Canadians Once Pointed An Accusing Finger At the U.S. For Pollution. – Now We Are The Environmental Rogue

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.
Indeed, Canada’s prime minister was not even on the same stage when Obama announced what many environmentalist feel a failed outcome of the Copenhagen talks – a non-binding agreement with major emitters of greenhouse gases like China and India to keep global temperatures from rising above two degrees Celsius over the next decade and to halve worldwide emissions of greenhouse pollutants below 1990 levels by 2020.
Perhaps one of the more embarrassing moments for Canada during the Copenhagen summit came when an open letter, signed by former Canadian Conservative prime minister Kim Campbell, former Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev a host of scientists and business leaders from around the world, challenged the country, as one of the world’s top-ten emitters of greenhouse gases, not to miss out on “the economic opportunity of the 21st century” to be a world leader in developing cleaner, greener sources of energy.
Indeed, there are at some Canadians who are expressing disappointment in the weak role the country played in the Copenhagen talks. But I don’t know how Canadians could have expected more from the Harper Conservatives.
They are simply performing the way we should expect they would for a party that has very openly placed the interests of business and the free market high on its agenda and has never really taken environmental issues all that seriously. If anything, this has been a party of climate change deniers up to the last year or so when Obama, who believes that climate change is for real, was elected president and Harper and company feel they have little choice but to play along.
Harper’s Conservatives are more committed to protecting the tar sands of Alberta, which are, by the way, a major source of oil to Obama’s America. Despite the protests of groups like the Sierra Club of Canada, the Council of Canadians and others, many Canadians may feel that is okay. After all Harper’s government isn’t doing all that badly, compared to the other parties, in the polls and might even win a majority of seats in parliament if an election was held now.
That doesn’t spell much hope for Canada regaining an international presence as an environmental leader but maybe a majority of Canadians no longer care.

The following are some eyewitness dispatches from the Copenhagen summit, filed by members of the not-for-profit citizens group, the Council of Canadians, and shared with Niagara At Large courtesy of Fiona McMurran, chairman of the South Niagara Chapter of the Council of Canadians.

From Council of Canadians member Brent Patterson in Copenhagen on Dec. 16, 2009 –

“We have just arrived at Taarnby Station, the gathering point for the march
to the Bella Center (where the summit was being held in Copenhagen).
The train we were on, which was packed with people also heading to this
march, was delayed for about 30 minutes. An announcement had said the train
was stopped because ‘activists’ were blocking the tracks. None of us believe
that.
In the morning news we find even more reasons to take part in this action
today.
A major new report by International Upper Great Lakes Study Board has found
that climate change has already caused a discernible drop in the water
levels of the Great Lakes.
The Great Lakes are the primary source of drinking water for millions of
people.
The report, that involved more than 100 scientists and engineers, estimates
that Lake Huron and Lake Michigan have fallen about a quarter metre relative
to Lake Erie over the last fifty years with 40-74 percent of that reduction
due to climate change.
This news comes just after reports that documents prepared for the Harper
government in advance of the Copenhagen summit reveal they are considering
weaker – than the already weak – emission targets for the tar sands.
Emissions from the tar sands are expected to triple between now and 2020 and
become the source of 12 percent of Canada’s overall emissions.
Recent science demands that global North countries commit to at least a 40
percent reduction in emissions below 1990 levels by 2020.
The Harper government is promising a mere three percent reduction, and even that
pledge is considered doubtful.
The tar sands are driving Canada’s climate change policy, which is also a
very clear threat to water justice.
Mr. Harper has a critical decision to make. The climate or more emissions
from the tar sands? Water or oil?”

From Council of Canadians energy campaigner Andrea Harden-Donahue -

”Just back from the Reclaim the Power demonstration that Brent Patterson has blogged on recently. Brent, Anil, Maude and I were in the demonstration of thousands as we approached the barricade outside the Bella Centre where the climate negotiations are taking place.
I want to be clear. This was a non-violent demonstration. The objective was to overcome the barricades purely in the power of numbers, no violence against people. The goal was to hold a peoples assembly to convey the urgency of the climate crisis, the failure of world leaders to commit to needed emission reductions, poor commitments to climate financing for the global South and convey some of the false solutions that are being tabled at the negotiations (such as carbon offsets).
It was the police that instigated the violence. We all witnessed it. Tear gas, pepper spray, batons were all used against activists. Police vans were used to herd activists to the point of people falling over each other and as someone we spoke to experienced, at the same time this was happening, activists were being beaten with batons and suffering the effects of tear gas and pepper spray.
I have uploaded footage I took of main organizers who were on a wagon declaring over a loudspeaker that this was a peaceful non-violent, direct action, being arrested.
You can watch the video at our webpage: www.canadians.org/climatejustice
You can also watch a video blog by Maude about the demonstration at our Copenhagen facebook group: http://www.facebook.com/groups.php?ref=sb#/group.php?gid=219942242027
You can also find daily video blogs from me describing our actions in Copenhagen on our facebook group and our climate justice webpage: www.canadians.org/climatejustice.
Onwards.”

From Council of Canadians director Maude Barlow –

“I was in the march that had more 100,000 people
demanding climate justice and action. Suddenly, an unprovoked and very
military-style police action took place.
Hundreds of young people were surrounded by police in riot gear with dogs. They were forced to sit for hours on the cold ground with their hands tied behind their backs. There was no provocation for these arrests.
I’m outraged at this treatment of legitimate protesters and the media’s distorted reporting of it. If anything, we should be thanking these young people for having the courage to
stand up for the kind of world that will help our planet and species
survive. It’s their future that is in jeopardy and they have more of a right
than anyone to be heard.”