Canada's Conservative government burst out of the starting blocks last spring like a sprinter on steroids, dazzling its supporters and confounding its opponents with a display of political decisiveness rarely witnessed in this country.
Among other things, Stephen Harper and his Tories cut the GST as they said they would. They introduced parental allowances for child-care expenses, as promised during the election. They threw the opposition for a loop by pushing for and winning a quick vote on extending the military mission to Afghanistan by two years.
Our youthful and assertive prime minister and his cabinet made governing look easy. This fall, though, they are discovering that running Canada is a complex job that requires tough choices and astute juggling of regional interests. This has become evident from their attempts to introduce environmental measures aimed at reducing greenhouse gases and other harmful emissions.
In October, Environment Minister Rona Ambrose and four cabinet colleagues met with the heads of five automakers based in Canada, as well as Canadian Auto Workers president Buzz Hargrove, and outlined the government's plans to impose tough emissions standards on new vehicles sold in this country.
The government was merely starting a process of consultation. It has not drafted a firm set of proposals and any new measures would not take effect until 2010. But mere talk of such an approach caused an uproar in Ontario. Business, labour and government all spoke with one voice and they were adamantly opposed.
Premier Dalton McGuinty, who pledged during the 2003 election campaign to close Ontario's coal-fired generating plants in order to cut greenhouse gases, stated: "The one thing we will not abide is any effort on the part of the national government to unduly impose greenhouse gas emission reductions on the province of Ontario at the expense of the auto sector."
Hargrove charged in a Toronto Star op-ed piece that the government had "dropped a bombshell," and asked: "What kind of mischief is the Harper government up to here anyway?" McGuinty and Hargrove both accused the government of ignoring the real culprits: Coal-fired power plants and the west's petroleum producers. "I certainly hope," said McGuinty, "that Ambrose will also call upon those who are responsible for the oil and gas sector in Western Canada and bring those folks into her office so that they may better understand how they're going to play a role in helping the country address our emission challenges."
On this one, the premier and the labour leader have a point. A government with a western base, and a prime minister from Calgary, is not going to read the riot act to the titans of the oilpatch or do anything that's likely to offend them. That's why the Tories are talking about a soft cap or intensity-based approach to emissions controls for petroleum companies, coal-burning utilities and others who are heavy producers of greenhouse gases.
Under this model, companies would be allowed increases in emissions as their output rises, provided they could demonstrate that their operations were at the same time becoming more energy efficient.
To average voters, and I'm one of them, intensity-based regulations are difficult to understand, they'll be difficult to sell and they raise suspicions that nothing meaningful is being achieved.
Prime Minister Harper and his cabinet have steered their government into perilous waters. They have made the environment one of three top priorities for the fall session - crime and government accountability being the other two.
They are learning that Canadians may be telling pollsters that they want something done about the environment. We may shudder at the thought of leaving behind a polluted and depleted planet for our children and grandchildren.
But who's willing to turn down the heat in the winter, turn off the air conditioning in the summer, drive a smaller car, take public transit or otherwise do what it takes to make a difference?
If they are not cautious, the prime minister and his colleagues may unleash the demons of regionalism, which arguably destroyed Brian Mulroney's government and the old Progressive Conservative party. And then there was Pierre Trudeau, who thought he could ignore the inherent regionalism of this country. He handled the West as badly as any prime minister since Sir John A. Macdonald, and his party has paid the price for 25 years.
If they hope to avoid the fate of their predecessors, the Tories will have to come up with an environmental package that demands some sacrifice from everyone and balances regional interests rather than antagonizing them.
(D'Arcy Jenish can be reached at jenish@businessedge.ca)
