Electing Harper = Killing Kyoto - The Tyee

[hatrack]

Canadians are poised to axe the Kyoto Accord, but seem unaware that's what they will be doing when they elect a Stephen Harper government today. Less than two weeks before voting day, with a majority government in sight, Harper said he would abandon the CO2 emission limits of Kyoto. It was good news for the fossil-fuel industry, but bad news for Canadians, most of whom steadfastly favour the accord.

The story should have received major media attention, but didn't. By the following day, it was dead. Inside the Harper war room, fossil-fuel industry lobbyists were high-fiving each other. If Harper had announced a pull-out from Kyoto in Calgary in December, the media might have played the story very differently and Harper might not be heading for a majority government.

When a government or political party announces a new policy, it chooses a location that resonates with the policy. To announce the launch of a new day care program, it goes to a day care centre with lots of cute little tykes milling about. For a new environmental initiative, it selects a pristine wilderness location and flies the media in by helicopter. The optics reinforce the message.

But Harper made his announcement in Halifax, a location which does not spring to top of mind when thinking about carbon dioxide emissions. (Auto manufacturing factories? Petrochemical plants? Coal-fired electricity plants?) And it was folded in with two other major policy reversals: reopening discussion of a missile-defence agreement with the Bush administration and questioning the Liberal government's groundbreaking deal with Canada's aboriginal peoples. Each policy shift was important enough to warrant a full day's media attention, but by collapsing them together into one day, and by announcing them in Halifax late in the campaign, Harper's advisors ensured none of the policies would be adequately examined by the media. Harper's position was on the record, but with little salience, just as the war room wizards had planned.

EDIT

http://thetyee.ca/Mediacheck/2006/01/22/CanadaKillKyoto/

[GirlinContempt]

1. Even the most optimistic polls

don't show Harper getting a majority