Her tenure as health minister was marked by dutiful announcements of small grants to friendly groups and heavily-scripted photo-ops. She banned cancer-causing chemicals in toys. But anything more substantial—even warning of the dangers of too much salt, informing Canadians of the perils of energy drinks, or acting against trans-fats—was an unacceptable intrusion into private decisions.
She favoured voluntary guidelines on healthy eating, gentle hints to drug companies to behave responsibly—refusing, for example, to regulate the generic version of addictive OxyContin—and shared her government’s well-established reluctance to heed dissenting advice.
She even cut health funding for some aboriginal programs, which, as an Inuk from Nunavut, should have been a difficult call. But she has amply proven she is a Harper Conservative above everything else. (She did not support Idle No More, for instance, or Theresa Spence’s galvanizing hunger strike.)
Extreme obedience is not unusual on the Harper front bench; indeed, it is mandatory. But Aglukkaq is especially lifeless, rising dutifully to read her talking points, avoiding media except in highly-managed settings and staying well under the political radar.
Over time, she has managed to reduce Health from a major portfolio to a minor post, slightly more important than Revenue but not in the same league as Natural Resources, say.
This is exactly what Harper, who has long favoured limiting the federal role in health care in favour of the provinces, wanted. Now the question is whether Aglukkaq will be able to do the same in environment?
Broadly, it doesn’t matter who becomes minister, since the file is micro-managed by the PMO—and the real boss, if there is one, is Joe Oliver, minister of Natural Resources. There have been five Harper environment ministers and only Jim Prentice showed much passion for the job. Too much passion, perhaps, since he left for the private sector.
But Aglukkaq isn’t just any prime ministerial mouthpiece. She is an attractive, 46-year-old aboriginal woman from the North with a young child. She is a pioneer for her people, the first Inuk appointed to a Cabinet, and an anomaly on a front bench still dominated by older white men.
It is her compelling personal story—she lived in an igloo heated by seal fat when she was a child, spent some years as a bureaucrat and politician in Nunavut, and now chairs the international Arctic Council—that make her a congenial fit in the eyes of the PMO.
“She understands the need to protect our beautiful land as well as anyone,” goes the official line. Symbolically, she’s perfect. Practically, her appointment is intended to blunt aboriginal opposition to pipelines and mines.
It will fall to Aglukkaq to weaken the species-at-risk act, almost the last piece of pre-Harper environmental legislation left standing. She will also have to explain why emissions caps for the oil industry, which contributes almost a quarter of Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions, still aren’t ready after almost seven years. (Her predecessor, Peter Kent, at least had the grace to look embarrassed.)
Aglukkaq has been a fierce defender of the seal hunt and supportive of northern resource development, but, as a northerner, she cannot be blind to the impact of climate change. Still, her announced priorities as chair of the Arctic Council are opening doors for industry and blocking the input of European nations concerned about adding more pollution to the atmosphere through rampant development.
So far, Aglukkaq has mostly escaped unfriendly media scrutiny. She is soft-spoken; she is relatively young; she comes from a culture that favours collaboration over the bruising insults and harsh tone of Question Period. She engenders sympathy.
But opposition critics say she is intensely partisan, and, despite her quiet demeanour, she enthusiastically heckles across the aisle out of earshot of the press gallery.
Coupled with her low profile, the importance of environment will be further diminished because Aglukkaq will not sit on the Cabinet Committee on Economic Prosperity as did her predecessors. This reflects Harper’s preoccupation with marketing Canada’s resources abroad and leaving resulting environmental disasters to the provinces.
Many provinces are ahead of Ottawa already, notably British Columbia with its successful carbon tax. But Canada is committed, internationally, to a rapidly-receding 2020 target for reducing overall greenhouse emissions and meeting that ambitious goal requires federal leadership.
It won’t happen. Aglukkaq’s new job will be do as little as possible, until the provinces, or Obama, or the EU, force Ottawa to act on climate change and other green issues. She appears perfectly suited to the task.
Original Article
Source: hilltimes.com
Author: Susan Riley
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