Al Gore says Tories' green plan a 'fraud' designed to mislead Canadians

Source: Canadian Press

TORONTO (CP) - The Conservatives' new environmental platform is a "complete and total fraud" that is "designed to mislead the Canadian people," former U.S. vice-president Al Gore said Saturday.

snip

"In my opinion, it is a complete and total fraud," Gore said. "It is designed to mislead the Canadian people."

Gore acknowledged he is not a Canadian citizen and said he has "no right to interfere in your decisions."

However, he said, the rest of the world looks to Canada for moral leadership, and that's why this week's announcement was so "shocking."

Read more: http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/070428/national/gore_tories_emissions

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What the story fails to mention is that Gore gave a specific reason for his criticism: intensity targets.

Intensity targets are not a forthright way of claiming reductions, certainly.

This story, with it's "Gore acknowledged he is not a Canadian citizen" angle, is catering to the tendency in much of the Canadian media to attack the personalities in the global warming debate rather than deal honestly with the facts. We've had more stories about Gore's house and Suzuki's bus up here than I care to remember.

Harper is in the pockets of the Alberta oil industry, often called "Canada's Texas".

... some climate change skepticism.

While crossing the desert, his balls grew twice as big. We need him, the world needs him :)

We got to see Gore in person on Thursday night in New York and he was brilliant, passionate, and humorous..and he had the crowd of over a thousand(I'm really not sure how many) mesmerized for 2 1/2 hours and all his facts are just that..FACTS.

I hope the Canadian Press is not like the USA presswhores.

harper better watch it or you Canadians can oust him, right?

Harper and the tories get their fair share of beatings. They had David Suzuki, one our most prolific environmentalists, on the news the other day talking about this fraud of a "environmental" plan.

I also saw Al Gore in my city Last Monday...he was great.

Fuck the tories...I have never voted for them.

to us that he was in Calgary on Monday, Indiana on Wednesday. It's amazing how he keeps up his passion night after night! :)

He's EARNED the right to criticize such a shabby response to our Kyoto commitments.

It's always in the context of misleading or letting down the Canadian people. Gore is intelligent and constructive. THAT'S the way to express disapproval -- you can tell he's not part of the current US administration because he's not babbling about a country being "evil".

What DOUBLE TALK. Thank you to Mr. Gore for pointing this out as well as telling the truth about tar sands. And I also caught the video exchange betwen David Suzuki and Baird... it was a beautful sight to see. What great men and women we have leading the envirionmental movement for our world! Absolutely recommending.

And the story I read about that suggested that the minister responsible tried to say stuff like 'it's better than any government has done before'. Sure. You're gonna impress David Suzuki with a canned PR line. Sure. Get with the program or don't, bur it's not effective to try to lie about it to a guy who knows what the hell he's talking about.

...the people carrying their water - ex. ALL the editorialists for our biggest national print media, SunMedia - are going nuts trying to mock Suzuki and Gore and the IPCC. We have media that puts FOX to shame in how unabashadly it supports every Conservative move and attacks the Liberal party at every turn. Global Warming denial is in high gear here, but thankfully the public isn't buying it.

Our current government hopes that this sham of a plan, coupled with some canned PR lines like "we're doing more than any other government has" and "it's a balanced approach" and "meeting Kyoto would mean a recession" will get them elected again.

I think the polls in a week or two will be very telling.

Harper and his inhuman Environment Minister have a fellatial/cunnilingual relationship with the oil businesses. Any plan that comes from them is going to be all bunkum and honeydew.

Baird rejects Gore's criticism of Tory green plan
Last Updated: Saturday, April 28, 2007 | 3:52 PM ET
CBC News

Former U.S. vice-president Al Gore, now one of the world's most famous climate-change activists, has called the federal government's new green plan "a fraud."

Gore criticized the plan while in Toronto on Saturday to attend the Green Living Show and screen his Oscar-winning documentary on the environment, An Inconvenient Truth.

Conservative Environment Minister John Baird promptly shot back, saying Gore didn't do nearly as much to fight climate change during eight years in office.

"The fact is our plan is vastly tougher than any measures introduced by the administration of which the former vice-president was a member," Baird said in news release.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2007/04/28/gore.html

They always seem ready to pick a fight.

Maybe they are getting too much heat on Afghanistan? Or they are trying to get an election going?

Who knows? But you can be sure that it was approved by the PM's office.

"the administration Gore was a part of". The VP has very little control of policy and the issue had little support. It is true that not much was done in the Clinton years, but a fairer comparison would be Gore's plan vs the Tory plan - that he isn't doing that is telling.

The issue that the PM cannot accept criticism, it is a call to the Bush administration to wade in on the issue.

So watch for some response from Washington in the coming days.

Al is certainly being used as a target to distract people from the problem, but I believe that backfires on them.

I wonder where John Baird (the CDN Environment Minister) got the line about Al never bringing Kyoto to the Senate? :sarcasm:

... CO2 emission reduction agreement in history, a.k.a. the Kyoto Protocol. And that was while he was in the VP position, which is notoriously powerless (compared to Congress and the presidency). Gore did a darned sight more on the issue than Baird and Harper have done -- not just in government, but in their entire lives. (I was going to say "useless lives", but who knows, Harper might rescue an orphaned kitten and Baird might hold the door open for somebody someday.

for consideration.

why mess around with the uncooperative?

It's a long story...but the Conservatives came out with a plan several months ago that everyone panned. They agreed to send it to an all party Parliamentary committee for ammendments. It was ammended by the 3 opposition parties into something that would keep us in line with Kyoto. Turns out the whole process was a sham, because now the Conservatives are doing their own thing.

They've been scare-mongering the public with predictions of economic ruin if we seek to reach Kyoto.

So, Al Gore has done well, but no more is needed. His comments are much appreciated. Now our rightwing media will start up again about him and his house and his planes etc etc, but that's OK.

Our Conservative environment minister, John Baird, has shot back at Gore...claiming his plan is more than Gore's government did in 8 years! I hope Gore gore's him!

three parties against one.
seems like a winner.

It could trigger an election.

You try pounding signs into rock

Baird's plan is nothing more than smoke and mirror, pun intended.

...just sayin'.

In my opinion, it's a cynical, opportunistic, disappointingly-flimsy fraud. (That's pretty much what my landlord, who works in one of the provincial environment offices, said on the weekend.)

If anything, Al is being diplomatic in his assessment!