The federal budget and the environment: a shame

On February 26, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty presented the federal budget. And if one still needed proof that the Harper government does not care much about environmental questions, it is harder to find any better.

Though Prime Minister Stephen Harper and several ministers, such as Lawrence Cannon and John Baird, have announced loud and clear that the environment is a priority for the Conservative government, only $600 million within this budget will be invested in the "environment."

On top of that, it is delirious to state that these are investments into the environment: of this $600 million, half will go toward developing a new generation of nuclear reactors that the industry has been trying to construct for a long time…if we consider that it is far from certain that the reactor will be developed, that there are currently no potential buyers in sight, and even if it were the case, the United Nations have specifically excluded nuclear energy from the Kyoto Protocol, this is not very strong in terms of the environment.

As if that were not enough, nearly the entire other half of the $600 million will be going toward helping poor little oil companies develop another technology which will perhaps one day help us reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. Let's concede for a second that this technology could be useful for us. Is it really up to the Canadian taxpayer to pay for its development while oil companies are making record profits with a barrel of oil for $100?

Still not convinced? In the 2007 budget, with great pride the Harper government had presented a measure that rewarded fuel-efficient car buyers and overtaxed big cylinder vehicles. This measure was lauded by ecologists. But now the government is abolishing the "reward" part and keeping "taxation." Go figure.

There was $500 million announced for public transportation but this amount, which could seem very important, is clearly insufficient when one considers that the Canadian Association for urban transport says infrastructure alone needs $20 billion in investments from here to 2010.