The previous Liberal government ratified the Kyoto Protocol knowing Canada wasn't ready to take the tough measures needed to address climate change and would likely miss the deadlines for reducing emissions, says a top adviser to former prime minister Jean Chretien.What Goldenberg apparently chose not to discuss was the question of how Canadians in general could be seen as not yet willing to act when the Libs themselves had won a majority government promising far more ambitious emissions cuts a few years earlier - and when the pro-action parties in Parliament were never substantially outnumbered by the Alliance.
Eddie Goldenberg says the Chretien government nevertheless signed and ratified the international pact because it was an "absolutely necessary" first step in galvanizing public opinion to meet the global warming challenge.
Goldenberg was a senior adviser to Chretien when the Liberal government signed onto Kyoto in 1998 and formally ratified it in 2002.
He said Thursday that public opinion at the time favoured ratification "in the abstract," despite strident opposition by some provinces, the business community and the Conservative party's predecessor, the Canadian Alliance. But he doubted Canadians were ready for the concrete measures the government would have had to take to meet the Kyoto targets.
"Nor was the government itself even ready at the time with what had to be done," he said in a speech to the Canadian Club of London, Ont., the text of which was provided to The Canadian Press.
Rather than acting, the Libs effectively ignored the issue entirely until Kyoto. And thanks to Goldenberg, we now know that even then they signed on with no intention of actually meeting Canada's targets. Which can only undercut their own credibility in criticizing Harper's absurd "we support Kyoto but not its targets" stance - and offer yet more reason for suspicion about the Libs' supposed conversion.
(Edit: fixed label.)
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