Kyoto naysayers are predicting gloom and doom if the Chretien government goes through with ratification. They're wrong. The question is not whether we should ratify Kyoto, it's how. The challenge is to ensure that no one region or group of workers bears the brunt of implementation. The good news is that policies exist that can ensure implementation is fair and equitable.
Environment and sustainability
More raw logs--along with jobs and revenue--will be shipped out of BC over the next three years. That's because the BC government, in February of this year, passed an Order-in-Council allowing an additional 2.7 million cubic metres of raw log exports. The increased exports are to come from the battered North Coast, an area already reeling from declines in its salmon fishery and forestry sector.
A year and a half into BC's New Era, the impact of the government's legislative agenda is starting to be felt in communities across the province. Rollbacks in environmental laws governing forestry, mining, and oil and gas mean that our resources will be exploited with less and less regard for environmental quality.
Premier Campbell announced in January that 2003 would be the "Year of the Forest." BC's forest companies, workers, and communities are hoping he's serious, given how devastating the softwood lumber dispute has been. But forest communities and workers should be careful what they wish for--a closer analysis shows that "solutions" to the dispute may actually mean greater hardship.
There is a mistaken perception among many British Columbians that BC's wild fish stocks are dying and that we need salmon aquaculture to replace the jobs and economic benefits they provide. With all the attention being paid to fish farms lately, some may even think that BC's salmon farming industry already towers over wild fish industries in significance to the province's economy.
What do greenhouses in Delta and fish farms on the coast have in common? In both cases, the provincial government is willing to trample on the interests of local government and local citizens in order to impose its own will.
Joyce Murray -- BC's Minister of the "Environment" (formally Water, Land and Air Protection) -- does not seem to wield a whole lot of power in the BC cabinet room. And her presence in Victoria appears to be shrinking day-by-day.
(Vancouver) Dale Marshall, resource and environmental policy analyst with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives says there's no reason to stall on Kyoto ratification.
"Ralph Klein and other Kyoto naysayers focus exclusively on the costs of climate change action, but not on the costs of climate change itself," says Marshall. "The economic impacts of ratification will be minimal, in terms of the impact on Canada's GDP. The question here isn't should Canada ratify Kyoto, it's how."
The restructuring of hog production in North America provides a rare clear view into the mechanisms and effects of corporate globalization. And the community-by-community fight to stop the incursion of corporate mega-barns and retain family farm hog production provides an example of effective and gritty local resistance to the most negative aspects of globalization.
The long-awaited report into the expansion of hog production in Manitoba, based on the findings of last fall's citizens' hearings in Brandon, will be released Thursday by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives-Manitoba.