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Inconvenient Questions for Joan
Inconvenient Questions for Joan #5: Gordon Moore, Dominion President of the Royal Canadian Legion, wrote Nov 8, “We are dismayed by the inaction of this government to bring the long overdue improvements to funeral and burial benefits for Veterans and their families. Instead, it appears the Government’s priorities are out of sync with the desires of not only Canada’s Veterans, but also of the public as a whole… Let’s not even talk about the $28-million the government spent promoting the War of 1812. Veterans are crumbling under the weight of disrespect shown to them by the government they served to uphold.” How would you reply to Mr. Moore?
Turner: “Joan can respond any way she likes, but the fact of the matter is that the government she wants to join would rather grandstand on the subject of a 200-year-old war than spend money to ensure every veteran receives a respectful burial. As the son of a career Air Force officer, I’d tell Mr Moore that “dismayed” is way too kind - this state of affairs is appalling. The $5 million per year required to properly fund the Last Rites program should be provided ASAP.”
Inconvenient Questions for Joan #4: The journal Nature says Harper’s cuts to research funding are undermining science. 'Governments come and go, but scientific expertise and experience cannot be chopped and changed as the mood suits and still be expected to function,' it said. 'Nor can applied research thrive when basic research is struggling.' Harper doesn’t see a difference between environmentalism and environmental science, Joan, but do you?
Turner: “A tricky one, Joan, so I’ll tackle it for you. Environmentalism is a sort of political philosophy and category of public advocacy in defense of the biosphere. Environmental science is science. You can argue about the merits of the former, but arguing against the latter is very much akin to yelling at a cloud. Anyway, your would-be boss must know the difference, because he’s cutting back the science stuff like crazy, in the apparent hope that if the Canadian government can no longer see and understand the damage its policies cause, it won’t have to take any responsibility for its actions. I’m glad that Elizabeth May’s leadership on the omnibus budget bill gave Canadians a chance to get a good look at the bill’s reckless cuts to environmental science - for example, the axing of funding to the one-of-a-kind world-class Experimental Lakes Area in northern Ontario, which had been operating since the 1960s and which is the facility responsible for teaching the world how acid rain works and discovering that phosphates from detergents are bad for freshwater, among many other things. Roughly equivalent to taking the wrecking ball to an observatory. Canada’s Economic Action Plan at work!
In a response this summer, an unprecedented march of thousands of scientists and other concerned citizens came to Parliament Hill to protest such cuts. I’m proud to note that this “Death of Evidence” march was organized in part by Turner4YYC phone canvassing dynamo Katie Gibbs. Because unlike your would-be boss, Joan, we believe that the best government policy comes from the best data.”
Inconvenient Questions for Joan #3: Harper's most recent budget forced the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency to cancel 2,970 screenings into the environmental impact of proposed projects, including several by Enbridge and TransCanada. With all the negative publicity around Canada’s oil sands, and Obama under pressure to reject Keystone XL, wouldn’t keeping environmental assessment, rather than gutting it, make good business sense?
Turner: “Probably safe to assume Joan isn’t answering this one because she realizes that the government’s omnibus budget cuts to environmental monitoring, assessment and basic environmental science research from the high Arctic to the Experimental Lakes Area are simply indefensible. In an age of unstable climate and changing weather patterns and ecological upheaval, it’s dangerously reckless to decrease our country’s access to the best available data on the state of the planet. I know the government loves its throwback military pomp, so let me put it this way: This is akin to tearing down defensive fortifications and shutting down reconnaissance operations in the middle of a fierce battle. What’s more, it further undermines whatever credibility the government had in discussions about the expansion of our energy industry. In the midst of the Northern Gateway pipeline review, for example, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans had to confess that it simply did not have sufficient information to conduct all the necessary risk assessments to Canadian waterways. All in all, an appalling dereliction of duty on the part of the government.”
Inconvenient Questions for Joan #2: The Financial Post says that with his free trade deal with China, Harper 'demonstrated the worst negotiating skills since Neville Chamberlain.' The paper calls his deal 'an agreement unbecoming a nation state.' Since you support whatever Harper thinks, do you mind explaining how giving Chinese companies the right to sue our government for lost profits is good for Canadian businesses and taxpayers?
Turner: “I can understand how Joan may have missed this one, because the government never tabled the Canada-China Investment Treaty in the House of Commons for open discussion and evidently hoped it’d become policy without ever coming to wider public attention. The first MP to shine a spotlight on it was - guess who? - Elizabeth May. It’s still unclear what exactly the implications of the treaty are, but a couple of things are certain: first, the larger government pact is clouding the already muddy water around the CNOOC-Nexen deal, which now looks less like business-as-usual foreign direct investment and more like a free trade trial balloon, whether that’s accurate or not; and second, that the Harper government’s deep commitment to opaque, secretive government has never been stronger.”
Inconvenient Questions for Joan #1: Maclean's columnist Andrew Coyne called Stephen Harper's spring omnibus budget bill a '425-page ransom note demanding MPs approve amendments to more than 60 bills at once', and said it 'will quite probably lead to further abuses of power.' You've told The Globe and Mail that an MP's job is 'to support the prime minister in whatever way that he thinks.' Does this extend to abuses of power?
Turner: “I got this, Joan. The MP’s job, first and foremost, is to represent the interests of his or her constituents - in this case, the residents of Calgary Centre. The Harper government’s deceptive omnibus budget bill was a reckless rewriting of Canadian environmental policy disguised as a budget. It did such damage to the Fisheries Act that former Conservative fisheries ministers spoke out against it. With monitoring stations shuttered in the high Arctic and on the coasts and the Experimental Lakes Area shut down and numerous other cuts to basic scientific research and environmental monitoring, Canada’s government is now wilfully blind as to the environmental health of our natural bounty.
Andrew Coyne’s got it right - it’s an appalling abuse of power, and Elizabeth May showed courageous leadership in writing 300 amendments to the bill so that Canadians would at least see the damage being done before it was passed. I look forward to joining her in Parliament and showing Calgary Centre what an MP’s job really is.”