A blog to give a voice to our concern about the continued erosion of our democratic processes not only within the House of Commons and within our electoral system but also throughout our society. Here you will find articles about the current problems within our parliamentary democracy, about actions both good and bad by our elected representatives, about possible solutions, opinions and debate about the state of democracy in Canada, and about our roles/responsibilities as democratic citizens. We invite your thoughtful and polite comments upon our posts and ask those who wish to post longer articles or share ideas on this subject to submit them for inclusion as a guest post.
Contact us at democracyunderfire@gmail.com

Wednesday, June 19, 2019

An Urgent Crisis?

Its pretty clear where the Con's stand regarding the ever increasing threat to life as we know it on this planet we call Earth for all 63 of them in the House of Commons voted AGAINT a motion declaring a national climate emergency.

The motion describes climate change as a "real and urgent crisis, driven by human activity," notes how it is impacting Canadians, and states the need to pursue clean growth methods to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The House has voted to “declare that Canada is in a national climate emergency which requires, as a response, that Canada commit to meeting its national emissions target under the Paris Agreement and to making deeper reductions in line with the Agreement's objective of holding global warming below two degrees Celsius and pursuing efforts to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius."

Not 24hrs later we have this....
Well, that puts an end to any Liberal pretensions of being a progressive party. No progressive would have done what they did today - green light the Trans-Mountain (Trudeau Memorial) pipeline expansion.
The hilarious part is that the announcement came just hours after the House of Commons passed a motion declaring Canada is in a climate emergency. The Tories voted against it, the Liberals waited almost a day to trample all over it.

I suspect it will all be sorted out at the ballot box come September (as it always is) but which way that is going to go is anybody's guess, it seems this 'poll' asking about voter intentions says much the same,

Accessible Voters – Asked whether they would consider voting for each of the federal parties, 44.3 per cent would consider voting Liberal, while 43.6 per cent of Canadians say they would consider voting Conservative. Four in ten (38.4%) would consider voting NDP, 37.0 per cent would consider voting Green, 8.1 per cent would consider voting for the People’s Party and 30.0 per cent would consider voting for the BQ.

I don't know about 'considering' voting Green, I think perhaps it has now become essential, they cannot perform miracles but at least they are more aware of the challenges facing us than the others seem to be.



Support Democracy - Recommend this Post at Progressive Bloggers

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Spot on. Can't fault that analysis from my viewpoint.

After Trudeau did the Notley-style fandango of dedicating all profits of TMX pipelines to funding a Climate Something or Other Fund (imagine a heroin dealer solemnly intoning all profits would go into drug rehabilitation programs), he made sure to add some weasel words to the effect that he was just doing what the public wanted.

Presumably the pipeline assuages the fears of the dig-up-our-tarsands-as-fast-as-we-can-and-flog-it-cheap-to-mythical-Asian-customers crowd, while the environmental movement is supposed to cheer that a Climate Something or other Plan would tackle climate change. No new funding for that Plan of course - we ecofreaks gotta help flog the dilbit first and earn our crust. Apparently the two policies have to coexist and if either policy fails, it'll be "Well, YOU asked for it! Not my fault!" from Twinkletoes. This horse's a*s nonsense is what passes for logic these days. It certainly isn't leadership. Was anyone surprised, though?

Leadership of the unpleasant neoliberal variety is reserved for use against various Latin American countries, as detailed in the Canadian Dimension post yesterday where JT has hired some retired right wing attack dog of an ex-ambassador who never met a Bolivarian he could stand, to bring to heel various fiercely independent governments, as if we were some swaggering colonial power punishing the peasants for not treating our mining companies and banks properly. Venezuela being prime target #1. Oh and Cuba too. Gotta keep those Bay St billionaires and corporate entities happy, oh yes indeed. To hell with the actual people of those countries, or indeed or own - we need reliable dick-taters in charge just like Uncle Sam to keep business happy. Well, who knew? How nice.

So, so much to love with the Libs, and the Cons would double down, using up Canada's good name willy-nilly. Well, there's none left anyway.

Vote Green

BM

Owen Gray said...

It's eassy to declare and emergency. It's much harder to do something about it.

Rural said...

And there you have highlighted the heart of the matter Owen!

Anonymous said...

Excellent snapshot of the absurd hypocrisy of the Liberals.
I vote for the party that promises to keep the tar in the ground.
Unfortunately, not even the Greens will commit to that, as they've promised to use Canadian carbon resources before that of other countries.

Rural said...

In the future please initial your posts Anon. Oil or Life is the choice to be made come fall.