Green Party Leader Sets The Pace For Climate Change Debate

Elizabeth May was giving a sermon in church last Sunday and something she said was picked up by Stephen Harper and spun negatively to try to use it against her.

One thing that interests me is that the other political parties have realized that they are in a losing battle when it comes to criticizing Green Party policies (not only on climate change but also on economic stability & sustainability, social justice, etc) and now have turned to attacking the Leader of the Green Party of Canada, Elizabeth May.

I, as well as many other Greens, will continue to keep the focus on the solutions that the Green Party represents. It's up to the other national parties to choose whether they want to offer Canadians some policies that will lead to a healthy country with a healthy economy & healthy people, or more disinformation, spin, rhetoric and personal attacks.

We know that Canadians want solutions, not more finger pointing and childish back-and-forth attacks. While the Green Party offers common sense solutions in its policies and continues to rise in the polls, the other parties continue to sit at the same level of support or go lower.

May gets backing from Brits

Bruce Cheadle, Canadian Press - Published: Wednesday, May 02, 2007

OTTAWA (CP) - Elizabeth May was sharply criticized Tuesday, ...but the unapologetic Green party leader got some unexpected support from British royalty.

While Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Liberal Leader Stephane Dion and New Democrat Jack Layton all took turns denouncing the analogy, Prince Charles was making much the same point as May in a speech in London.

"I do not want my children and grandchildren, or anyone for that matter, saying to me, 'Why didn't you do something when it was possible to make a difference and when you knew what was happening?" the prince told a business conference Tuesday at St. James Palace.

"We can do it, just think what they did in the last war. Things that seemed impossible were achieved almost overnight."

In an interview Tuesday, May said the tempest over her weekend remarks to a church group were being both misrepresented and overblown.

May explained that the controversial quote attributed to her in news reports was actually her repeating the comments of a British journalist and environmental writer, George Monbiot.

Monbiot had told a conference on Saturday that there is a "new axis of evil" on climate change, naming U.S. President George Bush, Australian Prime Minister John Howard and Harper as the offending trio.

According to May, who says she took notes, Monbiot called the three "more culpable in the eyes of history than (former British prime minister) Neville Chamberlain's attempt to appease the Nazis."

May says she repeated Monbiot's opinion on Sunday when she spoke to a church group in London, Ont., at the invitation of the local Liberal MP who had defeated her there in a fall federal byelection.

The point, May said Tuesday, is that Monbiot was comparing the moral failure of meeting the targets of the Kyoto protocol on greenhouse gas emissions with Chamberlain's failure to appreciate the dangers of Nazi Germany.

"We run the risk of losing civilization," said May.

(snip)

Curiously, Britain's foreign secrectary, Margaret Beckett, also used the Second World War analogy in a speech last week.

Beckett described climate change as a matter of "climate security" and recalled the pre-war actions of Chamberlain's political opponent and eventual successor, Winston Churchill.

"It was a time when Churchill, perceiving the dangers that lay ahead, struggled to mobilize the political will and industrial energy of the British Empire to meet those dangers," said Beckett. "He did so often in the face of strong opposition and not always with success."

Green Party Leader dismayed that comments were distorted

01.05.2007
Statement by Elizabeth May, Leader, Green Party of Canada.

“I am dismayed that members of the Harper government have chosen to distort my comments to create a firestorm of controversy designed to distract attention from their failure to live up to Canada's Kyoto commitments.

"I can assure the Canadian Jewish Congress and all Canadians that I did not compare Nazi Germany and the Holocaust to any current issue. The evil of the Nazi regime is without parallel and stands alone for its deliberate, systematic and inhuman genocide.

“George Monbiot, best-selling author of HEAT and respected journalist at The Guardian, echoed the views of many people around the world when he expressed his deep distress at Canada's abdication of responsibility in the current climate crisis. As a failure of leadership and moral courage, he compared it to the appeasement efforts of Neville Chamberlain.

“I made reference to Mr. Monbiot’s statement to highlight the damage being done to Canada’s international reputation, something that should concern all Canadians.

“I deeply regret that the inflamed rhetoric around this issue has caused pain or offence.”

I would rarely if ever compare anything to controversial subjects for fear that it would make light of those events and distract from my point. Unfortunately, the inflamed rhetoric put forth by Harper distracted from May's point, and that hostile political opponent spun her words in a way to make it seem that she might have been making light of WW2, when in fact it is Harper who is making light of Climate Change.

Update: Macleans.ca - Selective Memory - Let he who has not made a Neville Chamberlain reference cast the first stone

Aaron Wherry, Macleans.ca | May 2, 2007 | 9:11 am EST
Scrumming with reporters after Tuesday's Question Period, NDP leader Jack Layton was asked for his take on Elizabeth May's questionable use of a Neville Chamberlain reference to describe the Conservative government's stance on the environment. Layton did not mince words.

"Well, we certainly would have never made any such comparison," he said. "I think it's very unfortunate and certainly not something that we consider to be wise or appropriate."

Pity Layton. His memory obviously fails him.

Now, I'm not generally in the business of doing the Green Party's homework, but a quick review of Hansard finds more than a few Chamberlain references on the record. In fact, here's Layton questioning then-prime minister Paul Martin about the Liberal government's failure to meet Kyoto targets:

"Mr. Speaker, enough is enough. We have been hearing those kinds of comments from the Prime Minister for 16 years since he began promising to clean up the air for Canadians and instead we have worse pollution than ever. He makes Neville Chamberlain look like a stalwart in standing up to a crisis. Smog is sending people to emergency wards at unprecedented levels. The prairies are drying up. We have forest fires like we have never had before. All we get are promises of plans to be brought forward some day. Will he bring forward a plan, yes or no?"

After QP, Liberal leader Stéphane Dion added his voice to those calling for May to withdraw the comments. One assumes he said the same thing to Liberal MP Robert Thibault, who, just a little more than a month ago, mustered this during a budget debate:

"I listened to the Minister of Finance when he was reading his budget speech. He said that the long days of bickering between the federal and provincial governments were over. I have not heard a quote like that since I read about Neville Chamberlain talking about peace in our times right before the second world war."

And before the Conservatives get cocky, let's remember this year-old gem from Peter MacKay, during a debate over extending the Canadian mission in Afghanistan:

"I do not expect members of the NDP to understand this. I fully expect that the Neville Chamberlains of the 21st century in the NDP do not want to be part of an effort that is aimed at elevating the lives of the people of Afghanistan. It is unfortunate that they would take this off track and try to debase the real activity, the important quality of life changes that are taking place because of our forces being in Afghanistan."

MacKay was at least speaking in reference to a military operation. But then, if a reference to Neville Chamberlain is always "inappropriate," a multi-partisan apology seems in order.