Ignatieff: Kyoto been a liabilty to Liberals

Picked up from Warren Kinsella, May 26, originally published in The Kitchener Record May 23:

On the environment, he said the Liberal party should push environmental policies beyond the Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse gas emissions. Ignatieff said he supports the protocol but it has become a problem for Liberals.

"I think our party has got into a mess on the environment," he said. "As a practical matter of politics, nobody knows what (Kyoto) is or what it commits us to.

He said the Conservatives are having a field day with the record of protocol targets missed by the previous Liberal government.

"We think Kyoto has been an asset for us. It's actually been a huge political liability."

I hope the Libs have more sense than to choose him as the leader.

more dangerous than Harper. The liberals would be nuts to run this guy, but the fact that this foreigner is a serious candidate with backing makes one wonder what is running the liberal party these days.

I understand that Kennedy has sewed up the Indian support in Ontario...that makes him a contender.

Either Dryden or Kennedy would be acceptable--BUT I was really surprised by this Belaquacka-whatever (too lazy to google to get his name right) was on the radio on a day I wasn't at work this week and I liked the fact he seem to hit enough populist working issues and is avowedly against the 'unite the left' schtick that GNATieff's pushing...but don't know anything about him really...other than he was a Cretin supporter.

I lean toward Dryden, he strikes me as a straight-shooter, much more so than many of the other leadership candidates but, I have to admit, I know little to nothing about Kennedy. I will have to check him out.

He came from the growth industry of food banks, and he got into politics so that he could change things from within. Mr Arikara who is also in that field knows him. As long as he doesn't sell out I think he'd do right for us little people.

and it is even more helpful when someone posts who knows him, thank you for your info!! I will definitely be checking him out!

for the liberals, but what is the fastest way to make changes than from within? So many very good people run against the gov't in small parties that don't even rate a mention in the msm.

As I said, if he holds true he will be great for the people in our country.

That is one of the things I noted about this guy--he has at least come in contact with people in the community and is at least familar with social issue firsthand...as opposed to those other social scientists (Gnatieff, Rae), which being trained as one myself, tend to scare the hell out of me.

People like Gnatieff are not suitable for holding power, they tend to work policy in background and that's where they belong...

Yeah selling out is a factor, but I tend to believe they all sell-out (or necessary sacrifices one supposes for 'victory' in other battles)--but he might not sell-out as badly.

Afterall Kennedy is originally from the West (The Pas), and politicians out West have integrity and never sell-out. ;-)

From his Wikipedia Entry:

The son of a Liberal mayor of The Pas, Kennedy attended the St. John's-Ravenscourt School on a hockey scholarship before enrolling at Trent University in Peterborough, Ontario, in 1977.<1> He worked as a historical researcher for the Government of Alberta in the early 1980s, attended the University of Alberta, and then left it, without graduating, to found the Edmonton Food Bank in 1983.

After moving to Ontario, Kennedy was the executive director of Toronto, Ontario's Daily Bread Food Bank from 1986 to 1996. The food bank distributed $30 million worth of food each year without government funding; 150,000 people are estimated to have used its services every month. Kennedy was named in Toronto Life Magazine's list of fifty influential people in 1992, and was named newsmaker of the year by the Toronto Star in 1993. Kennedy was also given an honorable mention in the Financial Post Magazine's C.E.O. awards in 1995.

Not bad start and if you notice, he took his degree and helped feed poor people, while Gnatieff went off to 'study' the problem at Harvard and do television in the UK.

Kennedy was a an Education cabinet minister, while Ignatieff was

'the grandson of Count Paul Ignatieff, who was the Tsar's last Minister of Education and one of the few who escaped execution by the Bolsheviks.'

He is also related to George Grant (which ain't necessarily bad if you are running for the Tories)

In all fairness, Gnatieff is a Professor, but I like that 'negative ad' comparison...the son of the Tsar's Education Minister and a guy not likely to have even thought about giving away cans of President Choice 'Memories of Moscow Nobility' Borscht to any of the peasants.

The ones from India or the ones from here?

Kennedy was my MPP until he recently resigned, by the way. I wonder if I should run provincially. Trouble is, I'm not sure which party to run for, since I'm a Red Tory, and Red Tories are to the left of the Liberals on many issues, so NDP isn't out of the question. And I've never in my life voted Liberal because being from Saskatchewan originally, I've always thought the Liberals were a bit, well, dirty. Would it seem like a big leap for a Joe Clark / David Orchard PC to run as a social democrat, since Orchard himself has now hitched his wagon to the Liberals? I'm still pretty tight with David's brother Grant.

Yes I know white people stormed around the world and found Indians everywhere, BUT I was reading some comment that The Link, a large Indian newspaper here in Vancouver, reported that Kennedy has the support of the Ontario 'EAST' Indian caucus members and that is a formidable machine to have in your corner if true. Might be BS, as they didn't mention Dosanjh.

Does anyone know if Dosanjh has backed Kennedy or not...?

by appealing to the soft right or the soft left? I'm not sure, but looking at the polls there are clearly more former and potential Liberal voters parked with the Conservatives right now than with the NDP. Would more than a token gesture to "unite the left" be a winning strategy? If not, as unappealing as it is to progressives, Iggy may be the ticket. At least, that's how Liberal power brokers may be calling it.

ass than have anything to do with the Alliance-Conservatives, especially those of us who were in the NO trenches during the hostile takeover. Thus we're quite shocked and appalled that any self-respecting Liberals would dare to support Harper.

