Despite constantly insisting how important the environment is to his campaign and being the former Environment Minister who oversaw the Liberals’ Kyoto plan, Liberal leadership candidate Stephane Dion (Saint-Laurent-Cartierville) skipped last night’s vote on a Liberal Private Members’ Bill in support of Kyoto. If Kyoto is so important to Dion, why did he skip the vote? Could it be that after the revelations of the Environment Commissioner and his own admissions of the flaws of the Liberal Kyoto plan, Dion wasn’t willing to stand in the House of vote for the failed plan?:
The facts: - Dion acknowleged his plan’s targets were unclear: Dion acknowledged that the Liberal plan was still unclear when it comes to regulations needed to make sure heavy industry complies (Globe and Mail, April 15, 2005).
- Dion says Liberals only accepted the Kyoto targets because they were higher than the U.S.: Dion made the same point — adding for good measure that Jean Chrétien had only proposed these stringent targets to trump the Americans. (Globe and Mail, August 21, 2006)
- Dion says Kyoto too bureaucratic: Canada's environment minister says the Kyoto Protocol is "too bureaucratic," and its shortcomings must be addressed to eventually draw the United States into a new climate change deal. (Ottawa Citizen, December 18, 2004)
- Dion criticizes lack of targets for other countries: He also said too many countries don't have actual targets, leading to a "free-rider effect." (Ottawa Citizen, December 18, 2004)
- Dion says he doesn’t know if emission went up when he was minister: “We don't know if the greenhouse gas emissions went up when I was Minister of the Environment because the last available statistics stopped in 2004. Having said that, it is very likely that there has been an increase since then.” - Stephane Dion (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20060917.wlivelibsdion/BNStory/specialComment/?pageRequested=2)
- Dion says Liberal cabinet ministers were concerned about Liberal climate change plan: He said the election of George W. Bush, and the subsequent U.S. decision to pull out of Kyoto, left Canadian industry, and some Cabinet ministers, uneasy with the government's climate-change plan. (National Post, July 1, 2006)
- Dion Says Targets Can’t Be Met: Stephane Dion has conceded that a future Liberal government would be unable to meet its Kyoto commitment of reducing greenhouse gas emissions below 1990 levels. (National Post, July 1, 2006)
- "In 2008, I will be part of Kyoto, but I will say to the world I don't think I will make it. Everyone is saying target, target. But ... it is to be more than to reach a target. It's to change the economy. It's to have resource productivity, energy efficiency when we know that energy will be the next crisis for the economy of the world." (National Post, July 1, 2006)
