What Will Be Left?

So Canada has pulled out of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification. Another step along the path of isolating Canada from being associated with anything that may force our government to acknowledge that the planet is in crisis environmentally.

I understand where Stephen Harper is coming from. He got elected claiming that Canada was immune to the global recession, only to announce drastic spending increases three months later in an attempt to stimulate the economy. He got reelected by selling himself as a fiscal conservative despite running up the biggest deficit in Canadian history. With all the time he is spending campaigning as opposed to governing, he isn’t able to see environmental initiatives as being anything but harmful to the economy. If our Prime Minister is not looking out for our long term future, what type of country is he going to leave behind when his political aspirations are satiated?

I suspect this whole issue will quietly go away the same way it did in 2011 when Harper pulled Canada out of the Kyoto Protocol. Such is the way of Canadians - we complain but we don’t act. Our economy continues to stagnate while we cut more and more environmental safeguards in retaliation. Is there going to be anything left to protect when we finally get our priorities straight?

"Because we don't think about future generations, they will never forget us." - Henrik Tikkanen(1924 - 1984)