Don't withdraw from Kyoto, feds advised

[CHIMO]

OTTAWA (CP) — Canada would lose international credibility and the ability to influence future climate-change negotiations if it withdrew from the Kyoto Protocol, say briefing documents prepared for Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay.

"Given the Kyoto Protocol's international profile . . . withdrawal from the Protocol would have important foreign policy implications," says the document, marked "secret."

The briefing note says some Canadian businesses would oppose withdrawing from Kyoto because they want to participate in the international carbon-trading system being developed under the Kyoto framework.

— An Ottawa conference organized by the Engineering Institute of Canada called upon engineers and their professional bodies "to acknowledge the challenges posed by climate change and to adapt actions, precautionary or otherwise . . . to develop solutions to these challenges."

The resolution was opposed by three out of about 300 engineers in attendance, said John Plant, executive director of the institute.

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[Harper_is_Bush]

1. "money for the environment will be spent on the Canadian environment."

They just don't get it.

The unofficial position of the Conservative party is that Global Warming is not happening. Tim Ball is their kind of scientist.

[Spazito]

2. Withdrawing from Kyoto will be another faux pas by the Harper

government, imo, one that will not endear them to the key demographic group of voters they need to go from minority to majority. Harper is tone deaf as well as arrogant.

[Harper_is_Bush]

3. That's OK for him...he's teflon man.

Probably because the media is afraid of him.

The biggest tragedy is that Canada would lose credibility in the developing world.

[Spazito]

4. I don't see Harper as a teflon man at all, far from it

He has been PM for less than 6 months and is in the traditional 'honeymoon' period the media tends to give first timers. I suspect that honeymoon period will end later this year.

[Harper_is_Bush]

5. Ah, but thus far he has been. The BS is starting to build up though

a large article in our Friday paper pointed out that people are keeping silent because they're afraid of him and his government at the moment. With a leaderless Liberal party and Bloc low in the polls, Harper has the power to push people around. That always comes back to bite though!

[Spazito]

6. Harper's 'power' is transitory,imo

and, adding to that, limited. He has a MINORITY government so he must court the opposition parties, different ones depending on the issue. The Bloc is finding itself between a rock and a hard place which is somewhat delicious to me. If they go along with the faux Cons, which they have on the budget, they only heighten the faux Cons chances of taking seats from them in the next election. It is only a matter of time before they turn against the faux Cons, they have no choice. Re the Libs, once they have a new leader, depending on who it is, it will be interesting to see what issue they will try to fight the faux Cons on, it sure won't be Afghanistan, sadly.

The NDP opposition is making itself irrelevant, imo, by tiptoeing around the faux Cons and allowing Layton to put his own self-interest ahead of party principles as shown by their less than stellar debate on Afghanistan as only one example.

I am betting the fight will begin this fall, cumulating in another election early spring of 07.