For immediate release
November 23, 2010
OTTAWA- In Question Period yesterday, former BC Environment Minister and Vancouver Quadra Liberal MP Joyce Murray demanded a response on the Conservatives’ climate change ‘con-job’ citing a new report revealing the federal government’s campaign to undermine international climate change action.
Yesterday, Climate Action Network Canada produced a report titled The Tar Sands’ Long Shadow: Canada’s Campaign to Kill Climate Policies Outside Our Borders. The report’s findings are based on a database of government letters, memos, speeches, and lobbyist reports received via access to information requests. It revealed “a concerted effort from the governments of Canada and Alberta to undermine climate policies outside our borders, with the aim of ensuring that no doors are closed to Canada’s highly polluting tar sands production.”
Ms. Murray said, “Conservatives have absolutely no plan to fight climate change. Instead they are leading the fight to preserve the status quo, shamefully lobbying to undermine the rest of the world’s efforts to address climate change and reduce fossil fuel pollution.”
To most Canadians, Conservative inaction on climate change is no surprise – from its international embarrassment in Copenhagen to Mr. Harper last week forcing his un-elected Senators to kill a bill already passed in the House of Commons, Bill C-311 (Climate Change Accountability Act), before any Senate debate could take place. The revelations in the Climate Action Network report only perpetuate Canada’s poor reputation on the world stage.
Next week Canada will participate in the UN’s climate change conference in Cancun. Needless to say, expectation of Canada will be very low. “No one believes Conservatives take climate change seriously. As the world heads to the Cancun climate conference, will the government be a laughing stock, once again?” asked Ms. Murray in Question Period yesterday.
Ms. Murray is currently a Member of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development and the Parliamentary Standing Committee of Fisheries and Oceans. She attended the 2009 UN climate change conference in Copenhagen (COP15) as an observer.
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Background:
November 22, 2010 – Hansard – Question Period
Ms. Joyce Murray (Vancouver Quadra, Lib.):
Mr. Speaker, today leaked documents confirm the government’s sad climate change con job. Its objective is to undermine action on climate change at home and abroad. Its strategy is for three government departments to partner with the oil sands industry. Its action is to lobby for accepting excessive oil sands emissions, while doing nothing to reduce them.
Could the minister explain why the government is taking its lead from the oil industry and has no plan to actually reduce emissions?
Mr. Speaker, we are following the Copenhagen accord and are working very closely with Barack Obama’s administration. However, let me commend the member opposite the following quote:
| The stupidest thing you can do (is) to run against an industry that is providing employment for hundreds of thousands of Canadians, and not just in Alberta, but right across the country… |
The member should at least listen to the leader of the Liberal Party of Canada.
Ms. Joyce Murray (Vancouver Quadra, Lib.):
Mr. Speaker, the vast majority of Canadians want a real plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, not a con job. Canada can and should be a leader on this issue. We should be about renewable energy, about eliminating subsidies that reward pollution, about pushing for energy efficiency, about being leaders in green technology.
The government’s plan does just the opposite, and no one believes Conservatives take climate change seriously. As the world heads to the Cancun climate conference, will the government be a laughing stock, once again?
Mr. Speaker, our government recognizes the environmental challenges of developing the oil sands. We are working with all levels of government and with the industry to ensure those are dealt with.
However, what I cannot understand is there are over 120,000 direct and indirect jobs associated with the oil sands across the country and I do not know why the member would be opposing that important part of our economy.
