Swann Dive

What's up with Liberals straying from their roots in the faint hope of attracting Conservatives?

Latest up: Alberta Liberal leader David Swann, an honest-to-goodness nice guy who came to prominence by getting fired by the Ralph Klein government for supporting Kyoto.

Now, he's going against federal Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff for the latter's promise to formalize a tanker ban in BC waters, a move that would effectively end Enbridge's pitch to bring dirty oil from the tar sands to the BC coast.

Last time I checked, BC voters were overwhelmingly against having supertankers plying their coastline - those are of course voters that Mr. Swann by definition cannot court, unlike Mr. Ignatieff.

Which raises the question: exactly which voters is Mr. Swann going after here? His two biggest provincial rivals are trying to out-do one another with their pro-tar sands rhetoric, whereas polls show that Albertans have a more nuanced version of needing to do a better job on that file.

Perhaps Mr. Swann would have better luck returning to his roots, and taking a more progressive position on the issues.

Matt Price
Policy Director

Iggy Creates Green Daylight

Significant daylight is starting to show between the federal Liberals and the Harper government on the environment. With his second major environmental speech today (the first was in Vancouver some weeks ago), Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff continued to flesh out how his party would do things differently, including the welcome promise to pass a federal Clean Energy Act.

Significant pieces of that daylight are:

• While Harper repeatedly says he'll be the last to move on global warming (is it America or China he's hiding behind today?), and when he does do something it will fall far short of what scientists are telling us is needed, Ignatieff says that Canada will move ahead regardless, as a leader should, and base reductions on scientific facts.
• While Harper lets the ecoEnergy program run out of money, incredibly hobbling Canada in the ongoing green industrial revolution now underway, Ignatieff is pledging the most significant investment in renewables the country has ever seen.
• While Harper refuses to rule out giving special treatment to the tar sands so that it can continue to increase its pollution at a time when we need to dramatically reduce it, Ignatieff is pledging a cap and trade system for Canada that covers all industries ("no exceptions") and is equitable across the country.

Harper is clearly starting to feel the heat on global warming, despite once questioning the science, by announcing today he'll go to Copenhagen after all. When he gets there though, he'll show up with no plan, weak targets, and a track record that clearly says to the world "I don't care."

We welcome even more daylight from the Liberals in the weeks and months to come. We also welcome more collaboration with the other opposition parties who, to their credit, have been saying strong things on climate change for a long time already. And, ultimately, we welcome an about-face by Harper himself so that either he or another Prime Minister is able to credibly tell the world at some point that "Canada does care."

Matt Price
Program Manager
Environmental Defence

Iggy Comes Clean

While Environment Minister Jim Prentice clings to the tired old "either-or" framing of environment vs. economy, Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff just jumped ahead to "both-and."

In a speech yesterday, Mr. Ignatieff pledged to campaign on "the most significant national investment in clean energy jobs this country has ever seen."

This is a recognition that the next industrial revolution and next significant wave of job creation will centre on decarbonizing our economy. Like all industrial revolutions, there will be winners and losers - and Canada is currently on track to fall into the loser category, left behind by other countries making large clean energy investments today.

Some of our provinces are stepping up, such as Ontario with its Green Energy Act. Right after the Act's renewable pricing regulations were announced, two large wind power projects began to move ahead, with more in the works.

But, instead of a coherent Canadian push towards a clean energy economy we have a patchwork of local initiatives, and a federal government more interested in coddling tar sands polluters than becoming a winner in the next industrial revolution.

Mr. Ignatieff's speech could begin to change that, should he flesh out his ideas into more concrete terms so that voters can get excited by them. We need to hear more about specific policy proposals that will drive change, and more about how carbon cuts are the other side of the clean energy coin.

But, the speech was a step forwards to that place, and for that we are thankful.

Matt Price
Program Manager
Energy and Climate