1. Copenhagen dispatch: Shut up, Canada. Green Party Leader Elizabeth May says everyone just wants Canada “to be quiet” right now at the Copenhagen climate-change talks. Ms. May is in the Danish city for the summit and she says, in an early morning dispatch to The Globe, that “every time Canada says anything, it is unhelpful.”
“The refusal of our delegation to actually negotiate – in a negotiation – just makes people (representatives from other countries) wish we would ‘be quiet’ and get out of the way,” she says.
Environment Minister Jim Prentice is at the summit today and Canada has come with a position that it appears not to want to alter, similar to the United States. Ms. May says, however, that the provincial premiers and ministers are making a good impression as their greenhouse gas emission plans are far more aggressive than that of the federal government.
Says Ms. May: "The frustrations with Canada have been building for years. Ever since Harper became PM and sent Rona Ambrose to her first climate negotiations with instructions to repudiate Kyoto ... our stance ever since has just made us more and more a global outcast."
The Green Party Leader notes that the Conservative government tries to make so much of this "shared plan" with the United States, but American officials never mention Canada. She said that she heard from U.S. energy secretary Stephen Chu yesterday. "He spoke about carbon capture and storage and where the good research is being done, he didn't mention Canada. So there is no real collaboration."
"So my view is that the Harper government, knowing Obama is popular in Canada, is using the 'waiting for Obama' line as a PR screen while doing nothing to prepare," she says. "In no other area of world affairs would Canada just say 'we will run to catch up once the U.S. tells us what to do'. So, yes, people here are very frustrated with Canada."
Ms. May, meanwhile, has been rubbing shoulders with enviro celebs, such as Jane Goodall and Al Gore. And she says that Bianca Jagger is about town, as is Desmond Tutu but she has yet to see them.
2. The langauge of torture. Stephen Harper's government says the opposition is playing “word games” on the Afghan detainee issue. “We can play semantics, the guy was briefly detained by Canadians and turned over to the Afghans,” Tory MP Laurie Hawn, the parliamentary secretary to the Defence Minister, said yesterday on CTV’s Question Period. Later, he said that Canadians have “lost perspective” on this issue.
“It’s absolutely ridiculous. We are following the law. This is one incident on the battlefield three and a half years ago. Get real here, folks.” Mr. Hawn was responding to the explosive allegations last week from Chief of Defence Staff Walter Natynczyk that an Afghan (Mr. Hawn referred to him as “the guy”) detained by Canadian military was subsequently tortured. The government had vigorously maintained for weeks that there was no evidence of torture or abuse of Afghans handed over by Canadian soldiers.
Mr. Hawn’s comments indicate that the Tories are changing their strategy, backing off from the “no-evidence defence” to admitting that one incident happened several years ago but it happened in the heat of battle. Mr. Hawn’s critics, meanwhile, are not buying his semantics argument. NDP foreign affairs critic Paul Dewar and Liberal defence critic Ujjal Dosanjh are anticipating a meeting of the special parliamentary committee tomorrow.
While the House rose last week, the detainee story is still contentious. On Question Period yesterday, Mr. Dewar said he wants to hear from witnesses on the ground and those diplomats responsible for the detainee framing and following through on the detainee transfer agreement, which Ottawa admits the Afghans are violating.
3. Karl Belanger: rock star. The avuncular and well-liked press secretary for NDP Leader Jack Layton had his Olympic moment this weekend. Through the luck of the draw, Mr. Belanger was chosen to run a leg of the torch relay through part of Ottawa. He did that Saturday and we have the pictures to prove it.
“I don’t think I’ve ever smiled so wide for so long,” Mr. Belanger said of carrying the torch. “My wife, friends and colleagues were there to cheer me on. When I got off the shuttle bus, waiting for my relay, I was an immediate rock star – while I waited, everyone wanted to take their pics with me, touch the torch, be part of it. It was truly my Olympic dream!”
Now back to reality, Karl, and the fight over the HST and the Afghan detainee issue. The torch leaves Ottawa today for Kingston, Ont.
(Photo: Laura Payton)
