Despite recent toned-down rhetoric, I suspect Harper and his minions are fooling very few people.
Take, for example, the recent words of our Anti-Environment Minister, the integrity-challenged Peter Kent:
Confronted by a looming 2020 deadline for curbing greenhouse gas emissions, the Harper government will ramp up its efforts to reduce climate change pollutants, Environment Minister Peter Kent said Wednesday.
In fact, as the article points out, the Harper regime has contributed almost nothing to achieve current reductions which take us halfway to the target; that has been wrought primarily by the combined efforts of environmentally conscious consumers and actions taken by provincial governments.
To further undermine any semblance of veracity, it was recently revealed that last year, this contemptible Harper mouthpiece presided over a department that
tried to minimize Canadian media coverage of its contribution to a major international scientific assessment report that highlighted evidence linking human activity to extreme weather events, according to a newly released federal memorandum obtained by Postmedia News.
Actions, as they say, do speak louder than words.
And of course, it is only words we are getting from our Prime Prevaricator, the man who has amply demonstrated through the actions of his micro-managed government nothing but withering contempt for science, data, and facts in general, doing everything he can to neutralize their threat along with those who dare to challenge his stunted and regressive world-view.
Take this rather rich statement Harper recently made, apparently with a straight face:
“The only way governments can handle controversial projects of this manner is to ensure that things are evaluated on an independent basis scientifically, and not simply on political criteria,” Harper told reporters during a visit to B.C.
“And as I’ve said repeatedly, the government does not pick and choose particular projects,” the prime minister said. “The government obviously wants to see British Columbia’s export trade continue to grow and diversify, that’s important. But projects have to be evaluated on their own merits.”
I guess that explains why he neutered the National Energy Board, robbing it of its ability to make a decision on the Northern Gateway Project, a power now residing solely in the hands of Harper and his cronies.
In his column today, which I hope you will get a chance to read, Thomas Walkom has much to say on some of these issues.
I have to start this brief entry by invoking an old cliche: the best defense is a strong offense. That certainly seems to be the strategy 'Environment' Minister Peter Kent is pulling out of his very limited playbook at the UN conference on the environment in Rio as he intones that Canada must stop the spread of “misinformation” on the environment by ecologists with an ideological agenda.
While the world's anger builds at Canada's abdication of its environmental responsibilities as it hastens to deepen even more the profits of resource companies, Kent's message is both predictable and preposterous. Everything is fine, nothing to see here, move along and pay no attention to those domestic ecoterrorists like David Suzuki spreading lies about the good work his government is doing on the environmental file.
Try telling that to the flora and fauna that will be destroyed thanks to the most recent depredations made possible by Bill C-38.
Environment minister’s office urged bureaucrats to blame media for recycling controversy
Nope, no surprises here in the depth of contempt both the P.M. And Peter Kent feel for the people they 'serve'.
