Canada's new Environment Commissioner Scott Vaughn has slammed the Harper cabal's laughable programmes to combat global warming. From The Globe & Mail:
Adjectives such as weak, poor, negligible and disappointing pepper the scathing review of two central and costly pillars of the Conservative climate-change plan.
As a division of the Auditor-General's office, the commissioner examined two of the marquee programs aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the Harper government's Turning the Corner plan.
“Environment Canada has made a claim of expected results even though it is very unlikely that it will be able to claim real, measurable and verifiable results,” Mr. Vaughan writes in his report. “Trying to manage the environment without a coherent measurement system is like trying to guide Canada's economy in the absence of indicators like the gross domestic product, inflation, interest rates and unemployment data.”
But wait, there's more! Auditor General Sheila Fraser has announced she'll be auditing the Harper-Ignatieff stimulus budget, keeping her eye on just how those Deficit Bucks are squandered.
Steve Harper. Not serious about the environment? Say it ain't so!
The Environment Commissioner's audit report, released simultaneously Thursday with an Auditor-General's report, found there is no evidence to support the government's emission reduction claims associated with the $1.5-billion Clean Air and Climate Change Trust Fund and the $365-million Public Transit Tax Credit.
Auditors found the original estimates of success for these programs were flawed. For instance, the government claims its $1.5-billion trust fund transfer to the provinces will eliminate 80 megatonnes of greenhouse gas emissions.
“The department conducted almost no analysis to support that figure, and did not perform key types of analysis,” states the commissioner's report.
As for the claim that handing out tax credits to bus users would reduce Canada's annual emissions by 220,000 tonnes, that estimate has now been reduced to 35,000 tonnes, a mere 16 per cent of what Ottawa originally claimed would be accomplished.
“Given the lowered figure, the Tax Credit will have a negligible impact on Canada's greenhouse gas emissions,” the report states.
Well, it's a good thing that Michael Ignatieff has placed Harper "on probation." That should get us back on track in no time. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090205.wPOLag_enviro0205/BNStory/politics/home
It just keeps getting worse. Are the clean air and public transit initiatives part and parcel of the dollars that were transferred to the provinces with absolutely no oversight or evaluation of how funds were spent in targeted areas?
ReplyDeleteAnd today we also hear that 78% of infrastructure money was earmarked for Conservative ridings. What a sham.
w/v = sponshat (that seems apropos)
Good you mentioned that this is a liberal/conservative budget. Iggy and the liberals voted for this and thus they own all of it.
ReplyDeleteThey cannot whine as they are now Harper's backup party.
Way to go Liberals. BY, is that for real? Did the liberals not read the small print, before they quickly said we support this lock, stock, and barrel????
ReplyDeleteUnbelievable. The liberals just supported a stimulus budget that mostly supports Harper's supporters and totally screws over women, workers, and NFL, and so on.
Now Jan, let's not be too harsh on Iggy. He's just a rookie after all, only an "interim" leader, sort of like when you got your learner's licence.
ReplyDeleteActually, the lack of accountability is based on what Sheila Fraser uncovered in her report. She hasn't audited the details of the budget yet but I'm sure based on what we are hearing, it won't be good:
ReplyDelete- renovation tax credit likely subject to abuse
- 78% of infrastructure $$$ to CPC ridings
- hiding pre-existing deficit in stimulus figures
- ambiguity about equalization payments
- pork barreling of specific initiatives that benefit those on the Economic Advisory panel.