Alberta Politics

someone i know told me they are interested in the wildrose party. at the time they mentioned this new alberta based political party, i thought perhaps i should look into it. alas eating weight watchers chocolate toffee candies (only one point) and reading gofugyourself.com has kept me pretty busy for the last, oh, month or so.

so then the other night when i was in the tub listening to a cbc podcast and they announced they were going to be interviewing the leader of the wildrose party, i was like:"oh goody." ok actually, i remember thinking: "i am totally not in the mood for this." but then getting out of the tub means risking hypotherima and at the time death didn't sound that appealing. so there i was, a captive audience.

i'm not going to lie, i was less than impressed.

ms. smith spent the entire time talking about: how climate change is, in fact, not true; how we should not let american policy on carbon affect how we do business in alberta (because america is not the center of the universe); and how evidence that does not support climate change is suppressed by scientific journals in a conspiracy to support al gore (slightly overstated on my part).

wow. honestly you have ten minutes to talk to a NATIONAL audience about what your party stands for and you choose to talk about how climate change isn't real? no wonder the rest of canada thinks people from alberta are nut jobs. if i didn't know better i would say ms. smith is also the "genius" behind the sign that was once prominently displayed on the #2 highway going north from calgary; the one that said, "alberta separation, isn't it about time."

but i digress....

ms. smith may not like to admit it, but alberta oil companies are and will be greatly affected by american policies on the environment. the united states may not be the center of the universe, but they are a huge customer. a carbon tax there would devastate the economy here.

so what i want to know is where does denying climate change get us? how does it promote the interests of alberta oil companies to their international customers? if a country is concerned about the environment and is considering a carbon tax, we aren't going to get anywhere trying to convince them that climate change doesn't exist. that ship has sailed.

what we need is to lobby our client's governments (and our own) to ensure that SMART environmental policies are implemented. we need to invest time and money into making sophisticated economic arguments about the cost effectiveness of policies designed to reduce those carbon footprints. when people learn that a carbon tax, for example, comes at a huge economic expense so that 100 years from now it will not be 1 degree warmer, people are going to stop and think. people are not going to even consider your ideas if you start by making the politically suicidal move of denying climate change.

there is a part of me that wants to support ms. smith. i like newcomers. i like mavericks. i like people who are trying to shake things up. the thing is, her talking points on the carbon issue show how totally out of touch she is. do we want another out of touch government? um. no.

so does anyone have anything to say in her defense?