FEBRUARY 2012.Qxd

BEYOND KYOTO AND KEYSTONE Robin V. Sears It's time for Canada's absolutists on energy, the economy and the environment to lay down their rhetorical arms. It’s time to find a path forward that works for all Canadians, argues Contributing Writer Robin Sears, in a look back at the journey from Kyoto to the Keystone XL pipeline and a preview of the issues that lie ahead. Il est temps pour nos absolutistes des questions énergétiques, économiques et environnementales de ranger leur arsenal rhétorique, tout comme il nous faut sans délai tracer une voie qui rassemblera tous les Canadiens, plaide notre collaborateur Robin Sears, qui refait le parcours de Kyoto au projet de pipeline Keystone XL et donne un aperçu des enjeux à venir. hen political rhetoric reduces complex policy even the most distinguished statesmen. This set of decisions to light switch choices, the outcome is issues, often grouped under the umbrella of culture wars, W usually poisonous or paralyzing. Good/bad has pushed politicians to govern as if the slogan were choices in government are always rare, and in times of fis- policy — or worse, to be paralyzed by fear of voter retri- cal austerity the choices are always more nuanced. There is bution into permanent inaction. Health care reform, the no good or bad choice in deciding whether to cut spending war on drugs and religious schools are on the Canadian on nurses, soldiers or highway maintenance. If partisanship list. Americans would add abortion, gun ownership, makes it painful to do the right thing, most governments immigration, taxes and constitutional fundamentalism. simply move on and leave the issue for the next budget, Now we are adding energy and environmental policy to election or mandate. the list. The best politicians have always survived being trapped There are no partisan virgins in this demonization by their sloganeering by the short memories and perennial game. To every left eco-activist’s bellow that “tar sands kill,” weakness of voters for comforting political fictions. The there is matching nonsense by propagandists on the other powerful red, white and blue hues of a New Jerusalem or a side making the nonsensical claim that “my bitumen has Strong New America are, after all, so much more compelling greater ethical virtue than yours!” than the sombre pastels of our own lives. Who wouldn’t be excited by the promise of “secure jobs in a strong Canada” his rhetorical tyranny of threat and insult has two when your private choices are whether to pay the cable bill T predictable outcomes: governments are more or the credit card this month? tempted to kick the can down the road on tough issues Slogans have rallied partisans since they were carved as a next mandate priority, viz. the Keystone XL post- onto chariot fronts. Shouting “Ethical oil!” and “Ban ponement by the Obama administration, putting off a tankers!” moves votes today just as effectively as “The Old decision until after the presidential election in Flag, the Old Policy, the Old Leader!”— the party slogan for November. And in today’s tough budget climate, they John A. Macdonald’s last campaign in 1891. Slogans create can claim that fiscal priorities mean that addressing any compelling heroes and villains, reducing complexity to a divisive issue will need to be postponed a while longer. battle cry. Effective political leaders know the difference The second impact is that covering your back requires between campaigning and governing. They don’t confuse escalating the demonizing rhetoric, with the right and bumper stickers for policy, instead building the logical, or at left each denouncing the radicalism of their opponents. least the rhetorical, bridge between overheated campaign The Canadian government’s somewhat bizarre claim of rhetoric and governing. “foreign radicals” interfering in the Northern Gateway For several decades in most of the Western democra- pipeline debate is only the most recent example. Given cies we have been making that path from rough politics that Liberals and New Democrats regularly accuse the to good policy on some issues exceedingly slippery for government of a variety of equally dubious radicalisms 34 OPTIONS POLITIQUES FÉVRIER 2012 Beyond Kyoto and Keystone as well, one can understand the one week of bad press for having A Canadian scientist who should widening circle of disillusioned vot- finally abandoned Kyoto, he was have known better said in response ers who dismiss all politicians’ abu- probably right. Add the usual col- to a reporter’s question last year that sive language and stop listening or lapse that environmental concerns it was “absolutely certain” that cli- voting. endure in the middle of a recession mate change will obliterate ice floes If a policy choice has a long-term and it probably is