CANOE -- CNEWS - Canada Votes 2008 - News: Failed Green Shift may lead to inaction

Suzuki said he now fears the next Liberal leader won't be as bold as Dion was with environmental policy, and Canada may go through another 20 years of inaction before another prime minister treats environmental crises seriously again.

It was 20 years ago that former Conservative prime minister Brian Mulroney and his environment minister Lucien Bouchard warned Canadians about the dire threat posed by global warming, and yet two decades later, little has been accomplished to slow climate change, Suzuki said.

"I interviewed Lucien two months after he was appointed and I asked him what the most important issue facing us was. And his answer was immediate: global warming. His exact words were: 'It threatens the survival of our species, we have to act now,"' Suzuki recalled.

"Can you imagine in 1988 the scientific community was absolutely convinced humans were causing (global warming), politicians had responded and nothing has happened and now it's 20 years later?"

Suzuki said Canadians missed a great opportunity to register a vote for the environment given that few, if any, major parties in the past have ever highlighted the issue so strongly in their campaigns.

"I don't think there's ever been a more stark choice in terms of the environment," he said, adding that he believes the environment vote ended up being split between all the opposition parties.

He also said he was disappointed that Prime Minister Stephen Harper was quick to attack the Green Shift plan rather than debating the merits of a cap-and-trade plan.

"The prime minister is my prime minister too, he's everyone's prime minister, and for him during an election to simply encounter a carbon tax proposal by saying, 'This is insane,' or 'This is crazy,' that really diminishes the discussion about a very serious issue," he said.

"I was shocked that he said that and that it was the end of discussion."

(Via commenter John M. Reynolds)