UCC Moderator: The PM fails the tests of accountability on climate change

[tuvor]

Last week, Canada was ranked the fourth worst out of 57 countries evaluated for their climate change performance by environmentalists. It's a shameful ranking for a country that could do so much better.

As the elected leader of Canada's largest Protestant church, I have some sympathy for Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Every day people appear with countless expectations -- many of which are contradictory.

The challenge of leadership is to meet such contradictions with integrity. I believe our integrity as elected leaders is rooted in accountability: accountability to truth, which requires a clear-sighted view of the present; accountability to democracy, which requires that we honour our communities; and accountability to our children, which calls us to envision the future we are creating.

When the Climate Change Accountability Act (Bill C-311) was defeated in the Senate after three times being supported by the House of Commons, Prime Minister Harper called the bill "irresponsible" and argued that its targets would throw "possibly millions of people out of work."

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http://www.ottawacitizen.com/opinion/fails+tests+accountability+climate+change/3973241/story.html