Oh Peter... This still image was taken from this uh, very, er, uh, interesting video. Uhhhhh. (He says uh and er a lot. I apologize for suggesting you listen to him when he no longer has a teleprompter to guide his speech.)
Any time this man speaks, I can hardly keep myself composed. Not because I generally dislike him (though this is true), but because everything that comes out of his mouth is utter trash. Not only that, but he does it always with a smug look on his face, and often a smirk, as if he knows he's simply a hack and is actually proud of it.
In the past two days, coinciding with the terrible first anniversary of the Harper Conservative narrow majority election win (which I no longer recognize as being legitimate since the robo call scandal, by the by), our Minister of What's Left of the Environment* Peter Kent has spewed so much nonsense that it must be a joke. It must be. No one can lie this openly and have a job, let alone be IN CHARGE of something at a national level.
First lie: Cuts to Parks won't impact seasonality of canals or national historic sites.
Actually, sir, it was already released in the Ottawa Citizen on April 13th that specifically the Rideau Canal National Historic Site is definitely either shortening the season (when it closes, not opens) or daily hours of operation this summer. One can reasonably infer that this will definitely be occurring at many other parks and historic sites across the country - seeing as though cutting front of the line staff means not as much front of the line work can be done. Also known as, cutting services that we the public pay for!
Second lie: This government is improving and contemporizing (is this a word?) environmental assessments across Canada.
You cannot improve and contemporize policy if doing so removes it's efficacy. You just can't. It is literally impossible. If you improve and update a car by removing parts of the engine and rearranging components of the transmission, it doesn't matter how much you buff and wax it, the damned thing just won't run.
By putting the National Energy Board front and centre for assessing environmental impacts of their own projects, how transparent and fair do you really think they will be? ESPECIALLY when they have now removed "light" pipeline construction from even being assessed under the act entirely!
Third lie: This government is concerned with stewardship and conservation.
HA! Hahahahaahahaaaaaaa! Phew, that was a good one!
Fourth lie: Charitable organizations are laundering money offshore to sabotage our government.
This isn't so much a lie as just an ignorant, false, misleading statement. Until I see proof of an environmental organization in Canada that holds a charitable status laundering money in order to stop this government from doing further damage, I don't believe it.
But if this evidence comes forward in favour of Mr Kent's drivel, I will take this statement back, admit that I was wrong, and immediately send the organization in question my next pay cheque.
Folks, PLEASE start paying attention! What is happening is bad. Really bad. Our government, the people we PAY, are continually undoing years of careful planning, hard work, and unfathomable progress in our federal policies and services. No, they are going beyond undoing. This government - whether it's the status of women in Canada, child care services, public services, the environment, social programming, health care, justice, veteran services - is systematically undoing what Canada is.
This is happening. I'm actually not being dramatic. They've been doing it for years, even as a minority when they backed opposition into a corner, threatening dreaded elections. The question isn't how far will they go, it's how far will you let them go? How long before you don't recognize your own country anymore?
Now I'm exhausted AND riled up. Arg.
"Don't it always seem to go, that you don't know what you got 'til it's gone? They paved paradise, put up a parking lot." - Joni Mitchell
* Thank you Sean for that lovely, witty title!
