In Copenhagen, Canadians are doing what they do so well on the international stage: showing the world all the regional and ideological fault lines that make this country fragile.
At climate change talks, provincial environment ministers from British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec – members of the official Canadian delegation – will be telling anyone who listens that the federal government’s cautious commitments to cut carbon emissions do not reflect Canadian ambition.
Canadian environmental groups will be encouraging their international brethren to condemn and denounce Canada at every turn.
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We are a strange country, imagining that the world will be impressed, or care, as we fight our internal battles in front of foreign cameras, undermining the national message.
In other words, this week and next Canadian climate negotiators will experience what agriculture ministers have experienced for a decade and a half at World Trade Organization meetings in Geneva.
On the climate change issue, there are legitimate differences of opinion, proper criticism of what can only kindly be called a lack of thoughtful and forceful action by the Stephen Harper Conservatives on the issue.
Harper was, after all, a climate change denier as opposition leader.
Of course, that does not mean he is wrong in insisting that Canada not make economically crippling commitments while other developing countries increase emissions.
But anyone who sees climate change as a simple black and white, good guy/bad guy issue lives in a simpler world than most.
In Canada, this debate drips with hypocrisy.
From the climate change deniers, there seems to be an assumption that it won’t happen in my lifetime so what’s the problem?
From the activists, there seems to be an assumption that the fix is relatively painless if only politicians had a backbone. Nail the bad guys. Most of us are not bad-guy polluters.
It is not that simple.
Then there are the Liberals who committed to massive carbon reduction targets in 1997 at Kyoto, were in power for eight more years and presided over significant carbon emission increases. Their credibility on this issue is, ahem, open to debate.
Finally there are those holier-than-thou provinces that promise carbon reductions and vilify Alberta and Saskatchewan for oil and gas industry emissions.
Let’s use the ever-divisive Bloc Québécois in Parliament as an example.
Quebec is saintly. The Conservatives are villains, protecting their friends in the oil sands.
Yet Quebec can be so righteous because much of its power comes from hydroelectric developments that created their own environmental chaos. Quebec’s hydro development flooded millions of acres and displaced tens of thousands of people before environmental approvals were required.
In the interests of full disclosure, my family was among them. In the 1920s, dams on the Gatineau River flooded my grandfather’s riverside farm. They moved to higher ground.
I love where the farm is now but a river view would have been nice.
