Political Parties and Canadian Climate Change Policy
| DOI | 10.1177/002070200906400104 |
| Date | 01 March 2009 |
| Author | Heather A. Smith |
| Published date | 01 March 2009 |
| Subject Matter | Political Parties & Foreign Policy |
Heather A. Smith
Political parties and
Canadian climate
change policy
| International Journal | Winter 2008-09 | 47 |
Climate change arose on the international agenda in the late 1980s. It was a
period of international “greening” and Canada joine d the climate change
bandwagon. Conservative Prime Minister Brian Mulroney was even lauded
as an international leader on the issue. In 2002 Canada, under the leadership
of Jean Chrétien, ratified the Kyoto protocol, in spite of the absence of the
United States from the agreement and in the face of provincial opposition.
While this may have been regarded as a noble gesture, it is crucial to recall
that Canada was then and is now nowhere near its Kyoto emissions targets.
Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper has acknowledged that Canada
will not meet its Kyoto target and has crafted policies that do little to help us
reach it. In 20 years, Canada has done little to reduce its greenhous e gas
emissions, and from that vantage point one must question whether parties
matter in the development and implementation of Canadian climate change
policy.
This article considers a series of snapshots of Canadian climate change
policy: climate change under the Mulroney Conservatives; the Liberals and
Heather Smith is associate professor of international studies at the University of Northern
British Columbia.
| Heather A. Smith |
| 48 | Winter 2008-09 | International Journal |
the Kyoto protocol; the Kyoto ratification debate; the period under Prime
Minister Paul Martin; and finally the arrival of the Harper Conservatives. The
article finds that in terms of ability or willingness to engage in genuine
emissions reductions, party difference matters very little. Similarly, party
difference does not really help us understand continuity in terms of Canadian
diplomatic behaviour, which has been markedly self-interested over the years.
Yet parties do matter in terms of composition and style; and style, when
merged with substance, may signal longer-term changes to Canadian foreign
policy.
CLIMATE CHANGE AND THE MULRONEY PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVES
In 1988, the Toronto conference, formally known as the conference on the
“Changing atmosphere: Implications for global security” was held. As hosts
of this meeting, Canadian scientists and politicians were front and centre.
Progressive Conservative Prime Minister Mulroney called for a law of the
atmosphere and told delegates, “we all belong to one human family, and we
are all in this together.”1As a result of their efforts, Canada, Mulroney, and
the experts housed in Environment Canada were acknowledged as early
leaders on the issue of climate change.
In spite of the creative leadership of Canadian bureaucrats and scientists
in the agenda-setting phase of the climate change issue, political
commitment and leadership were tentative at best. Liberal environment critic
Paul Martin declared that Progressive Conservative climate change policy
was not leading, and in fact lagged behind that of such progressive states as
those in Scandinavia. In addition, the conference consensus was dismissed
by key Canadian government officials who argued that, given that it was not
1 “The changing atmosphere: Implications for global security,” conference proceedings,
World Meteorological Organization, no. 710, Geneva,1988, 8. For fuller discussions of
Canadian climate change policy prior to ratification of the Kyoto protocol, see Heather
A. Smith, “Dollar discourse: The devaluation of Canada’s natural capital in Canadian
climate change policy,” in Deborah L. VanNijnatten and Robert Boardman, eds.,
Canadian Environmental Policy: Context a nd Cases
, second ed . (Toronto: Oxford
University Pre ss, 2002), 286-98; Heather A. Smi th, “Chicken defence lines needed:
Canadian foreig n policy and global environmental issues,” in Fen Osler Hampson,
Norman Hillmer, and Maureen Appel Molot, eds.,
Canada Among Nations 2001: The
Axworthy Legacy
(Toronto: Oxford U niversity Press, 2 001), 213- 32; and Lee-Anne
Broadhead, “Canada as a rogue state: Its shameful performance on climate change,”
in
International Journal
56 (summer 2001): 461-80.
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