Sierra Club of Canada on Party Platforms

No surprise here – the Sierra Club of Canada released its analysis of party electoral platforms and ranked the Conservative Party – deservedly so – a distant forth place.

All the platforms were graded against a possible total of 75 points, augmented by a questionnaire, posted at www.sierraclub.ca/national/vote-canada/2006/, for a possible additional 28 points.

The commitment to the Kyoto Protocol is paramount, but was only one of many possible points to be allocated within a full breadth of environmental commitments.

Party scores were as follows: Green Party 97, NDP 91, Liberal 53, Bloc 46, and Conservative 31.

The poorest set of environmental promises was those of the Conservative Party.

“We are very concerned that the Conservative Party, alone among all the major parties, is unprepared to commit to current Kyoto targets, to which Canada is bound under international law, nor to adopt longer term targets post 2012 within Kyoto,” said John Bennett, Senior Policy Advisor on energy to the Sierra Club of Canada. “In the coming week, we hope Mr. Harper will be called upon to explain how much emphasis he will place on reducing greenhouse gases and what approach he will take to the upcoming global negotiations for deeper reduction targets, should his party form government.”

As I’ve said before, the Consevative Party is adopting industry’s cheap parlour game of ignoring climate change science. The party’s policy declaration is completely silent on the matter. A 51 page policy document (PDF) which speaks about polution but makes not a single reference, not one, to climate change, green house gas reduction, or Kyoto, is not the mark of a responsible future government.