The remarks were delivered during the special session that began late Tuesday night, allowing opposition members to ask detailed questions about environmental policies of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government.
Kent also used the session to retreat from his previous claims that remaining in the Kyoto Protocol on climate change would cost Canada about $14 billion, while struggling to answer numerous questions about the inner workings of his department and changes in its activities caused by his government’s budget cuts, including cuts to response to environmental disasters.
He also acknowledged a decision to cancel $5 million in annual funding for a 24-year old advisory panel, the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy, was his own and that it was made to prevent significant cuts in some essential areas of his department.
But he defended a controversial government policy of controlling interviews by federal scientists, rejecting criticism that it is muzzling the researchers doing work for taxpayers.
“Our government believes that taxpayer-funded scientists should focus their efforts on taxpayer-funded research,” Kent said in response to questions from NDP MP Peter Julian.
“We do enable thousands of interviews across government every year with our scientists, with reasonable media requests. However, we believe that a demand to meet a 60 minute deadline by an individual reporter is simply not acceptable. We will continue to work with the media on reasonable requests. Again, I would expect many thousand more interviews in the year ahead.”
At the start of the session, Kent acknowledged that he didn’t have any concrete numbers about potential costs for remaining in the Kyoto Protocol on climate change.
“That figure (of $14 billion) was the result of an analysis which represented a certain value at a point in time,” said Kent, who announced last December that Canada would withdraw from the treaty, the world’s only legally-binding agreement that requires reductions in heat-trapping greenhouse gases that cause global warming. “However, that market is exceptionally volatile and rises and falls on the whims of the market.”
In response to questions from Megan Leslie, the NDP deputy leader and environment critic, Kent said his government has not done any economic analysis on the impacts of its current climate change targets to reduce annual emissions by 17 per cent below 2005 levels. He said that it would be “premature” to do sowhile the government continues consultations with industry sectors on potential regulations to cap their pollution. Meantime, he acknowledged that climate change impacts could eventually cost the Canadian economy billions of dollars in losses.
He said the consultations only began with the oil and gas industry last year.
He also was unable to answer questions from Liberal environment critic Kirsty Duncan about whether his department had shut down a group of scientists researching impacts and adaptation to climate change.
“The adaptation research group is, like climate change, an evolving organization,” said Kent, who also appeared to confuse climate change policies with ozone monitoring policies during his exchange with Duncan. “As we address the challenges of climate change, both in terms of mitigation and also with regard to adaptation, we respond and direct our resources to where they are best applied.”
The opposition critics slammed Kent for failing to explain the consequences of recent budget cuts affecting his department.
“It is a little absurd that the minister himself is not capable of assessing programs that will be slashed by his own department, under his authority,” said Anne Minh-Thu Quach, the NDP’s deputy environment critic during one exchange with Kent.
“His team is incapable of putting their fingers on the figures, despite the fact that there are three people with him who are supposed to come up with the answers.”
Kent then went on the attack, targeting recent Postmedia News coverage that quoted a report he had signed which warned that the department’s scientific expertise was in jeopardy, threatening Environment Canada’s capacity to protect Canadians from ecological threats.
“In response to my colleague, I would first suggest that perhaps the NDP members do a little more original research rather than rely on flawed news media reports as the basis for their questions,” said Kent, a former award-winning broadcast journalist.
But the NDP MP fired back.
“We actually rely on scientific facts. I have no idea what the minister is relying on.”
Kent was able to confirm that his department would reduce the number of regional offices responding to environmental emergencies, leaving only two out of six in place, despite warnings from scientists that this jeopardizes the health and safety of Canadians.
The environment minister told Julian that the emergency response team had dealt with 1,050 pollution incidents in 2010-2011, including more than a hundred cases where Environment Canada experts were dispatched on location of the environmental disasters or incidents.
Kent received occasional breaks from the barrage of questions from his Conservative colleagues, including the junior defence minister, Julian Fantino, who asked him about funding for events commemorating the war of 1812, as well as back bench Tory MP Robert Sopuck who suggested that hunters who kill animals are “true” environmentalists.
“The members opposite make a great show of being supporters of environmental groups, but one of the most significant environmental communities in our country that they never talk about or support is Canada’s millions of hunters and anglers who are the true conservationists in the country,” said Sopuck.
“They deliver on-the-ground programs and projects through local clubs and deliver real environmental results.”
Original Article
Source: canada.com
Author: Mike De Souza
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