Dion Throws Down the Gauntlet

Stephane Dion is gently nudging Stephen Harper toward the corner he's been hoping to avoid - the Tar Sands.

Harper has begrudgingly grasped the global warming ring, hoping it will save him from a drubbing in the next election. He's avoided the issue long enough that he now won't be expected to produce much more than platitudes and bombast from his enviromin Baird.

Harper's Achilles' Heel is his bedrock base of Alberta and, in particular, the Tar Sands. Do a few Google searches and you'll find that Ontario is a big emitter of greenhouse gases, it's filthy in fact. However Alberta, which has a fraction of Ontario's population and almost none of its manufacturing base, is responsible for about a third more greenhouse gas emissions than Ontario, making it, hands down, the nation's worst. Nine of the fifteen worst corporate emitters come from Alberta. The simple reality is that combatting global warming begins by taking the fight to the Tar Sands.

Dion knows that, then again so does Harper. The difference is that Dion can come right out and say it, leaving it for Harper to respond either by showing his true colours or by painting himself into a corner. Harper has already tried the shuck and jive routine and found it didn't sell. That leaves him in something of a no win situation.

Meanwhile Dion forges ahead. Dion was in Harper's back yard, Calgary yesterday where, according to Canadian Press, he threw down the gauntlet:

"Oil patch companies that don't take steps to lower their greenhouse gas emissions and water use should face penalties, especially in Alberta's booming oil sands region, federal Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion said yesterday.

"'If you do the right thing, you pay less; if you don't do it, you pay more,' Dion told a Calgary radio talk show.

"'The ones who are doing that will be rewarded and the ones that are not doing that will be penalized in the market where they need to be competitive,' he said.

"Later in the day, Dion suggested an 11 per cent emissions reduction – based on what he planned to do as environment minister before the Liberals were defeated by the Conservatives in the January election – was demanding but do-able. He also said the oil patch would profit from new technologies that come along."

"Dion also put a spotlight on Alberta's major oil sands producers, saying he would like to remove generous royalty incentives if firms did not meet emissions targets that would be set by the government.

"'What I will do is I will say to them: `I will remove it from you unless you have much lower emissions of CO2 and much less use of water.' So they will have an incentive to look for the best technologies and the best industrial processes.'"

"Dion also said a Liberal government would create a carbon trading market to allow companies that did not meet emissions targets to buy credits from firms that came under the standard, he said.

"Prime Minister Stephen Harper has rejected the idea of trading carbon credits on the international market."

Perhaps sensing the groundswell of public opinion, responses from Oil Patch officials were decidedly guarded.

It should be encouraging to Liberals that Dion has again shown a genuine, tactical ability. He has taken the initiative to frame the debate and placed the Tar Sands, and Stephen Harper, directly in the crosshairs.