"Green" Tories...

In a desperate attempt to create some "street cred" on environmental issues, we find the Conservatives resurrecting another of the "ineffective, wasteful" programs that the Liberal government had started, and the CPC cancelled/stalled on when they took power last winter.

I'll give some credit for the CPoC taking steps to change their direction on the environmental issues that we face. However, like a lot of things done by governments panicking over imminent elections, this is beginning (?) to look decidedly haphazard and unplanned - demonstrating a lack of coherence in planning. (Of course, what do you expect when the PMO is micromanaging every word that the various ministers say?)

The interesting note is that the biggest polluting industries in Canada are not being held by the Conservatives to anything significant. Any kind of measurement has been shut down, and the CPC seems bound and determined not to demand the Oil Patch or heavy manufacturing industries improve their environmental impact records. I've heard a few apologists claim that the shareholders in those companies are where that initiative has to come from, but I know all too well that shareholders are interested in exactly one thing - profits. While individual Canadians can do a great deal to reduce their ecological "footprint", you cannot push down the entire burden to individuals. That just won't work when we are looking at Canada's overall emissions.

Which leads me to Dion's "carrot-and-stick" approach. To me this makes a great deal of sense. It provides incentives, but also carries with it consequences for a failure to act. Like I find in the workplace, responsibility must bring with it authority and accountability. Anything less is a license for abuse.