View From the Legislature

On the long list of unrealistic promises that the NDP government has made over the past decade, this one may rank at the top.

In 2008, while then still under the leadership of Gary Doer, the NDP made the grand announcement that they were going to legislate the Kyoto Accord requirements on greenhouse gas emissions even though no other jurisdiction in North America had done so. With the legislation, the NDP promised that it would reduce Manitoba’s greenhouse gas emissions to six per cent below the levels of 1990 and it would do it by 2012.

The legislation didn’t outline any penalty on the government if it failed to meet these unrealistic commitments. Instead, Gary Doer publicly said that if they failed to meet these mandated levels the ultimate penalty would be the defeat of his government. Of course, as Manitobans know, Gary Doer didn’t stick around long enough to try to back that promise up.

From the beginning, Progressive Conservatives saw this promise for what it was, nothing but politics. To try to achieve the Kyoto standards would have required the NDP to practically shut down the economy or remove all of the vehicles from the roads. And yet, even after an Auditor General’s report came out last year which essentially stated that the goals were unattainable and that the legislation would not be adhered to, the NDP said it was committed to the Kyoto standards and that it would meet the goal. It’s hard to believe they could have made those statements with a straight face but they did.

But earlier this week, the political game took a long anticipated turn when Premier Greg Selinger and the NDP put an end to their charade and admitted that they would not meet their pledge on the Kyoto standards. They finally have admitted what everyone has known for years, it was a promise that was never going to be kept.

The troubling part isn’t that the commitment wasn’t kept, it’s the fact it was made at all. No one who seriously looked at the numbers believed it could be achieved without nearly destroying the Manitoba economy. And while the NDP were saying that they were making the commitment and passing the legislation because they were serious about the issue of climate change, their willingness to simply play politics on the issue shows quite the opposite was true. They were simply hoping to score some quick political points with environmental groups and then hope nobody noticed later on when their unrealistic commitment failed.

The NDP have made a number of promises over their time in government that were both unrealistic and not particularly sincere. This one is unique only because it may top them all.