true that from the Ungava Bay in Canada’s horizon and the impact of failing to Canadians have at least parked their North, destroying the habitat of the act is not visible before the next elec- climate change anxieties. polar bears who now inhabit the tion, the temptation for advisers in But it is the environmental move- region, “within 30 years.” Really? this political culture of insult and ment that has once again badly When meteorologists cannot precise- caricature is to say, “Next mandate, I flubbed the politics of an issue. Pascal’s ly predict weather patterns 30 hours think, sir.” So unmaintained bridges eternal bon mot about absolutists — les into the future, let alone days, cli- eventually do fall down, and long- extrêmes se touchent — echoes power- mate scientists can offer certitude ignored First Nations poverty finally fully here. But the absolutists on the over decades! It is small wonder that the reaction of too many Climate change politicians strain credulity in claiming that a Canadians to these com- government’s promise to give up carbon addiction is the peting dogmas is to say, same as doing it. They slide further in public credibility when “Sorry, not interested…” Then there is the they mask the failure of the Kyoto, Copenhagen and Durban hypocrisy of national conferences to achieve real reductions in greenhouse gas politicians and internation- (GHG) emissions with new deadlines, new deliverables and al bureaucrats about bind- diplomatic double-talk. ing agreements. Smokers know that promising to does explode on the evening news, right are winning this battle by suc- give up smoking is easy; doing it, not and the fish stocks do collapse, etc. cessfully raising fears of an economic so much. Climate change politicians With the insiders gambling that it Armageddon if the world were to do strain credulity in claiming that a gov- will erupt on the next guys’ watch… the sensible capitalist thing — that is, ernment’s promise to give up carbon A keen advocate of the “if-it-ain’t- to put a price on carbon. addiction is the same as doing it. They gonna-bite-us-do-nothing” thesis in Many conservatives around the slide further in public credibility when Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s office, world have developed an absurdly they mask the failure of the Kyoto, with all the cheek and self-assurance of absolutist posture on climate change: Copenhagen and Durban conferences a successful young political staffer, “It isn’t happening, and the numbers to achieve real reductions in green- offered the following defence. A sum- have been torqued… And anyway, if it house gas (GHG) emissions with new mary of his argument when he was is happening there is nothing we can deadlines, new deliverables and diplo- challenged about the then new gov- do about it. Besides, the climate has matic double-talk. ernment’s apostasy and determined heated and cooled many times over Canadian Conservatives fall into inaction on the issue of climate the millennia and we have survived.” the same trap in failing to acknowl- change was this: In fact, serious fluctuations of the type edge that emissions have exploded by Look, to us it’s really quite sim- now being reported have not been more than one-third on their watch, ple. You can’t see it, you can’t seen since the last Ice Age, a period instead blaming Liberal sins now a taste it and you can’t smell it. when human civilization was only on decade past. Journalist Peter Kent, an You don’t know whether it is the horizon. accomplished communicator and happening or not, whether it’s Again, in this mirror world of broadcaster, would have sneered on air going to hit us here or only competing Manichean visions, the at his stumbling attempts as a minister somewhere else…Nothing will zealous certitude of some environ- to play such silly political prestidigita- be visible for years, whether you mentalists is a given. They do their tion games. agree with us or not. If it’s credibility little good in claiming to be A sign of Kent’s discomposure invisible, it’s meaningless politi- able to predict the future on the basis was his sarcastic attack on Commons cally. We’re going to focus on of early and sometimes ambiguous critics for not being with him in clean air, water and food safety data, just as conservative deniers do Durban — when his department had that people can see. themselves the same damage in claim- expressly forbidden them from join- ing that all the scientific climate data ing the delegation. Again, as a jour- ive years later, from the vantage collected over two decades on five nalist, he would have been bemused F point of Canada enduring only continents is a con. by the sight of Canadian taxpayers POLICY OPTIONS 35 FEBRUARY 2012 Robin V.

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