The Conservative government's central climate change plan has essentially disappeared from Environment Canada's website.
There are still buttons with the logo for Turning the Corner, as the plan is called, but clicking on the button sends viewers back to the Environment Canada homepage.
The development coincides with suggestions from Conservatives that their plan is under review as they launch talks on a new climate-change policy with Washington.
When the Globe inquired about the web issue on Tuesday, the department said: "The link from the Turning the Corner icon has been temporarily unavailable today due to web maintenance." The department also noted the report could still be found here.
Two days later, the buttons still don't work.
The plan was released with much fanfare in April of 2007 and was immediately criticized by environmentalists who said the climate change targets lacked ambition and the policies were inadequate. A recent audit by the Environment Commissioner also found the government overestimated the likely impact of central elements of the program, such as tax credits for Canadians who take the bus.
The plan was essentially a continuation of what the previous Liberal government had been negotiating for years with industry but never implemented. Both plans would have imposed emission reduction targets on various sectors. The targets would be based on reducing the intensity of emissions, such as emissions per barrel of oil, rather than a company's overall emissions.
Critics warned that intensity targets would allow companies to actually increase their pollution, provided their overall production was going up.
Conservatives countered that intensity targets ensured companies actually make environmental improvements at home, rather than meeting the targets by moving facilities outside of the country.
New statistics released this year also raise questions as to the very premise for naming the plan Turning the Corner.
When the plan was announced, the government said its short term goal was to stop Canada's greenhouse gas emissions from going up - hence the name turning the corner.
Emission statistics come out slowly. This Janurary, Environment Canada released statistics showing Canada turned the corner in 2003.
UPDATE: The department has informed us the button is working again. "The Government of Canada has not abandoned its climate change plan," writes spokesperson Paula Franchellini.