No reason for delay

One more point should be highlighted from last night's article on Canada's greenhouse gas emission record. While data showing that emission levels had stabilized from 2003 to 2005 is far from a credit to the Libs, it surely disproves one of the Cons' favourite excuses for kicking any action down the road:

Canada's greenhouse gas emissions have stabilized in recent years, but the latest numbers are still 32 per cent above Kyoto Protocol targets, according to data sent to the United Nations on Friday.

Canada emitted 747 megatonnes of greenhouse gases in 2005, compared to the 1990 level of 596 megatonnes, according to data sent by Environment Canada to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. But the 2005 emission levels were unchanged from the previous year and only 0.3 per cent higher than in 2003.

Now, it's possible that emissions may have started rising again in 2006. And if so, that would presumably have been helped along by the Cons' lack of interest in the environment on taking office.

But the new data shows that there's absolutely no truth to the Cons' typical bleatings that we need to spend years pondering how to reduce the rate at which emission increases are accelerating before the concept of absolute reductions can even be discussed. Instead, Canada's emissions may well be stabilized already, and at worse could be returned to a stable position through the same policies which were in place when the Cons first took office.

Again, none of the above is to say that we should be satisfied with merely stabilizing the damage, or that the Libs were anything but negligent in allowing emissions to grow to their current level. But the next necessary step is to actually start reducing Canada's emissions - not merely to try to restrain "growth" which isn't even taking place. And voters have no reason to think that a government which has done its best to misrepresent our actual starting point can be trusted to lead Canada forward from there.