The importance of feigning action

So Jim Prentice, seeing a need to deflect attention from something or other, took the opportunity to declare his dedication to putting a carbon trading system in place:

Environment Minister Jim Prentice unveiled two key draft documents Wednesday related to the offset system at a speech before the Economic Club of Canada in Ottawa.

The documents set out the rules and requirements for generating offset credits that represent emissions reductions and guidelines for checks to ensure those reductions are real and quantifiable.
...
The environment minister opened Wednesday's speech by emphasizing the importance of taking action.

"I don't think that any of us … can afford, for the sake of our children or our grandchildren, not to succeed in the battle against climate change. The consequences are too great and the stakes are too high."

So just how much commitment has Prentice shown to the federal government's role in a carbon market? For the answer, let's take a quick look at the historical record. It was nearly a year ago that former Con Environment Minister John Baird's office released this:

Two other guidance documents will be published later in the summer: the Guide for Project Proponents and the Guide for Verification Bodies.

Each of these documents will first be published in the Canada Gazette, Part I for a 60-day public consultation. It is anticipated that revisions may be made and the final guidance documents published in the fall.

In case there was any doubt, the Guide for Project Proponents and the Guide for Verification Bodies are the two documents which Prentice released today. Which means that after eight months on the job as Environment Minister, Prentice is just now getting around to what Baird was supposedly ready to do in two weeks when the Cons precipitated the 2008 election.

But let's not give Baird too much credit for getting anything of substance done either. After all, the publication of the guides doesn't figure to accomplish much of anything absent some actual emission regulations which would make trading into a viable commercial endeavour. And Prentice is now the third Con Environment Minister in three years to declare that he'll get around to it "next year".

In sum, then, this looks to be an example of a Con minister pointing to his own inability to find his own ass with a map and a flashlight as a diversion from deliberate decisions to use his ministry to benefit the Cons' oil-patch benefactors. But while the Cons may figure they'd rather have Canadians focused on their neglect than on their cronyism, both should serve as ample reason for a change in government.