Kyoto Quagmire

So this past week the Opposition forced passage of a Bill, which, if enacted as law, would require the Conservative Government to table a plan to meet the Kyoto Protocol targets within 60 days of said passage.

Bully for them.

And really, I mean "Bully."

The Opposition Parties are acting like bullies in this situation. They are throwing their weight around, making threats, and, ultimately, accomplishing nothing positive.

The thought that the Opposition wishes to propagate is that to be anti-Kyoto is to be anti-environment. That is of course nonsense; one can have a high view of the environment without having a high view of the Kyoto Accord. The problem though is that it is distinctly more difficult to sound environmentally friendly while opposing Kyoto. It is just harder to sound positive when you are being painted as being in opposition to something. So the Opposition has a good chance of making the Conservatives look bad.

And really this is what it is all about. The Opposition Parties (with the possible exception of the NDP) are not really doing this for the sake of actual environmental concern; they want only to score a few political points. As far as that plan goes, this is a pretty cute move. The Opposition gets to paint itself as defender of the environment without actually taking on any responsibility. They basically said to the Conservative Government: "We'll make you deal with it and then clean up after you."

The plan has the biggest potential for the Liberals ( The NDP are not realistic threats to form a government). By that though I mean that this plan has the biggest potential for political good or ill for the Liberals. The best case scenario for them is that the Bill passes into law, with the Conservatives being unable to make the deadline. That would effectively give the Liberals the means to fight a spring election on a single issue that the Conservatives could not win, having lost credibility as a party interested in preserving the environment.

However there are other possibilities that are absolutely atrocious for the Liberals. One is that the Conservatives could come up with a plan of their own to meet or surpass Kyoto Targets in terms of overall reductions, but not in the Kyoto time frame. Or, they could come up with a plan to met Kyoto in full, but along with it prepare an economic impact statement. This would have the effect of pointing out that the Liberals wish to destroy the economy under the guise of preserving the planet, something they could have avoided by doing anything at all during their previous 13 years in power. In either case the Liberals' rhetoric of climate care would be shown for a sham. They would lose credibility, and the Conservatives would win a single issue election.

And let's face it, the Liberals have to have a single issue election. They cannot run on their own record, or Dion's. The Conservative record has been good enough to not be exploited as a weakness. The Conservatives have made a few little errors, but the Liberals need them to make a big one. They are hoping to force such a an error with this bill on Kyoto. They are hoping to steal electoral initiative away from the Harper Conservatives.

Stealing is what bullies do best.