No party fulfilling voter desire for green champion
By MARK HUME, April 27, 2009 Globe and MailVANCOUVER - Even by British Columbia standards it is a curious election.
At a time when the country is gripped with concerns about the state of the economy, the issue that has stirred the most interest in the provincial campaign is the environment. There is a crime wave of unprecedented violence in Metro Vancouver, but the focus is not on law and order. It's on the NDP's plan to axe the carbon tax and the Liberals' policy to allow rivers to be dammed by private power producers. To make things even stranger, the Green Party has passed up this opportunity for a breakthrough by opting to focus, not on the environment, but on the economy.
All of which explains the sense of ennui that has settled over the campaign as Liberal Leader Gordon Campbell and NDP Leader Carole James tour the province in their lumbering campaign buses, looking for crowds that mostly aren't there. The sad fact voters have to face up to is that when it comes to the environment, none of the parties has a coherent policy. By declaring that she would axe the carbon tax, Ms. James crippled the NDP early, and then failed to adapt when her error became apparent.
The Liberal carbon tax won't have any measurable impact on global warming, but it is an important symbol, and British Columbians have come to accept it. They do not want to see Ms. James axe the tax - and as her poor turnouts have shown, they don't much want to see her either.
As for Mr. Campbell, he can't easily shoulder the mantle of environmental saviour because of the troubling record his government has compiled.
In his first term, Mr. Campbell eliminated the position of environment minister and passed legislation doing away with mandatory environmental assessments for many projects, including new mines, mills and gas, oil, coal and hydro power plants.
He opposed federal implementation of the Kyoto Accord, saying that fighting global warming would cost B.C. too many jobs (11,000 by his count).
"Gordon Campbell is an environmental dinosaur," Joy MacPhail, the then-leader of the B.C. NDP, said at the time. "He reminds me of the oil company executives who campaigned against unleaded gasoline in the 1970s, claiming it would destroy our economy."
But Mr. Campbell would not be swayed. He went on to cut taxes on domestic fuel, aviation fuel and bunker fuel; he committed billions of dollars to highway expansion; pushed offshore oil and gas development; encouraged pipelines to Alberta's oil sands; promoted coal-bed methane exploration and coal mining; and introduced an energy policy that has led to a rush of independent power projects on rivers in the province.
He has failed to act effectively to save endangered species in B.C., because to do so would mean setting aside areas from logging and mining.
And he has expanded salmon farming on the coast, despite a growing body of scientific evidence that shows aquaculture has a negative impact on wild salmon.
Mr. Campbell's commitment to the carbon tax has won him much praise, but it's pretty hard to go to a Liberal rally and chant about saving the environment when you know the back story.
As for Green Party Leader Jane Sterk, her environmental platform promises to introduce "ecological wisdom," which is so vague it is like having a platform without any nails in it.
The top issue for the Greens is "building a stronger economy," which is an odd priority for a party that has no chance of forming government.
Note to Ms. Sterk: Stop talking about how the Greens would reform the economy if they take office, and instead start talking about the need for an environmental conscience in the legislature.
If a few Greens had been in the legislature for the past two terms, maybe they could have kept both the Liberals and the NDP honest - and voters now wouldn't be faced with the dilemma of deciding not which party is greenest, but which will do the least damage to the province's environment.