HARPER NAMES BAIRD ENVIRONMENT MINISTER; HOPES FOR

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 05 OTTAWA 000050

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E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: SENV ENRG PGOV PINR CA
SUBJECT: HARPER NAMES BAIRD ENVIRONMENT MINISTER; HOPES FOR
TORY EVIRONMENTAL RENAISSANCE

REF: A. 07 OTTAWA 013


B. 06 OTTAWA 3561

C. 06 OTTAWA 3423 AND PREVIOUS

Sensitive but Unclassified. Please protect accordingly.


1. (SBU) Summary and Comment: The most noteworthy change in
PM Harper's January 4 cabinet re-shuffle in preparation for a
probable election later this year saw the oft-criticized Rona
Ambrose depart Environment Canada for the much less sensitive
Intergovernmental Affairs portfolio. Her replacement is John
Baird, most recently president of the Treasury Board. Harper
may have felt a change was due because of a growing
recognition the Conservatives underestimated the importance
of climate change to Canadian voters, the conventional wisdom
that the Tories are weak on the environment, and Liberal
leader (and former Liberal environment minister) Stephane
Dion's announced intent to make climate change a key issue in
the coming national election campaign. Observers believe
Baird was the choice to take charge of the environment
portfolio because of his own success in defending government
policy in Commons.


2. (SBU) While the Conservative environmental program takes a
far different approach than that Dion and the Liberals
espoused before their fall from power a year ago, the Tories
have pursued with some degree of ingenuity a program that has
significant similarities with U.S. approaches. They just
have done a terrible job of selling it to the electorate.
Ambrose, of course, bears responsibility for that, even
though the PM has increasingly played the role of chief
spokesman on the environment. Baird's chief roles must be to
defend Conservative environmental plans against Liberal
attacks while promoting their "greenness" with the public.
He has apparently impressed the PM with his abilities on the
former, and he will have plenty of opportunity to display
them when Dion makes the environment a key issue in the
campaign. Baird may be less suited to explaining the
benefits of the Tory environmental plan to the voters, but he
will have proved the worth of Harper's re-shuffle if he can
blunt forthcoming Liberal charges that the Tories have
mishandled their stewardship of the environment. Membership
for Canada in the Asia Pacific Partnership for Clean
Development and Climate may help the Harper government pursue
its climate change goals more effectively. The USG might
consider stronger advocacy for Canada's membership in APP.
End Summary and Comment.


3. (SBU) Canada's Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper
shuffled his cabinet on January 4 (ref A),ostensibly to
better prepare for the coming election campaign. While a
total of 13 Tory stalwarts was involved in the re-shuffle or
named new junior ministers, it is clear that Harper's major
focus was squarely on the environment, a file where the
Tories have suffered considerable criticism since the
introduction in October of the draft Clean Air Act, the
supposed centerpiece of their environmental program (ref C).
Headlining the re-shuffle was the move of former Treasury
Board (a cabinet committee responsible for the management of
government expenditure and human resources in the public
service) president John Baird to Environment Canada. Rona
Ambrose, Harper's first environment minister, was shifted -
QAmbrose, Harper's first environment minister, was shifted -
though most would say demoted - to minister in charge of
intergovernmental affairs and given concurrent
responsibilities for managing "Western economic
diversification." Ambrose's ouster had been widely and
wildly rumored for weeks, and morning-after press reporting
headlined Harper's "green revolution," all but ignoring the
wider re-shuffle.

Who is Riding to the Rescue on the Environment File?
-------------- --------------

4. (SBU) Within an hour of the swearing in ceremony,
Environment Canada staffers were sending around Baird's bio
(so hasty were they that the bio did not even include the new
minister's election to the House of Commons in January 2006

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or his leadership at Treasury Board),which makes clear the
bulk of his working life has been spent in elective politics.
Baird's rise, as pointed out in front page stories in major
newspapers, has been rapid, if not meteoric, taking him from
a freshly elected member of the Ontario Provincial Parliament
in June 1995 to federal MP in 2006 and by early 2007 to
minister in charge of a portfolio that figures to be at the
very center of the upcoming federal election campaign. His
bio lists a range of political responsibilities, from Ontario
Minister of Community and Social Services (1999-2002) and
Ontario Minister of Energy (2002-2003) to opposition critic
on several files, but no apparent previous experience
directly on the environment.


