There are few political opinions that veteran Prince Edward Island Liberal scrapper Wayne Easter and Stephen Harper’s former spin-doctor Kory Teneycke would share.
The politics of climate change appear to be one of them.
At a national Renewable Fuels Association conference last week, they were on separate panels and both were asked the role that climate change politics will play in the next election.
Their answers were identical.
“We had an election basically on climate change last time,” Teneycke replied. “It didn’t work out so well for Stéphane Dion.”
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Easter recalled the 2008 election during which the Liberal Green Shift, a carbon tax, was a centrepiece and damaged Liberal chances through rural Canada.
“As a Liberal, you have to ask how well that worked,” he said. “Don’t expect climate change or carbon taxes to be front and centre in the next election.”
As almost 200 country representatives gathered in Cancun, Mexico, this week for another round of climate change talks at which Canada’s Conservative government will predictably be castigated by environmentalists, it seems to be of declining interest to Canadians.
A Dec. 6 poll by Nanos Research suggested the environment at eight percent is a distant third in voter issues to the economy (22.1 percent) and health care (20.7 percent).
Other than among those who wouldn’t vote for them anyway, the Conservatives appear to face little voter backlash against their stance that the Kyoto greenhouse gas reduction targets approved by the Liberals in 1997 are unattainable and any new international effort must include major polluters such as the United States, India, China and Brazil.
It also is difficult to convince current voters and taxpayers to approve policies that would undermine their economic standing on the promise by scientists that it could have an effect 50 years down the road.
Political decisions almost always are more immediate and more selfish. Politicians know that.
Meanwhile, perceived misuse of green movement credibility is making voters and consumers cynical.
The term “green wash” to describe false environmental claims has become part of the language.
At a CropLife Canada-sponsored conference, a panel that included Canadian Federation of Agriculture president Ron Bonnett faced a question about a new requirement by retailing behemoth Walmart that its suppliers prove their products were produced in an environmentally sustainable fashion.
Bonnett isn’t given to snorting in public but he must have been tempted. This isn’t environmentalism by Walmart, he said. This is “market positioning.”
Conservation Council of Canada president Don McCabe agreed: “Walmart wants to do a rollback on producers.”
Evidence is widespread that farmers are taking seriously calls to improve environmental sustainability practices. But for the moment, carbon reduction plans that will hurt the economy short-term and may produce results in the long-term are not in vogue.
