Liberals Roll Over: The Environment

In working with the "Liberals Roll Over" theme, it's worth mentioning some reminders of the more glaring examples of how the Libs - under multiple leaders - have gone out of their way to give the Harper Cons what they've wanted. So let's get started with the key issue which the Libs have tried hardest to make their own during Harper's tenure in power - only to end up helping the Cons in making matters worse.

After Stephane Dion built his successful leadership bid around the environment, it was to be expected that there would be a few showdowns between a Lib party claiming to see the issue as one of the three "pillars" of its philosophy, and a Con government which has obviously gone out of its way to avoid doing anything meaningful on the issue.

And for at least one fleeting moment, it looked like the result might be for the Libs (in cooperation with the other opposition parties) to manage to get some positive changes passed despite Con recalcitrance. After spending months complaining about an NDP-demanded committee to rewrite the Cons' sad excuse for an environmental bill (C-30), the Libs eventually decided at the last minute to work with it - with the end result being an amended bill supported by all three opposition parties.

It may not be much of a surprise that the Cons' answer was to refuse to advance the bill any further - and of course in the summer of 2007 they prorogued Parliament to completely halt its progress. Which is where the Libs' rolling over comes in.

Dion publicly demanded that the Cons bring back the amended C-30 in their throne speech (and by implication as a government bill in the new session of Parliament) - failing which the Libs would vote down the Con government.

Of course, Harper's throne speech did nothing of the sort: not only did it promise to bring back only the elements of C-30 which had all-party agreement (i.e. the Cons would do what the Cons planned to do anyway), but it included a deliberate shot at the Kyoto process which the opposition parties were still looking to work under.

Did the Libs even consider sticking to their word? Not for a second: instead, their new line in the sand became only a weak statement that they wouldn't vote for Con legislation that would endanger the environment.

Having set a bar low enough to allow them to keep propping up the Cons despite continued inaction on climate change and even damaging regulations or other governmental functions which didn't go through Parliament or even back down on legislation by simply allowing it to pass, the Libs still miraculously managed to keep rolling over since - voting with the Cons on this year's budget with its attacks on environmental protection for Canada's waterways. And by stating that wringing every drop of oil out of Alberta's tar sands is a matter of "national unity" which overrides any apparent consideration of environmental costs, Michael Ignatieff has made clear that the Libs don't have any intention of improving matters anytime soon even if they do manage to stumble into a chance to do so.

So more than two years after a legislative plan to deal with greenhouse gas emissions won majority approval in the House of Commons, and nearly two years after the Libs supposedly made that plan a condition of their support for the Con government, we're now in an even worse position than we were at the time. And all because when given the chance to stand up for what was supposed to be a core principle, the Libs have rolled over time and time again.



(Edit: fixed typo.)