ... after all, Ottawa has a way of corrupting. Let's hope that the rot hasn't gotten under the Teflon of our CPC PM.


Ross McKitrick weighs in:

We are sleepwalking into some of the most disruptive and costly energy-policy misadventures since the National Energy Plan of the 1970s without the Conservatives having published a single estimate of the economic consequences.

Last week the David Suzuki Foundation and the Pembina Institute released a report arguing that Canada could meet a greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction target of 20% below 2006 levels by 2020, at a cost of about 1.5% of Gross Domestic Product as of 2020. They referred to this as the “Government” target. That would be the Conservative government, of course, who adopted the target under their “Turning the Corner” plan announced in 2007.

Prior to that the Conservatives had blasted the Liberals for ratifying the Kyoto Protocol and imposing on Canada a ruinous requirement to cut GHG emissions to 6% below 1990 levels by 2008. The Conservatives rightly pointed out that this was completely unrealistic and would be devastating for the Canadian economy. So it was no small irony to see the new report point out, on Page 1, that the Conservative Government’s target equates to 3% below 1990 levels: almost identical to Kyoto.

Update: What Leadership Looks Like