Defective Government on Both Sides of the Atlantic

All too often these days we're visited with the consequences of defective government.   By defective government I mean the weak leadership incapable of taking the hard decisions necessary to benefit the country and future generations.  Defective government ignores inconveniences it can effectively kick down the road for some future government to tackle.

When Harper Envirostooge Peter Kent boasts of his government's "commitment" to reduce Canadian greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2025 but has taken not one meaningful step to implement that, it's a case of willfully defective government.

The Brits are dealing with their own example of defective government, the collapse of cod stocks in the Irish Sea and the west coast of Scotland.    The causet is supposedly overfishing but the real culprit is a succession of political leaders unwilling to reduce catch quotas to sustainable levels.  That's defective government.   Dr. Paul Connolly, a fishing scientists who advises the European commission on fish quotas, didn't hesitate to lay the blame at political feet:

"Continuous over-fishing has led to a collapse in cod in both these areas. The signs have been there for years and scientists have repeatedly warned quotas must be cut but fisheries ministers have time and time again ignored us. We do not know now whether the stocks will recover."

Hmm, politicians ignoring warnings of scientists.   Sound familiar?   It should because it's the telltale of defective government of the very sort that besets us today in Canada.   Government that announces commitments it has no intention of honouring.   Government that makes policy that flies in the face of science.   Government for which we will all pay dearly in the decades ahead.