No Answers In The House
An exchange between the [Lib] MP for Don Valley West and the PS to the CPoC Environment Minister, it’s a really simple question about CPoC misinformation - it wasn’t answered.
Hon. John Godfrey (Don Valley West, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, in the environment as well as in foreign affairs the government is becoming a stranger to the truth.
When the Minister of the Environment appeared before the environment committee on October 5, she claimed that the previous Liberal government spent over $100 million in purchasing hot air credits from foreign countries. The truth is that not one penny has ever been spent by the federal government on hot air credits or foreign credits of any kind.
Will the Minister of the Environment apologize to the House for misleading the committee?
Mr. Mark Warawa (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of the Environment, CPC): Mr. Speaker, misleading the people of Canada is the question for that member. Today at the environment committee, he was part of a plan to derail the CEPA review at that committee. He needs to decide and tell the Canadian public why he derailed the CEPA review.
No answer, and no acknowledgment of the misleading information there…. so Godfrey tries again.
Hon. John Godfrey (Don Valley West, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, perhaps if I ask the question in French I will get better results.
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
The Speaker: Order. We have to be able to hear the supplementary question from the hon. member for Don Valley West. He is the one who has the floor so we will have a little order, please.
Hon. John Godfrey: Mr. Speaker, the minister has misled Canadians on the question of purchasing credits. In the former Liberal government’s Green Plan it was clearly stated that purchasing hot air credits would never be on the table.
The minister has shown that she is incapable of understanding the most basic elements of Canada’s Kyoto commitments. Will she finally admit that the government never intended to purchase hot air credits? Will she finally tell the truth?
Mr. Mark Warawa (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of the Environment, CPC): Mr. Speaker, it was the commissioner who came two days prior to the minister and she said to the committee and the Canadian public that after 13 years of the previous government doing nothing, we need to work together, we need to have a clean air plan. That is what this government will do after 13 years of neglect.
The CPoC campaigned on a different way of doing business, they campaigned on honesty and accountability, and we are seeing absolutely no difference in their conduct than we saw in the last government — the same old, same old.
Warawa had a couple of reasonable options at his disposal:
[1] Stand up like a statesman and say “yes, my statement was incorrect”.
[2] Stand up like a statesman and say “Mr. Speaker, my comments are completely correct, here is the evidence of the previous Liberal government buying hot air credits”.
– he did neither.
What we were treated to is another example of party in power evasiveness, non-answers, and a complete lack of accountability.
Why did Warawa not answer the question? The obvious answer is that he was incorrect, that he did provide misleading information, and that he is not statesman like enough to admit it - there are other possibilities of course, among them the decision to take a few cheap shots at the Opposition instead of answering a legitimate question.
Give them power in the House and they are all the same.
Of course the more obvious answer is that accountability means different things to different people. To the conservatives it means, accountable when it is politically expedient. In this case it wasn’t, so they weren’t. I almost think you need to start a dictionary for political-speak.
I like how they take EVERY opportunity to talk about Liberal inaction and then keep repeating the Clean Air Act….it must really be hard to be so dishonest.
If I ever get into politics, I really really hope I don’t fall into that kind of mentality.
Bottom line here is that the question wasn’t answered by Warawa because he’s not the Environment minister — Ambrosia is the twit behind the title, and she can’t even tap a sugar maple for sap without thinking she’d be killing the tree, so whaddaya expect?