Stephane Dion and leftwing media bias
STEPHEN MCCREARY VOLUNTEER STAFF
The Liberal leadership convention lived up to expectations in the boring department. When all the smoke cleared and delegates woke up, most were surprised to see Stéphane Dion standing at the podium.
Although the campaign lasted for what felt like years and the convention for four days, it was only a matter of minutes after it was over before we had a soundbite of the new Liberal leader informing the entire population where we all want the country to go and why the almighty Liberals are the ones who can take us there.
Dion sounded like a typical Liberal leader, preferring empty rhetoric to actual substance, and slamming the Conservatives on a number of issues, most of which Dion gave up his right to preach about a long time ago.
In 2005, at the very start of the last election campaign, Stephen Harper spoke in favor of a free parliamentary vote on the issue of gay marriage — a vote which would likely be lost anyway, considering the best he could hope for was a minority win. The media condemned the move, saying he had brought up a dead issue and trashed any chance he had of winning. As we know now, Harper won.
Dion offered his take on the issue on his first day as leader, declaring gay marriage to be a “fundamental right,” adding that he opposed the free vote Harper proposed. Of course, no one accused him of bringing up a dead issue as they did with Harper. To be fair though, that may not be media bias — odds are they couldn’t understand what the hell he was saying. At times, Dion makes Chrétien sound like a master of the English language.
Even more confusing than Dion’s speech patterns is his “outrage” with the Conservatives and their “Made in Canada” environment proposal. Granted, we still don’t know what that proposal entails, but what we do know is that the Conservatives have decided to go along with the U.S. and Australia and develop a new plan of action, rather than hopelessly grasping on to the doomed Kyoto Accord.
In a CTV interview, Dion said he didn’t have a problem with the Conservative approach, but was getting “impatient” with the issue. Since Dion himself spent two years as environment minister under Paul Martin, he must have a good handle on the issues and know which course of action is best.
Jean Chrétien, looking to deflect attention from Adscam, signed onto the Kyoto Accord in 1998, and the Liberals ratified it in 2002 under Martin. During the leadership campaign, Dion was often praised for being one of the few candidates loyal to both Chrétien and Martin (in Liberal-land, being loyal to the man who orchestrated Adscam and a billionaire shipping-tax evader is a good thing).
After holding the prestigious and honorable title of intergovernmental affairs minister during the time Adscam was going on, Dion took charge of the environment in 2004. Dion attempted to start up many environmentally friendly programs during his stint as minister, including the energy housing initiative “Project Green,” and, of course, Kyoto. None of these programs ever got off the ground, and Kyoto has been deemed unreachable by Dion himself, and essentially useless by anyone who truly understands it.
Nevertheless, the Liberals managed to spend over $6 billion on Kyoto alone, only to see our emissions go up 27 per cent rather than down six per cent, leaving Canada more than 33 per cent over our Kyoto commitments, according to the Conservative party. The United States, which did not sign Kyoto, increased only 13.5 per cent over the same period of time. But that didn’t stop Martin from claiming that the U.S. “lacked a global conscience” at a climate change conference in Montreal in 2005.
That would be the same 2005 climate change conference at which Dion received the insulting “fossil award” from the Climate Action Network, the same award given to Rona Ambrose in 2006. Of course when Ambrose, a Conservative, received the award it was front-page news and there was outrage that she dare go against Kyoto. When Dion received the same award, there was barely a mention. No media bias there.
Dion’s excuse for not getting any results in his two-year stint? He didn’t have enough time. But that doesn’t stop him from raising hell when the Conservatives haven’t fixed our environmental woes in the one year they’ve been in office! Two years may not have been long enough to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, but it was more than enough time for Dion to rack up $138,763.77 in travel expenses and $14,408.09 in hospitality expenses!
What did the Conservatives do when their environmental minister was under-performing? They removed her promptly and replaced her with someone who can hopefully do better. What do the Liberals do when their environmental minister spends $6 billion on a plan that does more harm than good? They elect him as their leader!
Last week, the transcript of a 2002 Harper speech was leaked to the media, in which he declared war on the Kyoto accord. The CBC, posing as unbiased news source, reported for days on the single line where Harper declared Kyoto a “socialist scheme.” Anyone who read the speech in its entirety would find it very hard to disagree with any of the points Harper made. But reporting news fairly is not what the CBC is all about. If it was, we probably would have heard about some of Dion’s past flip-flops as well.
In 2001, Dion was part of the cabinet that sent Canadian troops to Afghanistan. He stood by that decision — right up until the Liberals lost power. Now, he's not so sure.
If the media wants to continue to demonize the Conservatives while masking Dion’s follies, they’re going to have their hands full.
Stephen McCreary is a University 1 student.
