With Prime Minister Stephen Harper stalling on climate change, Canadians are moving on without him, reporter Geoff Dembicki opines on The Tyee.
Harper’s Conservative government “passed laws to accelerate the growth of Canada’s oil and gas industry, while pledging carbon regulations that never came. He pulled Canada from the Kyoto Protocol, muzzled federal scientists and cut funding to their research, strong-armed the U.S. on bitumen pipelines, and set climate targets he had no clear intention of meeting,” Dembicki writes.
- Concise headlines. Original content. Timely news and views from a select group of opinion leaders. Special extras.
- Everything you need, nothing you don’t.
- The Weekender: The climate news you need.
“But something unexpected happened. A frustrated cohort of students, provinces, investors, and unions decided to take decisive climate action on its own.” For four years, he says, Harper has governed from behind a system of ideological “levees” to protect his belief that climate action is inconsistent with a healthy economy. Now those levees are on the verge of collapse. “As the federal election this fall nears, how long will Harper ignore the forces rising against him?”