5. (SBU) He also had the opportunity to polish his
parliamentary management skills as deputy leader, party whip,
and opposition leader in the Ontario Legislature. In
Harper's eyes, these skills, and Baird's reported strong
friendship with the PM, may represent more important
qualifications for the environment job than his management
and substantive experience as a minister in the Ontario
provincial government.

Why the Change?
--------------

6. (SBU) A range of factors certainly contributed to PM
Harper's decision to replace Ambrose, but the constant
drumbeat of criticism in the press and from the political
opposition over Kyoto and the Conservatives' alleged weakness
on the environment, along with several well-publicized
Ambrose gaffs, must have topped the list. The scant
attention the Harper government paid to the environment in
its early months - highlighted in the public eye by Rona
Ambrose's May announcement at a UN climate change meeting in
Bonn that Canada would not meet its Kyoto Protocol commitment
to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 6 percent from 1990
levels - was consistent with the priorities stressed in the
campaign, but it also reflected a clear underestimation of
the importance paid to the environment by the population at
large. The Conservative's campaign platform presented a
bare-bones environmental agenda, failing to mention Kyoto,
and as late as April 2006, the environment received almost no
mention in the government's Throne Speech laying out its
broad legislative agenda. (In just one sentence buried near
the end and without elaboration, the Harper government
promised, "(i)t will take measures to achieve tangible
improvements in our environment, including reductions in
pollution and greenhouse gas emissions." This in contrast to
the detail devoted in both the campaign platform and the
Throne Speech to Harper's chief priorities of government
accountability, a stronger posture against crime, and
family-friendly initiatives such as lower taxes, better
health care, and greater support for child care.)


7. (SBU) By mid-spring, however, Rona Ambrose was already
telling domestic and international audiences that "the Kyoto
target is seriously flawed and that the emissions targets it
imposes on Canada are unrealistic and unattainable." The
Liberals, she went on, had been misguided and acted too
hastily in setting it. Her announcement attracted
considerable attention, particularly among the opposition.
Yet it was not until the late October tabling of the Clean
QYet it was not until the late October tabling of the Clean
Air Act, the centerpiece of the Conservative environmental
plan, that the uproar seemingly became impossible to ignore.
Stung by the uproar, Harper changed tack and was claiming (by
mid-December) the environment would be a Conservative
priority in 2007. At the very center of the public outcry
were Kyoto and the long timeframes (to 2050) within which the
Conservatives committed to achieve emissions reductions.
(Note: The constant reference by the Liberals, the NDP and
others back to Kyoto has taken on the character of a
"mantra." A thorough assessment of Canada's greenhouse gas
emissions by the Office of the Auditor General's Environment
Commissioner last September concluded that emissions were
already 36 percent above the target as of 2004. Clearly the
Liberal record on climate change is not as good as its

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supporters have made it out to be. End note.)


8. (SBU) Opposition criticism was predictable, and opinion
polls revealed the extent of public dissatisfaction. By late
summer, polls were concluding the environment had leapt ahead
of health care as the issue that most concerned Canadians,
and more recent polls reveal an electorate not convinced that
either party would do a good job on climate change. Polls in
December, for example, show between 65 and 75 percent of
Canadians think the government is doing a poor job on climate
change. Whether this dissatisfaction was driven by criticism
from politicians and some of Canada's prominent
environmentalists, by Ambrose's failure to convince an
already skeptical public, or by this winter's abnormally warm
weather in much of Canada is immaterial. At the heart of the
matter the Conservatives were perceived as weak on the
environment, and Ambrose proved incapable of turning around
that perception.


9. (SBU) Stephane Dion's December selection as federal
Liberal Party leader also put pressure on the Prime Minister
to revamp his environment lineup. From the beginning of the
Liberal leadership campaign, Dion, his party's environment
minister going into the January 2006 national election and
chair of the UNFCCC COP-11/MOP-1 in Montreal in November
2005, had made the environment a key, if not the leading,
element of his campaign platform (ref B). And Dion's
continuing criticism of the Conservative environmental record
seems hardly likely to let up, given public perceptions. In
the run up to and during a national election campaign (which
most observers still think is likely later this spring),it
would be important in Harper's eyes to have a minister of the
environment adept at parliamentary in-fighting, one of
Baird's acknowledged strengths. Ambrose, on the other hand,
had the reputation for misspeaking and contradicting herself
in parliamentary hearings and elsewhere. Press commentary,
in fact, has described the Baird appointment in exactly such
terms: his goal in the period before the election, according
to some, is to "neutralize" the Liberals on the environment.