No I'm not backing the Igster. (For the record, I currently endorse Gerard Kennedy in the Liberal leadership race)

But I wonder if some of us missed the point of his remarks: he wasn't dissing Kyoto at all, it seems he's faulting Liberals for relying solely on Kyoto rather than having a coherent environmental policy (that would seamlessly incorporate Kyoto among other things).

He points out that Kyoto is poorly understood by most people (any arguments there? is that a partisan theory??), and furthermore, the fact that the previous Liberal government didn't accomplish any progress towards Kyoto commitments means that Liberals DO have a credibility problem on the environment front. (despite a number of well-meaning programs they instituted, most of which have been axed by the new govt.)

As long as people are vague on Kyoto, it allows the conservatives to frame it their way and push their anti-Kyoto agenda.

Personally, I've always thought that Kyoto was meant to be just one plank in a larger, more broad-based green strategy. Apparently, Ignatieff feels the same way, and I guarantee you we'll be hearing more such sentiments from other leadership candidates.

Afghanistan point and his point that Kyoto is bad for the Liberals both points which the faux cons would agree with, one has to wonder which side of the political fence Mr. Ignatieff is really on, imo.

It would have been more helpful if we had the transcript of his whole speech instead of getting parts of it from that slimeball Kinsella, imo. Did Ignatieff actually spell out his support for Kyoto as a FIRST step in his speech? Did he say what he would do toward improving the environmental agenda if he was to be elected leader?

Without his whole speech, we don't know what he was trying to say, imo.

Edited to add:

I went looking to see if I could find his speech on his campaign website so I could judge for myself what he actually said re Kyoto and the speech from Kitchener isn't there but I did find a speech he did in Alberta where he lays out his ideas on global warming and the environment, among other issues. I have copied the environmental part of his speech:


Let’s set ourselves the goal of becoming world leaders, using smart federal policy,
imaginative science from our best universities, good public policy at the provincial level and leadership from our energy sector to become the smartest and most sustainable energy giant in the world. Working together, Alberta can become the international hub of expertise and application in clean energy systems.

The federal government has used fiscal incentives to stimulate the development and
exploration phase of the Alberta energy boom. The next challenge is to work with the energy sector and the Alberta government to align our fiscal incentives so that we promote CO2 sequestration, so that we offer incentives to less wasteful use of water in the tar sands, and we encourage technological innovation and new market opportunities. Let’s work with the industry to set escalating targets for reducing CO2 emissions.

We need to develop together a carbon management standard; so that the fossil fuel
industry takes responsibility for the fate of the carbon it extracts and stops releasing it into the atmosphere. This would require some regulation by government, but with maximum flexibility as to how emission targets would be realized. An emissions market should be created to allow carbon emitting industries to trade among themselves and form consortia to achieve aggregate limits as cheaply as possible.

Let’s use all the tools of government—fiscal incentives, grants, at the provincial and federal level to encourage renewable energy generation, zero-emission vehicles, and clean coal. This is another area where Alberta is a leader.

If Alberta and Canada can work together with industry to get clean coal to market
quickly, this will give us a large competitive advantage in China, where coal is bound to remain the key to meeting China’s energy needs in this century.

While we’re at it, why can’t Alberta and Canada work together to get biofuels to market
more rapidly? Biofuels holds huge promise: let’s seize these opportunities together so that the farm sector of our economy can contribute to environmental sustainability.

Reducing CO2 emissions in our energy sector;
Efficient economizing of industrial, farming and domestic use of water;
Rapid commercialization and expansion of the biofuels markets;
Rapid development of clean coal technology;

Here are four projects where if we combine smart regulation, the right fiscal incentives
and co-operation between the private and public sectors Alberta—and Canada—can lead the
world.

A huge opportunity must not be missed: to move our energy industry up the value chain
where environmental sustainability and new market opportunity meet.

Environmental policy works best when we’re all in it together: this is where the federal
government can help provinces get us all on the same environmental page, so that no province is singled out, all Canadians work together so that we achieve common goals: an economy that wastes less energy, that gets more kilometers per litre of gasoline, more efficient electricity use, more diverse array of energy sources.

http://michaelignatieff.ca/MiCommunity/blogs/speeches/archive/2006/05/13/681.aspx

Well, I'm no expert, but nothing in his remarks seems to be inconsistent with Kyoto. Those are mostly things we should be doing anyway.

Plus, it's not markedly different from what I've heard from other leadership candidates, if they've said much at all. It dovetails into Kennedy's notions of "enterprise" and posits Canada as a potential world leader in green technology (which I've thought all along).

Like I say, I'm not an environmental expert, for all I know this "clean coal" stuff is a crock. But I find I don't disagree with the gist and intent of Ignatieff's remarks.

It's worth considering that we need a comprehensive environment strategy, and it's futile to spark unnecessary divisions among ourselves by equating any criticism of Kyoto (or its stark predominance in eco policy) with anti-environment sentiment. This is clearly a battle that needs to be fought on many fronts, and I don't see why we shouldn't "move our energy industry up the value chain where environmental sustainability and new market opportunity meet."