Who cared for 13 years?

Over the past day, numerous posts on websites have been made complaining about the Liberal hypocrisy over its inaction on the environment during their time in power. I want to point of a few things that perhaps the average Canadian may have forgotten in the 13 years we had of getting fat.

When the Mulroney Conservatives were in power, we had uncontrollable deficit spending that was crippling our economy. For the first time, Canadian sovereign bonds were downgraded from a AAA rating by Moody’s and we were the economic laughing stock of the industrialized world. Although there were some nice songs written about the environment, no one beyond school children really cared about saving the planet since the end of the acid rain crisis (which I do credit Mulroney’s leadership for controlling).

Chretien was preoccupied with saving our country which (also thanks to Mulroney) was on the verge of separating into two. It is funny how nobody actually cared about global warming which critics were still calling mad science at the time.

Fast forward 2 years when the budget was finally balanced, our country is whole, and our bellies are fed, we start whining about hospital wait times. David Anderson signs the Kyoto accord, Harper calls it a “socialist scheme”, and clearly our bellies are too fat because we have to start whining about equalization now.

When in the last 13 years did YOU (the voter) ever tell your MP that you cared about the environment? Stephane Dion was Environment Minister for 1.5 years during which Green House Gas growth rate slowed and he is accused of inaction? If it were not for his spectacular rise to power, the issue of the environment would not even be on the political radar. He doesn’t expect Harper to fix the issue overnight. He only wants a commitment that Canada will not stop trying.

If you are interested, here is my opinion of Kyoto. It hasn’t changed since I wrote this essay 2 years ago.