Tuesday, December 04, 2007

Something To Hide?

I'm open to excuses, as to why the government would delay the release of a federal report, outlining some of the climate change challenges Canada faces:
A new federal report is warning of an international scramble for oil and minerals under melting Arctic ice and water scarcity in the Great Lakes, but the Harper government is keeping the study on the shelf, the Citizen has learned.

They are baffled that the government has delayed its release, which was expected last month.

NDP environment critic Nathan Cullen said the Harper government is trying to hide the report in order to avoid embarrassing political questions at a two-week United Nations climate change conference that began yesterday in Bali, Indonesia.

"The government cannot just simply pretend (those impacts) are not there, and it's amazing to me that they have done so little work on this. And, what little work they've done, they're trying to suppress because it's politically uncomfortable for them."

The suppression of this report comes on the heels of another internal document, circulated last May, which also held potentially politically damaging advice.

The fact that the government willfully withheld release of this report, speaks to heart of the Conservative hypocrisy. Where is the transparency, where is the accountability? Are those catch phrases subjective, merely contingent on positive/negative circumstances? What is clear, if the government is actively shelving analysis, it speaks a siege mentality, as though you have something to hide. That posture doesn't quite jive with the Harper/Baird rhetoric, in fact it reveals it for what it is, disingenious propaganda.

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