{"id":322,"date":"2009-01-22T17:14:52","date_gmt":"2009-01-22T17:14:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.stuzog.com\/greenpolitics\/?p=322"},"modified":"2011-04-11T22:05:50","modified_gmt":"2011-04-11T22:05:50","slug":"green-coalition-challenges-harper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.stuzog.com\/greenpolitics\/2009\/01\/green-coalition-challenges-harper\/","title":{"rendered":"Green coalition challenges Harper"},"content":{"rendered":"

NGOs and unions call for $41-billion green investment fund<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Ottawa —<\/span>A powerful coalition of major environmental groups, big unions, scientists, business people and citizens is challenging Stephen Harper to invest up to $41 billion<\/a> in green energy and infrastructure energy efficiency updates by in this month’s budget.<\/p>\n

\"PowerUp<\/a><\/p>\n

The coalition, which claims to represent more than 850,000 Canadians, includes environmental NGOs Environmental Defence<\/a>, the Pembina Institute<\/a> and ForestEthics<\/a>, as well as the industrial Forest Products Association of Canada<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Supporting scientists include leading climatologist Dr. Andrew Weaver<\/a> of UVic, and University of Waterloo’s Centre for Environment and Business professor Dr. Thomas Homer-Dixon<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The value of a ‘green’ budget received another powerful boost this week when four former prime ministers — Kim Campbell, Joe Clark, Paul Martin and John Turner — called for a “green stimulus”<\/a> in the budget. Green Party leader Elizabeth May also chimed in belatedly. She wants Canada to adopt recently-installed US president Obama’s environmental vision and invest in a Green New Deal<\/a> for Canada.<\/p>\n

Environmental regulations to be slashed?<\/p>\n

The PowerUp<\/a> coalition’s call for a Green Economy Action Fund<\/a> came just before this week’s accusation by the NDP that the Conservatives are planning to quietly gut<\/a> Canada’s environmental regulations.<\/p>\n

The NDP caucus claims to have a leaked copy of draft regulations that would stop environmental assessments<\/a> on any project on federal lands or worth less than $10 million. They would also enable provincial governments to circumvent environmental regulations on request.<\/p>\n

New Democrats believe that the Conservative are using the global financial crisis as an excuse to undermine the foundations of the Environmental Assessment Act<\/a>, brought in by Progressive Conservative prime minister Brian Mulroney in 1992.<\/p>\n

Mulroney garnered so much post-office kudos for this legislation that then Sierra Club of Canada executive director Elizabeth May in 2006 awarded him the title of Canada’s Greenest Prime Minister<\/a>, an accoldade that did not fill every environmentalist with delight.<\/p>\n

A coalition, necessarily<\/p>\n

How times have changed. Now, it’s going to take more than a coalition of 850,000 people to divert Harper from his neo-conservative agenda. Only the threat of being replaced by a coalition government is likely give him pause to re-think his hidden, anti-environment plans.<\/p>\n

That’s something that Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff would do well to bear in mind when he considers how he should respond to Tuesday’s budget. There’s a lot more riding on it than just fiscal prudence.<\/p>\n

Canada’s essential environmental protection law is in jeopardy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"GermanyA powerful coalition of environmental groups, unions, scientists, business people and citizens is challenging Stephen Harper to invest up to $41 billion in green energy funding and infrastructure energy efficiency updates in this month’s budget. But behind the scenes, Stephen Harper may be planning to gut Canada’s Environmental Protection Act.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,30,5],"tags":[34,46,49,244,56,65,86,87,88,93,119,121,123,131,133,136,141,144,152,165,181,183],"class_list":["post-322","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-canada","category-coalition-democracy-green-politics","category-environment","tag-andrew-weaver","tag-brian-mulroney","tag-budget","tag-canada","tag-canadian-politics","tag-coalition","tag-elizabeth-may","tag-environmental-assessment-act","tag-environmental-defence","tag-fpac","tag-joe-clark","tag-john-turner","tag-kim-capbell","tag-ndp","tag-neo-conservatism","tag-ngos","tag-paul-martin","tag-pembina-institute","tag-powerup","tag-sierra-club","tag-unions","tag-uvic"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.stuzog.com\/greenpolitics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.stuzog.com\/greenpolitics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.stuzog.com\/greenpolitics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.stuzog.com\/greenpolitics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.stuzog.com\/greenpolitics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=322"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.stuzog.com\/greenpolitics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":768,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.stuzog.com\/greenpolitics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322\/revisions\/768"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.stuzog.com\/greenpolitics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.stuzog.com\/greenpolitics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.stuzog.com\/greenpolitics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}