By Doug Draper
There was a time – some 20 or 30 years ago – when we Canadians thought we were so clean when it came to protecting the environment that practically no other country on earth could take a front seat to us.
Council of Canadians leader Maude Barlow tries to smile on her way to a public rally at the Copenhagen climate change summit. Photo courtest of Council of Canadians
As a veteran environment writer, I know we were never quite as clean as we wanted to believe. Our American neighbours, right across the border in Niagara Falls, N.Y., may have had the infamous Love Canal dump. But in our own quieter way, we were doing our share of releasing damaging pollutants to the land, air and water.
Yet we still had reason to be proud. Agencies like Environment Canada and Ontario’s own Ministry of Environment had scientists doing groundbreaking research and our governments were taking unprecedented steps to purge our Great Lakes of pollution. We had environment ministers like the late Charles Caccia, federally, and Jim Bradley, provincially, taking a lead in protecting vital natural resources like the Niagara River – even when it sometimes drew the ire of their U.S. counterparts.
I now look back on those times with a sense of nostalgia and sadness because they are gone. If there was ever any more proof of that, it was in Copenhagen at the climate change negotiations where Canada’s prime minister, Stephen Harper – when he wasn’t being mocked by environmentalists around the globe as a “fossil” – barely had any presence to speak of on the international stage. He was a veritable midget compared to U.S. President Barack Obama, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and other world leaders because he has chosen to be a follower, and not a leader, when it comes to wrestling down possibly the most serious environmental issue facing us for generations to come. Continue reading →
