Tony Lepage

“Every man and woman in the street knew something nasty was up ahead. But the politicians just had their Munichs. Peace in our time. Many of us were skeptical, we thought something pretty awful was going to happen, but when it did happen, everybody suddenly grew happier, they found that instead of life being somewhat aimless, as it is now, they all had positive things to do. If you were young it didn’t seem all that bad. ”

A popular but controversial scientist by the name of James Lovelock puts it this way:

“Every man and woman in the street knew something nasty was up ahead. But the politicians just had their Munichs. Peace in our time. Many of us were skeptical, we thought something pretty awful was going to happen, but when it did happen, everybody suddenly grew happier, they found that instead of life being somewhat aimless, as it is now, they all had positive things to do. If you were young it didn’t seem all that bad. ”

I believe it’s going to take a crisis to bring about any real significant change and for this reason alone, I say ‘bring it on.’ And that brings me to a story. This is the story of why conservatives are full of hot air, and are fine tuning their propaganda skills every day.

I fully believe that the current Harper government is attempting to “mislead the Canadian people,” as Al Gore has recently stated . It has taken me a while to be able to draw this conclusion, but I am now confident in stating that the conservatives are only concerned with the feelings of Canadian people so that they can appropriately target their propaganda campaigns. They do not really care to address the issue; they’d rather avoid it altogether. The Conservatives just want to draw it out into several, misleading, and day-by-day news releases. The purpose of these news releases, stretched nightly, for a week at a time, is to either tire the population with any topic of the environment, or knock them out with their backside hot air.

I am not here to say the conservatives are any better than any of the other parties, but it is clear that, when it comes to the topic of climate change and pollution, every other party is leaps ahead of the conservatives. In fact, the conservative party is so far in denial that their only defense is that what they are doing is more than anyone has done before. While this is arguably true, imagine any other party in their place. Would they have any choice but to do the bare minimum? The bare minimum is currently being defined by our leadership, the Conservatives. The bare minimum, as they’d like it, is to address the issue with rhetoric. Unfortunately, the conservatives are good at this type of rhetoric; rhetoric that might see them re-elected.

We need real leadership. Not leadership by polls. When television and propaganda drives election platforms, we’ll see nothing more than a missing of the target. The targets are wrong to begin with. There is much Canada can do to become a leader and example of environmental responsibility.

To all current leadership: Show us how public transportation can work. Let us see how it can change our lives.

In the past week, our environment minister has rebuffed criticism from two real leaders in the environment field; David Suzuki and Al Gore. You’d think that somehow the conservatives would see this as a warning, but instead they’d like us to believe they know better. Should you need reminding, less than a year ago, Stephen Harper, wrote in letters to party members that the environmental movement was nothing more than a socialist scheme to steal money from the developed nations of the world. A few polls later, he tore up the Tory “Made in Canada” environment plan and opted for a liberal rehash. The made in Canada green bill was nothing close to made in Canada, it contained terms only ever used once before—by the G.W. Bush administration. Sigh.

When he realized his *new* plan was over 5 years old, and that Canadians knew it, he opened it up for all the parties to have input into. When they returned a revised version, he realized it was a big mistake. How will he defeat this one? Our leadership should not be motivated by maneuvering.

The last time I remember this kind of maneuvering was when “we” signed the free trade agreement, NAFTA. I’m not quite sure we’ve healed however, we might have grown accustomed to the pain in our posterior. Now we’re giving the conservatives another go at us—another political Viagra if you will.

There is no denying the rhetoric is at all time highs. There is no denying the conservatives do not care about the environment. There is no denying the conservatives offer nothing close to leadership for the Canadian people.

There is no denying that many of us are sucked into voting loyally, and that we forget what a democracy is really for.

When the election comes, prevent the PR campaigns from seeping into our media and mainstream.

Work with your critics, don’t ignore them. Do not act as if their words are insignificant. Do not act as if you know more than them. Even Arnold Schwarzenegger knows this.

We have more than two parties in Canada, and we have more than two reasons.