According to wikileaked documents, former Environment Minister Jim Prentice thought that Harper's response to criticism of the tar sands was too slow. He was ready to to step in, and start real regulation of the tar sands, not the voluntary measures Canada has now. It has been shown time and time again that corporations do not adopt non-mandatory monitoring as they would have to pay more money for it and lose a portion of profits. Apparently, there
will be improvements to a flawed monitoring system for the water pollution of the tar sands. The next step would be to install more and better greenhouse gas monitoring and finally, a carbon tax that would penalize those who pollute and reduce everyone's income tax.
Former environment minister Jim Prentice privately told U.S. Ambassador David Jacobson more than a year ago that he was prepared to impose new regulations on the oil sands if the industry and province did not improve their environmental performance, newly released Wikileaks documents reveal.
Read more at the
Globe and Mail.
Prentice's concern was about Canada's image, not about the actual devastation being caused. That doesn't quite make him the "good guy".
ReplyDeleteThat is why a put a question mark at the end of the sentence. It suggests uncertainty.
ReplyDelete