Peace, order and good government, eh?: Why am I not surprised?

May 19, 2011: A majority Conservative government will move ahead with regulations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in Canada …, says Environment Minister Peter Kent. … "The oilsands … will be in the next set of regulations that will come down after the coal-fired electricity generating sector," Kent said. "We’ll be addressing that later this year." Sept. 19, 2011 Ottawa will not bring out new rules for greenhouse gas emissions from the oil sands this year, contrary to what Environment Minister Peter Kent said in May. Mr. Kent said in an interview that the government is "in the early consultation stage" with the oil sector and "won’t have regulations immediately." He said the process was slowed down by last spring’s election and budget negotiations. Stephen Harper has been prime minister for five years. Peter Kent has been Environment minister since January. I wonder how long the "early consultation stage" takes. Incidentally, the minister’s original comments were made after last spring’s election….

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Peace, order and good government, eh?: Mostly competent government

The Harper Government™ has been doing such an awesome job of protecting the endangered woodland caribou in northeastern Alberta that a Federal Court has decided to step in and order the Environment Minister to actually do his job. [Justice Peter Crampton] said Jim Prentice, the former federal environment minister, never explained why he decided against an emergency order that would protect caribou habitat, although all available science pointed to the need for one. "Notwithstanding the substantial scientific and other evidence that was discussed … the minister concluded that there are no imminent threats to the national recovery of boreal caribou," Crampton wrote. "This conclusion essentially came ‘out of the ‘blue.’ … Accordingly, the decision cannot stand." The court has instructed the current minister, Peter Kent, to "revisit" that decision not to issue an emergency order. Kent has also been told to produce a recovery plan for the declining caribou herds by Sept. 1. It seems our mostly competent Conservatives have already missed a legal deadline for said plan — by four years. And it’s not as if no one knew there was a problem. Some scientists have predicted caribou will be gone within 30 years. Biologists have been documenting the…

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Our "world class" tarsands PR monitoring plan

This week saw our federal, provincial and territorial energy ministers, minus Ontario, trot out a joint communique describing the tarsands as "sustainable and responsible", even as the Cons were simultaneously slashing the federal Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency budget by 43% and its staff by…

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