Do Not Doubt Our Sincerity

Nice work; here on the one hand is Canada's minister of the environment, Jim Prentice, earnestly putting forward Canada's position on climate change, urgently attempting to ensure that the international community's opinion of Canada-the-Good is reinstated after the disappointment of the current government viewing the need to act as less than compelling; talking a fairly good line, and then another inconvenient truth raises its head.

At the United Nations conference on the environment currently taking place in Poznan, Poland, Minister Prentice is assuring the global community that Canada is right in there, anxious to prove that its response to the very real threat of climate change is reasonable, practical and executable - albeit sufficiently nuanced as to create real doubts in the minds of Canadian scientists with respect to the government's intentions.

Still, most Canadians are ready to give the government the benefit of the doubt, have quietly acquiesced to a wait-and-see attitude, particularly when seemingly more pressing issues have arisen to absorb our interests and anxieties in another direction. Enacting extensive legislation that would begin the process of protecting the environment is time-consuming, burdensome and costly.

Costs that Canada doesn't feel it can bear at this time. Seemingly at any time, but right now, with the global financial collapse and its creeping instability edging into the Canadian market, now is not the right time to pledge onto tightening up environmental protection. And latterly another complication has impacted on the country's intentions, with the Alberta tarsands' oil extraction in full production.

Now there's a real conundrum for any country to deal with, the extraction of really complex, dirty oil. Talk about time-consuming, costly processes; wasting water, despoiling bird sanctuaries, allowing the seepage of environment-deadly tailings to contaminate ground-water sources, impacting deleteriously on aboriginal lands, on peoples' properties and the quality of their lives.

Canada boasts a resource-rich economy, but it is fossil fuels, oil and gas, that increasingly enrich the economy, making a single province out of ten and three territories the new engine of the country's economy. Little wonder no one wants to put it aside, wrap it undisturbed for the foreseeable future until such time as the complexities of extraction without contamination can be resolved, if ever.

Leading the province to become extremely upset, aggrieved and downright combative when suggestions are timidly advanced that would impinge on their provincial rights of extraction and export-enrichment. And leading this government in particular, with its massive electoral support in the west of the country, to tread gingerly and, in the final analysis, be prepared to do very little to alter the situation in favour of a sustainable environment.

So while Canada is making its excuses, pledging its support in the global arena, and furthering a scheme for carbon dioxide emissions reduction far off into the future, official Ottawa is also impacting with questionable decision-making in other areas, clamping down on government-employed atmospheric scientists' obligations to their field of study in helping to identify, classify and realize ways that governments can alleviate the stresses communities impose on the environment, hastening climate change.

Alongside the larger conference in Poland, another was taking place, an organizing committee for the special World Meteorological Organization initiative, World Climate Conference-3, chaired by Don MacIver, director of the Adaptation and Impacts Research division at Environment Canada. A prestigious alliance of governmental scientists working to improve seasonal predictability of weather patterns over the coming decades.

However, even though Don MacIver, the Canadian scientist in question, had his travel costs paid for by the World Meteorological Organization, in recognition of his position as chairman of the organizing committee, Environment Canada bureaucrats informed him as he arrived at the airport for his flight to Poland, that permission to attend had been revoked. Claiming that financial considerations such as the cost of his salary and time away from work mitigated against the trip.

To which Mr. MacIver took great umbrage, writing to senior management at Environment Canada: "I have been placed in an untenable position and I say this with great reluctance because I remain hopeful that the essential milestones for World Climate Conference-3 can be achieved. However, given the delays in (Environment Canada's) support for this globally significant event and the ongoing embarrassment to Canada, it is clear that another chair from another supporting country is needed to provide critical leadership."

Now this is strange behaviour for a country as wealthy and socially progressive as Canada posits itself to be. Declaring at the world body that its intentions are honourable and that it takes pride in its determination to do its part in slowing climate change, government has chosen, unaccountably, to stifle its co-operation in an important scientific body. One which, furthermore, was intent on identifying "adaptation actions that will have immediate and immense socio-economic benefits for every Canadian, as well as taking positive steps forward to reduce the projected impacts from climate change".

Canada's esteemed minister of the environment, however, has shrugged off the incident as inconsequential in nature. Rather cavalierly claiming that he had personally reviewed Mr. MacIver's presentation, coming to the (scientifically uninformed) conclusion that it did not represent a critical element in his government's climate summit participation. Mind boggling, isn't it?

"It's not a scientific paper, it is a process-related paper", according to Mr. Prentice. "I don't question the professionalism in any way. I just make the point that it didn't strike me as being particularly contentious at all." Leading the casual onlooker like an ordinary Canadian taxpayer to wonder what yardstick of intelligent determination motivates a minister of environment to make such a claim.

After all, this year's summit was being negotiated for the purpose of building a framework on agreements to halt deforestation, to make use of technologies and funding for the purpose of assisting developing countries to cope with the impacts of climate change. If we cannot identify the critical parameters for best-practise responses and adapt accordingly, it becomes an empty exercise in rhetoric.

Back to the drawing board. Start with a little honesty, top it up with a reasonable amount of real purpose, and make a credible effort to produce real results.