10. (SBU) Finally, Harper just may have backed himself into a
corner on the portfolio. When rumors of a cabinet re-shuffle
to replace Ambrose began in earnest before the Christmas
holidays, the Prime Minister did little to deny them or to
defend the embattled environment minister. The more
widespread the rumors, the more difficult it became for
Harper to make the case the environment was a top priority.
He had to make the move if the Conservatives were to have any
chance of recapturing the environmental high ground from the
Liberals. (Even several days after the January 4 re-shuffle,
much press and opposition commentary still doubts that Harper
truly has "got it" when it comes to climate change and the
environment.)

What Went Wrong?
--------------

11. (SBU) Observers (including Liberal environment critic
John Godfrey) don't put all the blame for Ambrose's
lackluster performance on her alone, noting that Harper had
given her a relatively short leash and suggesting she did the
best she could under the circumstances. There is certainly
some truth to this observation, at least to the extent that
Qsome truth to this observation, at least to the extent that
the Prime Minister was heavily involved in the public
presentation of the environmental agenda. He was, for
example, front and center for the rollout of the draft Clean
Air Act and for a new Chemicals Management Plan, another
piece of the Tory environmental platform. And, bureaucratic
contacts in several ministries told Embassy in advance of the
release of the Clean Air Act that both the strategy and the
process were being tightly controlled by the Prime Minister's
office.


12. (SBU) These same contacts also told Embassy officers that
elements of the overall environmental program would be
released individually, beginning with the centerpiece Clean
Air Act, which they planned to bill largely as health-related

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because of its focus on pollutants (jointly with greenhouse
gases),perhaps because the government did not want to
compete with the Liberals directly and only on climate
change. In fact, according to press reporting in the past
several days, the government's public strategy was in trouble
before it ever got off the ground. According to these
reports, the government engaged a consulting firm to develop
logos and slogans for a "Green Plan" (echoing the 1990 "Green
Plan for a Healthy Environment" of former Conservative PM
Brian Mulroney, who in 2005 was named Canada's "greenest
prime minister" by an environmental magazine) but they were
discarded during the summer because of poor reactions in
focus group testing. To complicate matters, Ambrose's
message on the Clean Air Act's public health benefits was
lost when it was introduced because of immediate charges by
the Liberals and the New Democratic Party that the plan's
longer timeframes for hard targets on greenhouse gases
amounted to a retreat on climate change. Her message was
also the victim of a parliamentary and media uproar over
comments derogatory to another MP allegedly made by Foreign
Minister Peter McKay.

Are the Tories Weak on the Environment?
--------------

13. (U) Conventional wisdom - as borne out by numerous polls
- holds that the Conservatives are weak on the environment,
but this seems largely an artifact of the Kyoto debate. With
Rona Ambrose in charge of the environment file, the Harper
government in fact has doggedly pursued the (admittedly) few
specific items on the environment laid out in its original
campaign platform. The five specific items in the platform
are legislating reductions in air pollutants (Clean Air Act
introduced in October); addressing greenhouse gas emissions
through new technologies and in consultation with provinces
(Clean Air Act introduced; consultations on-going); ensuring
water quality, cleaning up contaminated sites; and requiring
5 percent renewable content in fuels by 2010 (announced in
December). Moreover, dispassionate observers, including
bureaucratic officials, some in business and industry, and
even some environmentalists give the Clean Air Act and the
Chemicals Management Plan more credit than does the public.
According to its campaign platform on the environment, then,
the Tories are making progress; there is just no mention of
Kyoto.


