Tories scramble to get green communications plan back on track

OTTAWA It was supposed to be a dramatic conclusion of the governments environmental plot line, following months of cliffhanger-like buildup.

But the release of the Conservative governments revised plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, scheduled for Thursday, fell victim to anticlimax by way of a simple fax machine. Remarks that Environment Minister John Baird was supposed to deliver in advance of the announcement were mistakenly sent to the opposition, forcing his office to publish them early.

The result was that a day before the big announcement, environmentalists and industry groups were already parsing Bairds words and picking apart a plan that was to be painstakingly rolled out with a series of briefings and a major news conference.

Baird passed off the fax as human error, and tried to explain why the inadvertent recipient Liberal MP David McGuinty was threatened with legal sanctions if he made Bairds remarks public.

My staff did that, I think it was probably a good thing to do. It was just an abundance of caution, Baird told reporters.

He added: Humans make mistakes. Im the minister and I take responsibility for it. Were going to move forward; we have a great plan to reduce greenhouse gases.

Representatives from organizations such as the Sierra Club and the David Suzuki Foundation came out Wednesday to criticize his plan to reduce Canadas emissions from last years levels by 2020. That was a very loud admission, they said, that Canada has effectively abandoned its commitments under the Kyoto Protocol.

The stumble was just another in a series that have bedevilled the Conservatives on the file since they formed government in January 2006.

Former minister Rona Ambrose was lambasted for her handling of the environmental file, leading Prime Minister Stephen Harper to replace her and to rework a previous plan that was severely ridiculed.

Still, the government is promising a plan for Canadas major industrial emitters that takes action against climate change while mitigating the impact on the economy. They have accused the Liberals of destroying the countrys ability to meet the Kyoto targets by failing to act when they were in power.

Kyoto calls for a six per cent reduction in emissions from 1990 levels by 2012.





15:01ET 25-04-07