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Opinion: Canada's disappearing environmental protection initiatives
When does a series of policy statements become a doctrine? It seems we have entered the realm of doctrine with the Harper Government’s pursuit of high marks for consistency on the environmental front. The destructive process began in earnest with the election of a majority Conservative parliament in 2011 and continues through Canada’s recent withdrawal from the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification.
First to go: little things, such as the cancellation of the Invasive Alien Species Partnership Program. Canceling a program is not just an adjustment, such as lowering allocated funding, it is a statement. A wealth of evidence suggests invasive species are the single biggest threat to our treasured biodiversity beyond outright habitat destruction. Eradication efforts come with a heavy price tag. And yet, not many people noticed the program’s cancellation. A nascent doctrine was effectively bolstered by a lack of public attention.
Gone next: the National Roundtable on the Environment and the Economy. Again, not simply a diminishment of its role – as a conduit for open discussions about economy-environment linkages – but outright death by decree of a 25-year-old forum.
The list of vanishing and vanished measures goes on. Instead of merely reducing the role of the Experimental Lakes Area research centre in protecting freshwater ecosystems, the doctrine called for complete closure. In spite of evidence indicating dismantling the centre will ultimately cost more than keeping it open. Others may yet resuscitate this unique contribution to global environmental science, in operation since 1968, but surely a compromise could have been reached before the process of federal withdrawal reached its climax.
Going next are our country’s commitments to international organizations and conventions: the International Tropical Timber Organization, the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, and, most recently, the UN Convention to Combat Desertification.
To many, these decisions amount to more than a betrayal of Canada’s multilateral character. They are a betrayal of our enlightened self-interest. Surely we too will be affected by prolonged drought in the future (as the U.S. was last year), and we have further damaged our reputation in Africa by withdrawing from a convention that cost Canada less than $400,000 a year to sign onto; a pittance.
Further down the list of the “disappeared”: Canada’s membership in the World Tourist Organization, a body working toward the establishment of global norms for sustainable tourism, a process that is vital for protecting coral reefs and other sensitive areas, including the Arctic. It should be pointed out that the withdrawal process began before human rights concerns about Zimbabwe became the alleged trigger.
Yes, the “talk and talk” component of international diplomacy can be frustrating and bereft of fast results. And the desertification convention does promote African interests as climate change adaptation becomes an increasingly heavy burden there. But even Ottawa has long since admitted climate change is a real issue. Abandoning the desertification program is an ideological victory for those with aspirations of tar-fuelled “energy superpower status” as well as for the dogmatically anti-UN crowd. But the pull-out also reflects impatience with processes which are by nature cumbersome, time-consuming, and in need of constructive reform, not abandonment.
Are we witnessing the birth of a Canadian doctrine of disengagement from the science of environmental protection and international collaboration? Let’s hope not.
Tangible results take a sustained commitment, a determination to slowly and carefully build new norms. Arguably, each environmental policy, forum, and international convention could be improved. But for those concerned with environmental justice, science, and the health of future generations, a continued Canadian presence is needed, not a growing list of vanishing and cancelled commitments. When the commitments are gone, it’s just a matter of time before the natural resources they once aimed to protect will be damaged or be forced to disappear themselves.
Peter Stoett is the director of the Loyola Sustainability Research Centre and a professor in the Department of Political Science at Concordia University.
Related links:
• Loyola Sustainability Research Centre
• Department of Political Science
• Peter Stoett's Faculty profile