Chantal Hébert Tells It Like It Is...

Chantal gets it right on climate change:

"There is a widespread consensus – stretching way beyond Conservative ranks – that Canada cannot even come close to meeting its Kyoto greenhouse emission reduction objectives in time for the 2012 deadline without launching a major offensive against the energy industries of provinces such as Alberta, and/or inflicting a crippling hit to the already flagging auto industry in Ontario, and/or diverting a debilitating amount of federal resources to a single cause."

The point is a valid one. Dion has effectively put himself in a straight jacket when it comes to the environment. If elected he faces the challenge of fulfilling a promise he is incapable of keeping without shooting himself in the foot.

Or rather perhaps it's a question of just how much Dion is committed to Kyoto? Is he willing to put Canada into a recession? Is he willing to throw everything to wind, including for that matter rational thought, for the sake of his environmental principles? That's a question of character, which is only answered through trial and tribulation.

Regardless, Dion's predicament is aptly pointed out by Maddame Hébert.

That being said, Harper faces a tribulation of his own.

Harper, when it comes to the environment, is a victim of timing. He's the Prime Minister that's taken the reigns in the last days of "implementation" of the Kyoto accord. To many enviro-nutsos a failure to meet the commitments of Kyoto will be blamed on him.

The fact that the accord itself was unrealistic I doubt will be a conclusion for most.

If it had been a Liberal government in power until 2012 the enviro-crazies would have blamed Paul Martin Jr. The Conservatives would have seemed vindicated on their unpopular position on the Kyoto accord to many.

Fate seems to have decided that a single year extra of the Liberal Party of Canada was one year too much. And who can argue with fate?