On political will

CTV reports that the public isn't buying the PMS/Ignatieff defeatist line on greenhouse gas emissions, as three-quarters of the respondents to a McAllister Opinion Research poll believe that Canada can and should meet its Kyoto targets:

Climate change has jumped dramatically on the scale of Canadians' worries over the last year and most people want the government to meet Kyoto targets, according to an environmental poll.

Global warming is second place as a top-of-mind environmental issue, next only to air quality, says McAllister Opinion Research, an international firm known for its research on environmental issues...

McAllister's poll suggests that the great majority of Canadians don't agree with that stance. It found that 77 per cent believe Canada should meet or exceed its Kyoto targets for cutting emissions.

More than 90 per cent of Canadians said climate change will be a serious problem if not addressed, and 75 per cent believe that a "good amount" or a "great deal" can be done to fight the problem...

McAllister said there has been a resurgence of concern about environmental issues in general, after a long period in the '90s when they virtually disappeared from the "top of mind" list.

He said environment is now at the top of the list in Quebec while in the rest of Canada it is third place after health and governance, but rapidly moving into second place.

So much for the supposed "consensus" that Canada should give up on Kyoto and start setting targets 40 years down the road. But the more interesting question is whether the current naysayers will recognize that Canadians want to see their government put solutions in place to enable Canada to reach its existing targets - not plead a lack of popular support as excuse to do nothing. And when the actual public mood is so squarely in favour of real progress, it'll take an awful lot of wilful ignorance for even PMS to follow through on a plan to do nothing.