Protecting Canada's rainforest

By Michael J.W. Stickings

I know Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservative government is turning its attention to the environment in anticipation of another federal election, perhaps this spring, and I realize it's doing so largely because Canadians consider the environment a key issue and because the new Liberal leader, Stéphane Dion, is a committed environmentalist, and, yes, because the Conservatives could lose election on the environment issue, but, cynicism aside, I am fully in support of this:

Canada has pledged to spend millions of dollars to help protect the world's largest temperate rainforest.

The government will allocate CAN$30m (US$26m, £13m) to maintain the area of British Columbia known as the Great Bear Rainforest...

The 64,000 sq km (25,000 sq mile) forest is about twice the size of Belgium and spans the Pacific Coast from Vancouver Island north to Alaska...

The federal cash will be matched by money from the government of British Columbia.

Another CAN$60m (US$51m, £26m) is being given by international donors, mainly from within the US.

No, no, this isn't nearly enough for me to turn Conservative -- this is still a party of the Alberta oilfields, after all, and the environment isn't the only issue, and $30 million isn't all that much money, not nearly enough to do what needs to be done across the country -- but at least it shows that even our Conservative government has been compelled to address the environment and to do something -- however belatedly, however reluctantly, however vote-grabbingly cynical.

Perhaps some such belated, reluctant, and cynical effort to address the climate crisis will come next?

No, that's surely asking too much. All the more reason to take the money for the rainforest and vote Liberal. It's too important not to.

The Globe has more.