On global solutions

For those looking for some good news out of Ottawa, the NDP has reintroduced its Climate Change Accountability Act which made it through the House but not the Senate last year. And it looks to have already provoked a downright comical reaction from the Cons:

Mr. James Bezan (Selkirk—Interlake, CPC):

Mr. Speaker, today the NDP proposed to reintroduce a climate change bill that would see Canada abandon our shared targets with the United States. This would put in jeopardy our plan for a joint North American climate change strategy.

Could the Minister of the Environment comment on how the bill would adversely affect the global fight against climate change?

Hon. Jim Prentice (Minister of the Environment, CPC):

Mr. Speaker, let me compliment my friend on his reasoned language and on his chairmanship of the environment committee of the House.

The NDP bill would have Canada diverge dramatically from the common targets that our government has put forward and that President Obama has put forward. The NDP would lead us down a path toward isolation that would exacerbate the economic downturn.

The NDP clearly does not get it. Everyone agrees that we need climate change policies that are measured to work together in partnership with other members of the international community.

For our part, we will continue to work with the new U.S. administration on this task. I encourage opposition parties to do the same.

Now, it's easy enough to dispense with the main apparent criticism of the bill: nothing in the NDP's legislation would do anything to rule out or undermine any bilateral process. What it would do instead is to bring Canada back in line with the broader international effort which the Cons have ignored in favour of trying to tie themselves to lower U.S. standards.

And that's where the Cons' staged question and answer get all the more laughable. While both Bezan and Prentice try to cloud the issue by tossing in terms which imply a broader effort, both make it clear that the Cons' real focus is solely on a two-country which ignores the work being done around the world.

Of course, the Cons have also made no secret of their desire to build in language to exclude the greatest polluters from even that limited framework. And that offers yet another obvious hole in the Cons' claim: as much as they try to pretend to be working on common ground with Obama, the reality is that the new U.S. administration hasn't shown any sign of buying the Cons' excuses.

Which means that the real choice is to engage with the U.S. along with the rest of the world - which the NDP's longer-term targets would make possible - or to keep clinging to the hope that Obama will be as irresponsible as his predecessor. And the fact that the Cons can manage to be sanctimonious about the latter choice may signal that they haven't yet come to terms with just how alone Canada may be in the world as long as Harper remains in charge.