Gah

Photos still not uploaded - I've been working nearly every day since I got home and I need Jenn to show me how (shame) - so let's talk about politics and ecology and (a few of the reasons) why I'm not so enamoured with Stephen Harper.

To boil it down to the basics: our beloved Prime Minister always went on the record stating that he preferred a "Made-in-Canada" approach to combatting climate change. Well, see, here's the thing. The Kyoto Protocol is basically a target for how much Canada agreed to reduce our carbon dioxide emissions, with a few mechanisms available for countries to work together, should they so choose, to reach their targets. Not exactly a fascist system there, Steve. Which led me to believe from the start that "a Made-in-Canada approach" was just a euphemism for "wimpier reductions targets."



Lo and behold, what has the new government done? Apparently, they have given the slice-and-dice treatment to a bunch of Environment Canada climate change programs, including the One-Tonne Challenge, and, in the new budget, replaced previous climate change funding with a tax rebate for public transit users. Unless that comes with increased funding for municipalities to improve their transit systems (ahem, the colossally dysfunctional Metro Transit), then "tax refund for public transit users" is clearly a euphemism for "impotent cop-out." Now, I'm excited to get a tax deduction for my bus passes, but consider this: a large portion of public transit users are university students and low-income workers, people who generally make so little as to be paying paying little if any income taxes in the first place. methinks that this is going to be a cheap program for the federal Conservatives, and one that helps to mask the fact that they're letting the big culprits off the hook for their contribution to our air quality.

Gah!