Conservative Convention Ignores the Environmental Abuses of Harper and His Government

The environmentally abusive Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his entire government are in Calgary for the Conservative Party convention which started on Thursday, October 31 and runs until Saturday, November 2. The convention is mired in the corruption controversy surrounding Harper’s Senate appointments, while ignoring the far bigger issue of the Conservative’s historic environmental abuse. This government has done more to undermine environmental protections and a science based policy than any government in Canadian history.

This government is fixated on securing as many petro-dollars as it can and in light of what we know about the irrefutable connection between fossil fuels and climate change, this is unconscionable. Canada’s ongoing exploitation of the tar sands ensure that the country will not be able to meet its promised GHG targets.


Canada has the dirtiest oil on the planet and the Harper government has pulled out all the stops to try and secure approval for the Keystone XL pipeline which would ferry Canada’s tar sands to the US.

The litany of the Harper government’s environmental abuse is long, here are several examples:

• This government has spent millions of dollars of tax payers money to advance their fossil fuel agenda and in the process made Canada into a dirty energy superpower.
• Canadian Conservatives have cut research budgets while funding an oil pipeline PR campaign and promoting fossil fuels.
• Under Harper’s leadership, Canada was an environmental pariah at Rio+20 in 2012.
• Canada has withdrawn from international treaties like Kyoto and the compact to combat desertification.
• This Conservative government has repeatedly undermined the nation’s long standing environmental protections and they have passed budgets which gut environmental oversight.
• Harper has ignored calls for regulation of the oil and gas industry and warnings from scientists urging them to back-off their proposed expansion of the tar sands. 
• The ruling government is at war with science.
• Harper’s Conservatives have tried to silence both American and Canadian scientists and attacked those who they could not restrain.
• The government has shutdown opposition to the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline project and other forms of environmental dissent.
• The Conservatives are not helping Canadian businesses prepare for climate change and as a result the business community is woefully unprepared.
• Harper is also using Canada’s security agencies to target environmental opposition and pave the way for further exploitation of the tar sands.

The legacy of Stephen Harper’s government may go down in history as the low point in Canadian politics.

© 2013, Richard Matthews. All rights reserved.

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