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The Conservative government has eliminated a section of Environment Canada that played a key role in shaping climate-change policies now being announced by Prime Minister Stephen Harper, The Canadian Press has learned.
Frustrated bureaucrats said the move is an example of the government's zeal to wrest control from public servants over an increasingly politicized issue.
A memo sent to Environment Canada officials this month announced a new organizational structure for the department – and it no longer includes the Climate Change Policy Directorate.
The memo came just as the prime minister embarked on a national tour to announce a series of green initiatives that were largely prepared by the division now being dismantled.
The directorate consisted of a handful of experts responsible for implementing new policy, co-ordinating climate-change efforts among different government departments, and analyzing their potential impact.
Government spokespeople cast the change as a simple structural move aimed at greater efficiency.
"The work (on climate change) has not stopped. It has continued and is ongoing," said departmental spokesman Mark Colpitts.
"The number of people working on the file has not decreased."
But a pair of Environment Canada bureaucrats said they don't even know who's responsible for climate change policy anymore.
They said the now-defunct directorate was specifically in charge of overseeing all new climate-change policy, and that its 10 employees are being reassigned to various quarters.
"Even the people working here say, 'Who's really accountable for making climate change policy anymore?' They don't even know," said one bureaucrat who requested anonymity.
"Right now we don't know who's accountable."
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Re: The "Conservatives"
15.03.2007 19:42
The Canadian Alliance is a hard right, reactionary and ideologically-driven Party, loathed by most Canadians, and is closely aligned with the Neo-Fascists behind Bush and PNAC. Bush/PNAC's psychological operations professionals went to work for Harper during the last election (in return for Canadian troops acting as Colonial Auxiliaries in Afghanistan), and have helped him re-Frame and manipulate debates in Canada ever since.
We hope to be rid of these traitors soon ...
Concerned Canadian
Canadian Idiots running another three ring circus
16.03.2007 19:12
When I was a kid, the lakes were lovely and clear... 25 lakes in the ciy I grew up in.
And now?
Mostly polluted.
Why?
Who let this happen?
Why is less than 1% of Nova Scotia's trees over 100 years old?
Or shall we talk about over fishing or perhaps salmon farming and its effects?
What about the 1% royalties the Nova Scotians recieve on their oil??? 1%??? And they have been known to steal from that.
Or what about Senator Buchanan who used to be Premiere Buchanan of Npva Scotia and his 'intimate' involvement with the Shelburne boys fiasco and what Prime Minister - Paul Martin - who rewarded him with a Senatorship to save hisskanky butt when the R.C.M.P. were closing in on him and his filthy cronies.
Am I surprised about Canada's attitude towards climate change?
Canadians used to be one of the greatest savers per capita on a global scale. And now the majority is pretty much in debt to Uncle Sam's Capitalist/Communist Debt Machine called greed and fear - scare them with the news and get them to appease their fears in a retail kind of way.
One day, some branch of authority needs to grow some balls and arrest these maniacs who are knowingly running this planet and society, in general, into the ground?
For the love of God ... where are the good men and women who believe in democracy and must stand forward and challenge this government of madmen?
XXX
Charity Sweet