Conservatives Celebrate 1st Anniversary of Canada’s Withdrawal from Kyoto Protocol

The Canadian government confirmed today with a one sentence declaration that the country is no longer part of the Kyoto Protocol, a move labeled by the opposition as a “disgrace”.

Canada’s withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol took place on Saturday, December 15th, just one year after Canada communicated its decision to the United Nations.

But the Canadian government did not issue a press release or statement confirming its withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol even though it is the first time that Canada withdraws from an international agreement.

Peter Kent, a spokesman for the Environment Minister of Canada, confirmed that “Canada has pulled out of Kyoto”. No further details were provided about the reasons why the conservative government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, decided to be the first country to withdraw from the treaty after ratification, or whether the measure will damage the international image of Canada.

But the Green Party of Canada told issued a statement condemning the withdrawal as an “embarrassment” to the country. Stéphane Vigneault, communications coordinator for the Green Party, stressed that it is the first time in Canadian history that Canada ratifies and then rejects an international treaty.

The leader of the Green Party, Elizabeth May, said in a statement that the measure is a “black eye” on Canada’s international reputation. “This decision threatens Canada’s image in the world and, more importantly, the future of our children,” said May. Statements condemning the withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol also came from the the social democratic New Democratic Party (NDP), that expressed bewilderment by the withdrawal of Canada from Kyoto.

“Unfortunately, one year ago Canada became the first party to withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol,” said the statement issued by the NPD. “While the rest of the world is making progress in the fight against climate change, Canada is falling behind”.

A year ago, Kent said during a press conference in which he announced the withdrawal from Kyoto, that the treaty was not working. Kyoto is the past for Canada. That is why we “invoke the legal right to withdraw from it.” Kent added that since Canada was not going to meet its Kyoto commitments, which were imposed not by the government itself, but from the United Nations, the North American country would have had to “transfer 14,000 million dollars of Canadian taxpayers money to other countries; the Canadian equivalent of $ 1,600 per family.”

This is the concept of “transfer of wealth” supported by the United Nations, where money from the poor and middle classes in developed countries is transferred to the rich and powerful in third world nations. The transfer of wealth that has at its core the goal to make most people equally poor, while the elite becomes wealthier and stronger was admitted by a member of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. During an interview with Germany’s NZZ Online Sunday, UN official  Ottmar Edenhofer declared, “We redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy.”

In 2002, when he was leader of the Canadian Alliance, Harper wrote in a letter that the Kyoto Protocol “is a socialist conspiracy to suck money out of wealth-producing nations.” Harper’s decision to withdraw from Kyoto has a lot of supporters in Canada.

Today Stephen Taylor, a member of the National Citizens Coalition, a conservative organization of which Harper was President, created a Facebook page to celebrate the first “Kyoto Independence Day in Canada.”

“A year ago, Canada stated that it was out of the Kyoto Protocol. We are starting our first year out of this money sinkhole. Today we complete our first year of freedom from Kyoto,” said Taylor.