Mere days before the next major round of UN climate negotiations in Cancun, Mexico, Canada’s unelected Senate killed Bill C-311, the Climate Change Accountability Act.
The bill was defeated 43 to 32 with more than 15 Liberals absent as well as the bill’s Progressive Conservative co-sponsor.
In reaction, the Council of Canadians issued a media release last night: “It is astonishing to learn that, mere days before the next major round of international climate negotiations, the Canadian Senate killed the Climate Change Accountability Act. Bill C-311, which passed the House of Commons last May, was but a first step in the right direction,” says Andrea Harden-Donahue, Energy and Climate Justice Campaigner with the Council of Canadians.
“It would have committed the Canadian government to emission reductions (25 percent below 1990 levels by 2020) that are half of what many who will be at the Cancun negotiations are demanding is necessary.” “With increasingly severe and frequent weather patterns around the world, rapidly melting glaciers and Canadian impacts such as British Columbia’s unprecedented forest fires and the startling predictions from the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy, this decision comes as a shock.”
I just returned from a press conference with NDP leader Jack Layton and MP Bruce Hyer outside the Senate at Parliament Hill.
Layton spoke passionately, astonished that Bill C-311 had not even been debated by the Senate. Instead, a vote was taken on an evening when a number of Liberal Senators were absent to kill the vote – a manoeuvre that hasn’t been used in 70 years according the Layton who called it “fundamentally wrong” and an affront to Canadian democracy. “Canadians must not allow the Senate to get away with this…”
I’m heading to the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network station shortly for an interview on this subject and just finished an interview with CBC Radio Thunder bay.
It is important for us all to take time today and in the coming days to express our shock and outrage at this decision.
Take action:
Take a few minutes to write to your MP, let them know how you feel about the Senate’s decision to kill Bill C-311.
Here are some points you may consider raising:
• Bill C-311 passed the House of Commons last May. It is unacceptable that an unelected Senate voted to kill this Bill without even having a full debate at the Senate, or opportunity for witnesses. Canadian democracy deserves better.
• The climate crisis is real and requires urgent action. Bill C-311 was a first step in the right direction. It would have committed the Canadian government to emission reductions (25 percent below 1990 levels by 2020), these are half of what many at the Cancun UN climate negotiations are demanding is necessary.
• I am very concerned about Canada’s international reputation entering the next major round of UN climate negotiations in Cancun, Mexico November 29 to December 10. Canada’s current emission reduction target amounts a 2.5 percent rise above 1990 levels by 2020. When compared to the 25% called for in Bill C-311 and the 40% to 50% called for by many Global South countries, this is shocking.
