Skid Crease

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Given Stephen Harper's desperate need to change the channel after a spring fraught with scandals – election fraud, financial fraud, senate fraud, PMO fraud – we all knew a Cabinet shuffle was coming. I took cerebral bets on the outcome and won most of them with a few glaring exceptions. Given the rules of political payback, the Prime Sinister had no choice but to keep the Mike Harrisites – Flaherty, Baird, and Clement – in the inner circle. Peter MacKay, who will eternally collect his thirty pieces of silver for turning over the Conservative name to the Reform Alliance posse, did a parallel career shift into Justice after being unable to defend his F-35 fiasco.

Another easy prediction – no senators allowed. After all, if you are going to try to toss the whole sober second chamber out, why bother. And besides, the stench of the PMO/Senate scandals did not fit with the happy tweeting about the fresh and innnocent new cabinet.

And no surprise for those who watch Power and Politics, that the young and photogenerational talking heads like Michelle Rempell and Chris Alexander will be now smiling for the camera from their new cabinet positions. Both had shown promise in the past but lately have demonstrated an inability to think – there is not much to talk about once you get past the glare of the Crest strip grin.

Now if a truly intelligent and independent thinker like Michael Chong, MP from Wellington-Halton Hills, had been appointed to the "new" Cabinet, it would have signalled genuine winds of change. Chong, however had previously supported Peter MacKay in the Conservative leadership race, went against the government's denier mentality in his support of the Kyoto Accord, and voted nay to Quebec as "a nation within Canada", all fatal flaws in the eyes of the PM.

Instead – in the first of my failed predictions – the hapless and synaptically challenged Pierre Poilievre, he of the now infamous blurt: "The root cause of terrorism is terrorists," makes it in as the Minister of State for Democratic Reform. Really? The thought of Harper's hyper-partisan yap dog trying to reform democracy is frightening indeed. This new position is a thinly disguised attempt to put Nigel Wright and Mike Duffy et al in a deep dark closet somewhere. Poilievre would best be assigned to the media room designing attack ads against anyone and anything slightly to the left of the extreme far right.

My second failure was in predicting that Peter Van Loan would be replaced. Astonishingly, he remains as Government House Leader, a continuing example of the bully-boy, bumbling brute kind of MP that Canadians have come to loathe. Sorry, Mr. Harper, nice try with the "generational change" shuffle, but you are obviously staying with the same predictable hand. And hard-working, tax-paying Canadians know your deck is marked.

*****

Skid Crease, Caledon

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I have waited ten years to see Stephen Harper humbled. I thought it would take a full-blown caucus revolt or a leadership convention defeat, or a massive loss in the next federal election. It only took an act of nature. While his head was firmly stuck in the tar sands, all of Mr. Harper's climate change chickens came home to roost in the capital of his oil industry on June 20, 2013.

When he arrived in Calgary on June 21, the flood devastation was at its peak. There was no controlled media studio with seamlessly edited images of kittens and blue sweaters. This was all too real with a sombre Harper overlooking the Bow River flanked by some real leaders. The Mayor of Calgary was resolute, the Premier of Alberta was decisive, the Prime Minster of Canada was simply stunned. “I never imagined we could have a flood of this magnitude in this country. Until you really see it in person you don’t get a sense…this is an incredible event,” Harper said. No imagination. This is the same man who proclaimed that climate change was a socialist plot.

Aided by his "Friends of Science" climate change deniers like Tim Ball and Ross McKitrick and all the other signatories on the anti-Kyoto petition delivered to the newly installed PM in 2006, Harper has systematically destroyed Canada's credibility. He has denied accelerating climate change exists, has removed Canada from the Kyoto Protocol obligations, has snubbed existing environmental review policies, and has impeded the development of new ones. All the while, legitimate meteorologists and scientists have been warning about the increasing frequency of severe storms as one of the symptoms of accelerating climate change.

The insurance industry has also been vocal, serving notice that claims for severe storm damage have been steadily increasing in frequency and dollar amount. Unfortunately for Calgarians, Canada is the only G8 country that does not offer overland flood insurance. Critics of this lack of foresight have suggested that we adopt the UK model that links insurance policy coverage to the government's policies to mitigate severe climate change catastrophes. No government policy, no insurance coverage. And those policies would include severe storm disaster preparation.

Part of my heart and soul are in Alberta. I met my first grizzly in Waterton Lakes while horseback riding on the trails, and later rock climbing there marvelled at a golden eagle as it soared beneath me. I delivered my first major Global Perspectives keynote on Earth Day 1990 in Kananaskis Country to a lengthy standing ovation. I got married in 1999 in Canmore on the banks of Cougar Creek under the peaks of The Three Sisters and our wedding party walked through town along the Creek's new boardwalk. On June 20, 2013 that was all washed away. My entire wedding party lives and works in Calgary. I emailed them all as soon as we got news of the flood. Their homes were safe and the cabin in Canmore was on high ground and protected. They are also practitioners in wilderness crisis management, and their response didn't mince words: "We are fine, but the city is crippled. This is serious – there's a wide world of hurt ripping away so close to us."

Calgary and Alberta, my heart is with you. Stephen Harper, this is supposed to be your home – wake up!

*****

Skid Crease, Caledon