Sometimes I am amazed that most people don't understand the depths of incompetence of the Liberal governments - and how little they invested in new infrastructure or put through meaningful legislation for most of their time in power. Ministry by ministry one can easily go through and see incredible lack of thought and progression. While there was a brief moment of movement under the Paul Martin government, without true pressure from the general population it seems generally that the Liberals acted like resource rich despots and took the country for granted. So here goes my department by department criticism of the Liberal government of yore:
Environment
David AndersonEnvironment Minister
Dog's Name - Kyoto
Stephane Dion
Without a doubt the Liberals were one of the worst environmental government this side of WWII. Under a period of shifting environmentalism Canada continually ranked last in the 90s amongst the OECD and were generally slow to adopt mainstream policies in the US and Europe. Some of the highlights of their incompetence are well known:
1. GHG emissions up by 26% over their tenure
2. Canada becomes the worst per capita consumer of energy, overtaking the USA in 2001 (source OECD).
3. Canada went from an environmental leader to laggard ending up in second last place in the OECD across a broad spectrum of environmental issues (source OECD).
But those are widely known and discussed - what about some of the lesser known facts:
1. From 1998-2000 the USA decreased toxic air emissions from plants and mills by 8%, while Canada increased by 7%. Thats right, all the criticism we direct towards the USA is a double standard. (source Commission for Environmental Cooperation)
2. Canada lagged behind the world in creating effective policy on SO2. While in the USA they passed nation-wide legislation capping SO2 and NO2, in Canada only Ontario has such a system in place. I mean the USA passed legislation when Regan was in government! The following diagram shows a US vs Canada graph of oxygenation improvements:
But I thought all of our smog came from the USA? Thanks Liberals!
In 2004 the annual Taking Stock report issued by NAFTA was pretty clear in its prognosis "Canada lags behind U.S. in curbing toxic emissions".
Some interesting notes in the report:
"Although total North American emissions declined by 18 per cent from 1998 to2001, Canadian emissions rose three per cent. "\
Canada's poorer record in curbing toxics is probably due to the lack of federal air-quality legislation, William Kennedy, executive director of thecommission, said in an interview. The U.S. Clean Air Act sets binding regulations for air polluters, butOttawa depends mainly on voluntary and negotiated agreements. "
3. Between 1990 and 2000, in an era of OECD led energy conservation, automobile travel increased 9% and the corresponding fuel consumption increased 21% - led by the constant criticism of Canada's poor attempt at a national railway system.
Even worse is when you look outside the common environmental KPIs of GHGs and air quality.
Canada is second worst to only the USA in terms of water consumption, ranking 28th out of 29.
Nuclear waste - Canada is set to surpass the USA in total volume of nuclear waste in 2010... a country 10x our size!
But its ok... because for overall hazardous waste in 2001 we ranked 24th out of 27 nations. With agricultural outputs its only more of the same, 22nd out of 28 for pesticide use and 25th out of 28 for fertilizer use.
Even worse is that by increasing GHGs, Canada explicitly violated the UN framework for climate change and ruined all the hardwork we had done as a country in the 1980s based on the Montreal Agreement and elimination of CFCs and decimated the international view of Canada as the ultimate green country. Thanks Liberals - we love being light years behind Europe!
For more reading on the environmental trends of Canada in the 90s you can read:
http://www.environmentalindicators.com/htdocs/PDF/FullReport.pdf
or read the book Unnatural Law.
Next up is fisheries, foreign aid, military and peacekeeping, first nations, etc, etc and maybe for fun I'll take on the Liberal stalwarts of education and economy.
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