This week, the House of Commons was the site of some pretty pathetic scenes that played out on the part of the Conservative government. Representatives of Stephen Harper's party, sitting on the Standing Committee on the Environment and Sustainable Development, attempted to prevent the adoption of an important bill.
Over a course of six meetings, the Conservatives had previously attempted to hinder the adoption of a bill on Climate Change. This systematic obstruction necessitated a delay of 17 hours of work by the committee this past week. Conservative representatives basically impeded all progress on Bill C-377, a bill proposed by the leader of the New Democratic Party (NDP), Jack Layton, which had as a goal to legislate the reduction of Canadian greenhouse gas emissions by a much more significant number than originally proposed by the Harper government. As a result of these delay tactics, Bill C-377 was not able to be reviewed and the House of Commons was not able to move on to other issues of environmental importance.
The Bill would legislate a long-term target of Canada reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 80%, below 1990 levels, by 2050, as many great countries and states already did such as Germany, Great Britain and California, etc. Canada should also reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 25% by 2020, which is what industrialized countries committed to doing at the Bali Conference this past December.
The NDP, the Bloc Québécois and the Canadian Liberal Party are all in favour of Bill C-377. Reaching the height of ridiculous behaviour, this past week the Conservatives declared that if the committees in the House of Commons continued to operate in a "dysfunctional" fashion, the Harper government would be forced to call an election.
Did I understand correctly? Conservatives are standing in the way of the work that the committees are conducting, and then, when any progress remains at a standstill, they threaten to call an election? Just thinking about all this gives me a headache…
