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norman spector

In the Times Colonist , Andrew Weaver - a member of the Nobel-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and another of David Suzuki's guests on Friday's edition of The Current - says it's imperative that a strong and binding global gas-emissions treaty be agreed to at Copenhagen next month. And Green Party Leader Elizabeth May is calling for a "massive mobilization on Vancouver Island and across the country" to urge Prime Minister Stephen Harper to live up to the country's international responsibilities.

Thanks to the APEC meeting, Canadians now understand that a successor treaty to replace the soon-to-die Kyoto protocol will not come out of Copenhagen. They know that Prime Minister Stephen Harper will be at the meeting if other world leaders attend, contrary to what the Toronto Star reported yesterday. And, while the Star still seems surprised by the cratering of Copenhagen, and still leans to pinning responsibility on Canada, the New York Times nails it:

"The agreement on Sunday codifies what negotiators had already accepted as all but inevitable: that representatives of the 192 nations in the talks would not resolve the outstanding issues in time. The gulf between rich and poor countries, and even among the wealthiest nations, was just too wide."

More tangibly for Canada, the APEC meeting sent a strong anti-protectionist signal to U.S. President Barack Obama - who's been in the pocket of his trade union supporters since coming to office. Here's how the Washington Post reports it:

"The bluntest criticism, made just a few hours before Obama's arrival in Singapore, came from Mexican President Felipe Calderón who accused the United States of moving "in the opposite sense of free trade." Chinese President Hu Jintao and his Russian counterpart, Dmitry Medvedev, in separate speeches, also assailed protectionism. They didn't finger the U.S. directly, but they pointed in Washington's direction."

All of which brought a measure of joy to the heart of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who had this to say about his new-found ally, according to Canwest news:

"There are obviously things with China on which we don't agree, but when it comes to economics, China is a strong voice for opening up trade internationally. … That's a strong position of the government of Canada to promote free trade and oppose protectionism."

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