Canadian voters look set to face stark choices in a federal election likely next year, as tax-cutting Conservatives face off against a new-look Liberal Party that will put the environment at the top of its agenda.
OTTAWA -- Canadian voters look set to face stark choices in a federal election likely next year, as tax-cutting Conservatives face off against a new-look Liberal Party that will put the environment at the top of its agenda.
The latest thinking, the key platform of new Liberal leader Stephane Dion, taps into a groundswell of voter concern about global warming and environmental issues.
But it's not clear if Canadians are really ready to go green or if Dion can win an election by focusing on the environment, especially after he explains to voters how much extra his plans could cost.
Dion won the Liberal leadership Saturday after persuading fellow Liberals that Canada must improve its sorry performance on the environment.
Canadian greenhouse gas emissions are already 35 percent above the target set under the Kyoto protocol on climate change, and critics say that is partly due to inaction under the Liberals' own watch -- the party was in government from 1993 to 2006.
The Conservative government says Canada cannot meet its Kyoto obligations, which say Canada must cut greenhouse gas emissions by six percent of 1990 levels by 2012, and Conservative legislators say the environment cannot be the only issue on an electoral agenda.
"I think you have to have a strong economic policy as well and at this point I have never heard him talk about the economy," Conservative legislator Bob Mills, for years the party's spokesman on the environment, said of Dion.
"I just don't think that when they (voters) look at all of the costs and all of the other issues, that someone who's just running on environment could in fact win."
Dion's big advantage is that he has latched on to a topic which has this year become a burning voter priority.
"I've been watching those conventions since the early 1970s and have never had one in which the environment was so important," said John Bennett of the environmental lobby group the Sierra Club.
He dismissed the idea that parties could not run on a single idea, pointing out that the Conservatives won a January election by focusing primarily on what they said was the need to end Liberal corruption and boost accountability.
The environment is not an easy topic to overlook in Canada, where media are running more and more stories about melting in the Arctic, unexpected floods across the country as well as droughts in the Prairies grain-growing region.
Liberals say this is working in their favor and helps persuade Canadians -- who use far more energy per person than western Europeans -- that they need to do more.
"I think we just simply have to keep pointing out the evidence. It may not be entirely popular now to do so but this is not different from the problem that statesmen in western Europe dealt with in the Thirties when they were looking at fascism," said Liberal environment spokesman John Godfrey.
"We have to deal with it sooner or later and we might as well get on with it sooner," he added, saying the Liberals were best placed on the issue. Canada's fledgling Green Party has no legislators in Parliament and wields less influence than green parties in nations such as Germany.
Dion promises tax breaks to persuade Canadians to buy energy efficient household appliances. His plan is centered on what he calls a functional carbon emission market -- an idea the Conservatives say could be very expensive.
Whatever happens, the government is unlikely to give Dion the luxury of working out his plans at leisure.
One Conservative strategist said one option would be to develop a green plan that would copy elements of the one Dion has produced.
"Or (we will) provide a starkly contrasting vision of the environment with the Conservative one being highly practical as opposed to the complicated, lofty and unattainable plan that Dion will put forward," the strategist told Reuters.
Environment Minister Rona Ambrose told the Senate's environment committee Thursday that Liberal programs to encourage Canadians to use less energy had had little effect.
"Industry alone is not going to be able to solve this issue. Canadians have to make choices in their own homes, turn off the lights more, use less water ... we need Canadians to cooperate with government," she said.
Source: Reuters
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