Monday, November 20, 2006

Liberal leadership Candidates and the Environment

I have been looking at the environment/climate change sections of the candidates' web sites. The only candidate who has put out anything like a comprehensive policy position is Stéphane Dion and his position papers and statements can be found here.

The remaining candidates settled for statements or copies of speeches. The one that impressed me the most of the remainder was Martha Hall Findlay. Why? Because she was on to this issue in 1996 at a time when oil prices were falling:

The first time I took action was installing solar power at our summer place 10 years ago. The benefits have been clear, and it has certainly paid for itself since then---but it really hit home during the big black out we had in eastern Canada a few years ago. With a business to run, I couldn’t just stop and wait for the lights to come back on---so I drove from a dark office to my cottage, powered up my computer and phone and got down to business. All sorts of people went out and bought generators, and there were big queues at the gas stations---talk about economic inefficiency!

I also liked Gerard Kennedy's discussion paper, which can be found with a number of other papers here.

As for the rest, the substance indicates that they understand that there is a problem but the content on solutions is thin. You can find Rae's statement here and a speech here, while Ignatieff's speeches and statements are here.

As for the also-rans, Ken Dryden's very short statement is here, while Brison does have a Greenwatch page along with a policy statement.

Don't bother with Joe Volpe. It is not worth it.

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