Green Turtle Beats Hares In Canadian Liberal Party Race
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 12. 2.06
The Natural Governing Party of Canada, AKA the Liberals, have ruled this country for most of the last hundred years, with occasional time-outs for bad behavior when the Conservative Party fills in. We are in one of those time-outs now, and the Liberals are choosing their next leader, which in every case but one in the 140 years of the country has meant the next Prime Minister. There were smart candidates running including front-runner Harvard professor Michael Ignatieff, then there was former Ontario premier Bob Rae, and among the long shot candidates, the plodding, intellectual environmental candidate Stephane Dion. After the four-ballot shootout the new Leader of the Opposition is Dion, whose first line was "How did I get here? Canadians are as concerned as I am about building a sustainable environment for our children." and "The Issue of our times is sustainable development." This TreeHugger has never voted liberal, was drifting from the NDP to the Greens, but I am shocked to see such a committed environmentalist winning the leadership of Canada's major party against such profound odds. Al Gore: fire up your campaign, Green is on a roll.
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Dion's win was dramaatic, but do not be greenwashed. The Office of the Auditor General has already hammered Dion's record as Minister of The Environment.
Holding a cabinet level environmental post does not a green candidate make. Christie Todd Whitman for president? Note also the Wikipedia quote: "Many see his future leadership of the Federal Liberal Party as assurance of a continued link between the overwhelming amount of corporate power currently dictating parliamentary decision making"
Because wikipedia is a credible source.
Tyler Hamilton, a journalist and blogger who covers developments in clean technology, commented on Dion's victory. He defended Dion by pointing out that: (1) as environment minister, he may not have been empowered to do much; (2) Dion called Hamilton at home this summer to discuss environmental issues.