A Lot of Canada's Leaders are on Very Thin Ice.

 

Let's put it this way. When called to rise to the occasion this year, Canada's political leadership - the premiers and the prime minister -  failed to distinguish themselves.

First mistake was treating the Covid-19 pandemic as a political issue. Trying to balance the commercial interest against the public health issues is damn near impossible. It's in every politician's DNA to take a victory lap, even when it's not warranted. How many times can you sound the "all clear" only to go back into lockdown a few months later? There was always that sense that public health was never the front runner.

Nobody dropped the ball as spectacularly as Jason Kenney. He was up and down like a toilet seat.

Then there were the other disasters that came rampaging across the country. Again we were taken by surprise, unprepared. Here in British Columbia we were whipsawed. An unusually damp spring with early snowpack runoff. Wildfires as we've not known them before. Blankets of dangerous smoke covering the country, west to east. Record setting heat - one town, three records, three days and then the place is erased by fire. Killer 'heat domes' that ended the lives of the most vulnerable. Then it was atmospheric rivers and flooding so severe that it took down all the highways and all the rail lines connecting Canada to its Pacific coast, its largest port.  Boom, gone, swept away. 

We were not prepared. 

Now we're being warned that 2022 could bring a repeat of 2021, perhaps even worse.

According to a 2019 report often cited by the federal government, Canada's climate is warming two times faster than the global average — three times faster in the North.

The rapidly changing climate is acknowledged — in the words of one government report — to be increasing "the frequency, intensity, and duration of extreme events like heat waves, wildfires, and floods." The trend is expected to continue for several decades, even if climate-warping emissions are reduced globally.

Severe weather events of increasing frequency, intensity and duration. Nothing new there. We've been warned about this for years. We were told this was our future and we did little to nothing to prepare for it.

Paul Kovacs, founder and executive director of the Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction at Western University, said the disasters of 2021 demonstrated the urgent need for a stronger climate plan.

"In the current year, we have seen the best and the worst of what Canadian policy does in terms of dealing with disasters," Kovacs told CBC News.

While he said Canada has become adept at responding to emergencies as they happen, more must be done to prevent disasters and help communities recover from them.

B.C. Premier John Horgan described his province's fall flooding disaster as a once-every-500-years event — but Kovacs said equally extreme floods, heat, fires, tornadoes and hurricanes should be expected in the coming years.

"These will be enormously bigger than anything we've experienced in the past when they do occur," he said.

Coastal communities also need more protection. A report released this month by the Intact Centre on Climate Adaption at the University of Waterloo found that Canada lacks a national system to assess risk in coastal areas.

The report called on the federal government to fund more natural infrastructure projects — such as stabilizing cliffs and restoring wetlands — to protect communities from rising sea levels.

British Columbia may be Canada's natural disaster poster boy but most of the country is feeling the lash in some way. Other provinces are experiencing more wildfires. The Prairie provinces are stuck in a multi-year drought that dropped grain production this year by 30 per cent and left ranchers without enough fodder or water to sustain their herds.

Sea level rise threatens all of our coasts: east, west and north. There are credible warnings that, as the Antarctic Thwaites ice shelf breaks free it could trigger the collapse of the Thwaites and associated glaciers, raising sea levels by two to three feet, best case scenario, to 10 feet, worst case. We're warned to be prepared for this to occur within 10 years.  How in hell do you prepare for something like that? Right now our government's priority seems to be building a pipeline to flood world markets with high-carbon, low value, climate wrecking bitumen. Does that sound a bit counter-intuitive?

There are rumblings that Justin may take his leave this year. O'Toole is a dead man walking. Jaggie doesn't seem to be lighting any fires.

BTW, I had a long chat with my old Tory pal yesterday. We've been friends for 48 years. He's pretty good at predicting political change. A gambling man, he's done very well with front office adjustments in the Conservative ranks, federally and provincially. He said if he had to bet on who would be running the federal Conservatives in a couple of years he'd put his money on Carolyn Mulroney, daughter of Lyin' Brian. 

There seems to be a leadership vacuum in the Tory ranks. Pierre "backpfeifengesicht" Poillievre isn't going to cut it.  The Mulroney team senses an opportunity and are putting out feelers in Ottawa. 

As for Justin, there's too much heavy lifting ahead and damn little reward on offer. He can hear the ice cracking because he's on it.