A proud Canadian moment

So the first day of negotiations at the United Nations Climate Change talks in Durban has gone and Canada has scored first and second place in the fossil awards. It got first for planning to withdraw from the Kyoto protocol (in December after the talks are finished - talk about bad faith bargaining) and second for this statement by our Environment Minister, Peter Kent: ‘Emerging and developing countries need to stop “wielding the historical guilty card” and asking for a free pass on emissions reductions just because in the past, industrialized countries had more emissions than the rest of the world’. Yeah, developing countries. Stop asking for free passes. Don't you know free passes are for North Americans?

Third place goes to the UK for making a deal with Canada to bring tar sands oil into the European Union by undermining the Fuel Quality Directive. Hey, I'm considering that a win for Canada, too.

While I was googling around on this topic, I came across some "conservatives" cackling about the awards with glee. So if you thought it was just our government that hates the environment, you're wrong. Some Canadians do too, and they walk among us. Or more likely, they idle their SUVs in the drive-through lane at Tim Horton's.