14. (SBU) But the way ahead on the environment for the
Conservatives is uncertain. The centerpiece of their
program, the Clean Air Act, has been referred for revision to
an ad hoc parliamentary drafting committee, where the Tories
are not in the majority, and it is impossible to predict how
much of their original act will be retained (ref C). The
drafting committee has been named, but it has yet to meet,
and there is no timeline for it to complete the redraft of
the draft Act. At the same time, two competing private
member's bills are still on the table. Political observers
have speculated in the past couple of days that the
Conservatives could be open to dealing on the environment
with Jack Layton's NDP for support in the House (with the
crossover to the Conservatives of a Liberal MP on January 5,
Qcrossover to the Conservatives of a Liberal MP on January 5,
a Conservative-NDP alliance could prevent an election).
While Conservative cooperation with the NDP is not out of the
question, Layton said in an interview on January 8 that he
was not prepared to give in to the government on Kyoto.
Theoretically his implied threat to bring down the government
over climate change remains on the table.


15. (SBU) The policies and degrees of freedom new environment
minister John Baird will have are also uncertain, of course,
and contacts at Environment Canada are still in the process
of getting him up to speed. They do say he is "experienced"
from his days running Ontario provincial ministries and that
he appointment is an indication of how seriously Harper now
regards the environment file. We would not be surprised to
see some minor movement toward Liberal positions on climate
change policy, perhaps in advancing the current generous
timelines for absolute reductions in emissions, depending on

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how successful Baird proves to be in "neutralizing" the
Liberals. On the other hand, we would be surprised to see a
significant shift with respect to Kyoto. An unrepentant
Stephen Harper told a television interviewer on January 7
that while he accepted the science, addressing climate change
was a long-term challenge. In 2012, Canada was going to be
50 percent over its Kyoto commitment, the PM claimed, and he
didn't see any easy - or quick - solution.

Whither Rona
--------------

16. (SBU) Rona Ambrose will take over the less sensitive
intergovernmental affairs portfolio, and she will have
concurrent responsibilities for Western economic
diversification and to preside over the Queen's Privy
Council. The intergovernmental affairs ministry, the more
important of her new responsibilities, is in actuality a unit
of the Privy Council Office, and supports the minister and
cabinet on policy and communications related to
federal-provincial-territorial relations, the evolution of
the federation, and Canadian unity. Observers consider her
new assignment a demotion, but she is undoubtedly better
suited for it (from previous experience as opposition critic
on the file and from similar responsibilities for the Alberta
provincial government).

Moving Forward on the Environment
--------------

17. (SBU) After the re-shuffle PM Harper gave Ambrose an
endorsement tempered by acknowledgement the Tories had
misjudged the public mood on the environment when he said,
"...a lot more was done by Minister Ambrose in one year than
by the previous government in 12. But we recognize,
particularly when it comes to clean air and climate change,
that Canadians expect a lot more." The several initiatives
begun under Ambrose's reign at Environment Canada, especially
the Clean Air Act, were important beginnings and do have
considerable potential to improve many facets of the
environment in Canada, but the degree to which that potential
can be realized must depend on the skill of John Baird on the
floor of Commons and in the court of public opinion, where
his chief opponent is likely none other than Liberal leader
Stephane Dion. For his part, Baird is not tipping his hand
on possible differences on policy, strategy or tactics,
saying only that he is enthusiastic about his new
responsibilities and that his first order of business will be
getting "briefed up" by his staff and other Canadian
environmental stakeholders.


18. (SBU) The approaches towards the environment taken by
Stephen Harper and Rona Ambrose are much closer to ours than
those of Paul Martin's Liberal government, and the USG has
worked more closely with Canada on climate change and other
environmental issues during Ambrose's tenure at Environment
Canada. Canadian officials have expressed their strong
interest in joining the Asia Pacific Partnership for Clean
Development, and full Canadian participation would reinforce
approaches the Harper government has taken that are in line
with ours, as well as provide additional impetus to the APP
itself. As we understand the present situation, the USG has
advised Canada that we fully support their interest in APP.
Perhaps stronger advocacy by the United States on behalf of
QPerhaps stronger advocacy by the United States on behalf of
the Canadian interest would lead to early APP membership and
help the Harper government demonstrate the value of close
cooperation with the U.S. and other major economies and the
effectiveness of public-private partnerships in fostering new
and practical technologies to address climate change, and at
the same time help resist the pressure to return to a
commitment to meet Kyoto targets.

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