The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
This was going to be the green election, a transformative contest with political parties campaigning on competing climate change policies. To date, however, there is no evidence a green wave is sweeping voters and parties before it. Yes, policies relating to climate change are on the campaign agenda, but there is no sign that they are dominating that agenda. Rather than a green revolution, we have a test for public opinion: will Canadians voters hold firm to an environmental agenda in bad times? The bad economic news has been unrelenting in recent weeks and there is no doubt support for aggressive action on climate change has wilted in the face of this barrage. It is hard to concentrate on a complex climate change policy debate when financial institutions are collapsing. The argument that aggressive climate change action is essential for CanadaÕs economic prosperity is not holding in tough economic times. For the most part, Canadians are proving to be fair-weather climate change supporters. This appears to be the case even in British Columbia, which stands out among provinces as the greenest of the green. The B.C. government introduced a carbon tax in July, and did so to wide acclaim from the environmental community and with apparent support from a cross-section of the electorate. Today, however, support for the provincial carbon tax is waning and the provincial Liberal government that brought in the tax is in trouble. B.C. nicely illustrates the complexity of the climate change debate. Opposition to a green shift is particularly evident in the interior of the province where the carbon tax is seen as the creation of cappuccino-sipping urbanites who can walk to work from their downtown Vancouver lofts and condos. The climate change challenge is not uniting Canadians, but is instead fragmenting the electorate along class and urban/rural lines. Now, however, even the urban core in B.C. is entertaining second thoughts about aggressive climate change policies. B.C. voters resembling the core constituency of the federal Conservative party, the suburbanites who are increasingly concerned about the economy, who believe in greater environmental protection, but not at any price. It is clear a green transformation of the political landscape is not yet underway. It appears Canadians are not prepared to address global warming when the economy cools.
