Copyright 2000, Environmental News Network
November 27, 2000
By Dwane Wilkin

Jobs, taxes, health care — and now a row over the prime minister's own ethical conduct — have pushed the environment out of Canada's political limelight as voters prepare to go to the polls today in nationwide elections.

Public opinion surveys consistently show that Canadians want their government to address global warming, pollution and wildlife conservation. But the country's five major political parties have kept mum on green issues throughout the five-week-long election campaign.

Only one national party, the leftist New Democratic Party has put forth a broad, detailed environmental platform, but the party has virtually no hope of forming the next government.

Nor does the once-mighty Progressive Conservative Party, whose election platform includes green tax reform proposals that have earned kudos from environmentalists but little attention from national media or the public.

Environmentalists say the governing Liberal Party under Jean Chrétien's leadership bowed to industry and failed to pass any significant new environmental legislation after two terms in office.

By calling an early election, in fact, the prime minister allowed the country's proposed endangered species act to die on the order paper before it could become law.

"This is now the second time it has died because of an election," says Greg Hamara of World Wildlife Fund Canada.

The right-of-center Canadian Alliance Party, the most serious threat to the Liberal'í majority in the House of Commons, barely mentions the environment at all and devotes virtually no ink to the issue in their official campaign literature.

Canadians head for the polls today.

The day the polling firm Environics released its survey showing 25 per cent of Canadians think the environment will be a major factor in their voting decision, Alliance leader Stockwell Day staged a press conference in Vancouver to rail against illegal immigrants.

The Bloc Québécois, a secessionist party primarily focused on taking Quebec out of Canada, has won strong points from environmentalists for its tough stand against pesticides and toxins, but rate dead last on green tax reform, environmental accountability and wildlife protection.

"Clearly, the NDP and to the lesser extent, the Conservative Party, both have on paper at least taken positions that are more closely aligned with what we have been lobbying for," Hamara notes.

The New Democrats also vow to make international trade deals subject to environmental agreements.

A coalition of national environmental groups recently graded Canada's political parties on the basis of their environmental platforms, giving the NDP its highest overall grade, a B-plus, while the Alliance Party trailed with a D-minus.

The Liberal platform fared only marginally better, rating a D-plus, while the Conservatives and the Bloc pulled off green grades of C-plus and D, respectively.

Green activists from across the country have drafted a broad action program of their own and are calling on voters to use it as a guide for quizing their local candidates. Among other things, the coalition is calling on the next government to eliminate direct and tax-based subsidies to nuclear energy, petroleum and coal industries, including the $100 million a year that Atomic Energy of Canada Limited receives.

They are also urging voters to compare their green environmental platform with various promises put forth by the major political parties.

Last week, NDP environment critic Dennis Gruending questioned the Liberal Party's commitment to environmental protection and called Chrétien to task for slow-footing legislation that would protect the country's 340 species at risk.

In addition to Bill C-33, the Species at Risk Act, Bill C-8, known as the Marine Conservation Areas Act, was also killed before coming into law because of the government's decision to dissolve parliament for today's vote.

"If this was important to them, why didnít this get to the top of the legislative heap instead of staying near the bottom and getting trumped when an election was called?" asks Gruending.

Goaded by corporate lobbyists and a strong right-wing opposition in parliament that has clamored for deficit-reduction measures for the past seven years, the Liberals have slashed $1 billion from Environment Canada's budget and downloaded responsibility for protecting air, water, land and climate to the provinces, Gruending charges.

Liberals have slashed $1 billion from Environment Canada's budget and downloaded responsibility for protecting air, water, land and climate to the provinces, according to NDP's Dennis Gruending.

New Democrats say they support development of a national water strategy, a ban on bulk water exports, national standards for clean water and establishment of a national environmental bill of rights.

But party leader Alexa McDonough has spent most of her energy trying to score political points by scolding the Liberals for cutting funding to health care and social programs.

The Conservative Party has proposed preferential tax treatment and incentives for consumers and industries who buy clean, renewable sources of energy. But the party under former Prime Minister Joe Clark is in a life-or-death struggle and could lose the few seats it has left in the House of Commons when voters cast their ballots.

With much of the national media attention during the campaign focused on bread-and-butter issues, the ruling Liberals have simply not had to defend their environmental record in front of TV cameras.

Lately, the prime minister himself has been the target of attacks for having used his influence to help a friend in his riding secure a questionable business loan from a government lending agency. The scent of scandal further sidelined the environment in nightly news reports.

"In a sense, it's not only a question one has to ask of the parties," Gruending says, "it's a question one has to ask of the media. I'm not trying to absolve us of everything, but the media kind of sets the frame."

Canada's 18-year-old Green Party, despite being virtually ignored by mainstream media throughout the campaign, has managed to field more than 100 candidates in ridings across the country.

Greens currently hold no seats in parliament, but they offer voters a bold environmental strategy. It includes includes scrapping the Gross National Product as a measure of economic progress and replacing it with a Genuine Progress Indicator, which would track environmental and social progress as well as the fiscal bottom line.

The Green Party also advocates phasing out subsidies to large-scale agribusinesses, a ban on genetically modified foods and fish farms and tax incentives for Canadian farmers who revert to organic growing methods.

Although polls indicate the current government will probably hang onto power for a third term, many Liberal seats are thought to be vulnerable and Chrétien could find himself at the head of a minority government.

"If we could get ourselves even closer to the power table in a situation where there's not a majority, and begin to say, 'OK, we represent these values and these are the programs that we want to talk about,' that would be, I think, for us an intoxicating opportunity," Gruending says. Error: Unable to read footer file.