While reporters scratch their heads and keep digging to unravel the mystery of why the Prime Minister called the RCMP on his former minister for the Status of Women, they seem so obsessed that other stories are missed. No question, the two issues swirling in Ottawa -- the increasingly distressing evidence of a cover-up of knowledge of torture and summary execution of innocent Afghan civilians and the salacious details of the decision to not only turf Helena Guergis from cabinet, but throw her out of Caucus and to the cops -- are both (to differing degrees) important issues. Canadians deserve the truth on both. But those are not the only issues for which Canadians deserve the truth.
The big climate news yesterday in the house was that public pressure succeeded in shifting the Liberals’ position on Bill C-311. And good for the Liberals, en masse, for joining the Bloc in supporting a private members bill from NDP MP Bruce Hyer. The bill, C-311 “the Climate Change Accountability Act,” was initially tabled before the 2008 election by Jack Layton. At that time, the Liberals under Dion were strong supporters. The bill should have passed before Copenhagen, but the Liberals defected, and with only 14 Liberals joining the Bloc and NDP votes, C-311 did not have enough support to avoid a delay tactic vote from Conservatives. Yesterday’s vote could have killed C-311, but thank goodness, the Liberals came back in force and kept the bill alive. It now has to complete work in committee and come back to the House for Third Reading. A huge vote of thanks to everyone who called Liberal MPs and raised awareness of this vote.
Another media story we don’t seem to see is the follow up to the so-called scandal of the hacked East Anglia emails. A second report exonerating the scientists came out yesterday. It was the investigation promised by the University, which, like the UK House of Commons, found no evidence of dishonesty. No evidence that the findings of climate science were in any doubt. The full report can be found at www.uea.ac.uk/mac/comm/media/press/CRUstatements/Report+of+the+Science+Assessment+Panel.
The headlines I don’t expect to see: “Investigations of ‘climate gate’ find no evidence of dishonesty: Climate Change Science is solid.”
There’s hardly room with the on-going Tiger Woods saga and now the Jaffer-Guergis soap opera.