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Canada must recognize the “urgency” of global warming and make the United States a key partner in the fight against climate change if it wants to put a stop to the steady destruction of the environment, former prime minister Brian Mulroney said in a speech last night—his first public appearance in Ottawa since leaving office 13 years ago.
Mr. Mulroney, who was honoured as Canada’s “greenest” prime minister at a gala at the Fairmont Chateau Laurier, said Canada need not necessarily adhere to the Kyoto accord to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but it must take quick action on the environment.
“If global warming is not arrested, climate change may be irreversible,” Mr. Mulroney told the crowd, which included Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
Canada’s 18th prime minister, who led the country as a Progressive Conservative from 1984 to 1993, said the process through which the federal government tackles global warming is not as important as having strong leadership. “Where political will prevails, solutions will follow,” he said. “And second, there are few durable solutions on the environment, or on any other international issue, without the engagement of the United States and the leadership of the president.”
Mr. Mulroney added there is “no solution” to the problem of global warming without the co-operation and involvement of business and industry in Canada and around the world.
His hardline pitch for the environment comes at a difficult time for Mr. Harper, who has been criticized for cutting funding for many of the government’s climate-change programs and for moving away from the Kyoto accord toward a “made-in-Canada” plan that he has promised will reduce pollutants and emissions.
Mr. Mulroney was selected as Canada’s greenest prime minister in a survey of business and environmental leaders by Corporate Knights, a left-leaning magazine that likes to reward good corporate environmental citizenship in the hopes of spurring copycats. He beat out Liberal prime ministers Pierre Trudeau and Sir Wilfrid Laurier, among others.
He was joined at at the gala by about 300 guests, including Quebec Premier Jean Charest, CBC personality Rick Mercer, Sierra Club of Canada director Elizabeth May, Ontario Conservative leader John Tory, former Liberal MP Sheila Copps, Liberal leadership candidate Gerard Kennedy and a number of Harper cabinet ministers.
In addition to focusing the country’s attention on the state of the environment, the event went a long way to rehabilitating the legacy of Mr. Mulroney, who left office with low approval ratings.
Clearly enjoying a return to the limelight, he promised to be brief, adding he could only speak at length if he’s “being taped,” a reference to a profanity-laced tell-all book by Peter C. Newman based on their recorded conversations.
Mr. Mulroney said he was honoured by the environmental award, noting that one judge called him the “best of a bad bunch.”
“When you’ve been where I’ve been this is a hell of a ringing endorsement,” the former prime minister quipped.
Under Mr. Mulroney’s leadership, Canada hosted the signing of an international agreement to tackle ozone depletion and brought the Americans on board to support the United Nations convention on climate change at a 1992 conference in Rio de Janeiro.
Mr. Mulroney also noted that Canada hosted the first international conference on climate change in Toronto under his leadership. The conference concluded the effects of environmental degradation would be “second only to global nuclear war.”
In his address, Mr. Mulroney warned that the failure to take clear steps to tackle the environmental problems the world is facing will lead to more frequent and more powerful bad weather, such as the hurricanes that struck the U.S. last year, the loss of forests due to events such as the pine beetle infestation in British Columbia, hotter summers, warmer winters and the shrinking of the polar ice cap, with the possible extinction of the polar bear in the Arctic.
But he told the audience that his successful negotiations with the U.S. on acid rain should be most instructive for Canada’s political leaders, because the global quest to improve the state of the environment is as much about foreign policy as about science.
The work on acid rain began in March 1985 at the Shamrock Summit between Mr. Mulroney and then-U.S. president Ronald Reagan with the appointment of special envoys to tackle the problem. Because of the good relationship between the two leaders, Mr. Mulroney said, Mr. Reagan was compelled to “agree to consider” Canada’s demands despite the urgings of his top advisers.
A deal between the two countries was eventually signed in 1991 under the presidency of George Bush Sr.
“Anyone who fails to appreciate that there is an important connection between good personal relationship among leaders and success in foreign policy understands nothing about either,” Mr. Mulroney said.
He added that Mr. Harper is “off to a good start” in improving Canada-U.S. relations, noting the prime minister’s dictum that the two countries can disagree without being disagreeable.
“There is also a rule of global politics—Canada’s influence in the world is measured to a significant degree by the extent to which we are perceived as having real influence in Washington,” Mr. Mulroney told the audience.
“For the past decade and more, as many experts have observed, Canada allowed that clout to erode,” he added, taking a shot at the often strained ties under Liberal prime ministers Jean Chretien and Paul Martin.
Mr. Mulroney has had a clear influence on Mr. Harper’s fledgling government and even Mr. Harper admitted that while there are “precious few” voices of experience for Conservative prime ministers, Mr. Mulroney has played a “private but indispensible role” in his government.