Lowered expectations

Amid all the hype about Michael Ignatieff's soon-to-be-announced environmental plan, it's worth noting that Ignatieff appears to be wrongly buying into the Cons' claim that Canada's Kyoto commitments aren't worth keeping:

Michael Ignatieff's environmental plan, to be released Monday, calls for a “polluter pays” system that would include lower taxes at the pumps for consumers who use greener fuel.

The perceived front-runner in the Liberal leadership race will also concede that Canada cannot meet the Kyoto Protocol's target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 6 per cent below 1990 levels by 2012.

Instead, his plan would reduce Canada's carbon dioxide emissions to at least 50 per cent below 1990 levels by 2050, with interim targets set for each decade, according to a senior campaign official familiar with the plan.

It's not clear how such a plan is supposed to present any meaningful opposition to Harper and the Cons, who have generally assumed a similar effect to be reached through miraculous technological steps with no encouragement from a public policy perspective. But it's glaringly clear that Ignatieff is perfectly willing to buy into Harper's defeatism to at least some extent while ignoring both the commitment Canada's government made in ratifying Kyoto, and the readily available and cost-neutral policy ideas which would put Canada on a path to reduce greenhouse gas emissions now. Which means that the possibility of an Ignatieff win is looking more likely by the day to boost the NDP's fortunes as the sole party willing to actually take a truly progressive stance.