The Tories pull a few quick ones...

Environmental politics don't seem to emanate too widely here in Canada, and the Conservatives would love to keep it that way. The two most recent happenings on the environmental front are case in point.

Although publicly released earlier in March, the intricacies 2010-2011 budget were not fully released until a few days ago. In these new details, it was revealed that the federal environmental assessment process was, in almost every sense of the word, being gutted.

When projects are applying for federal government approval, they are normally required to complete an environmental assessment. These assessments, though not free of problems, tend to take at least one year and review each nitty, gritty aspect of a project's impact on the environment. The process is in many ways the strongest line of defence against environmentally unfriendly projects. The new regulations, which were tacked on to the bottom of a budget bill in a particularly sneaky fashion, gives the Environment Minister authority to reduce what parts of a project need to be subjected to an assessment.

Quite simply, the most damaging parts of projects like those in the Oil Sands, wouldn't need to go through a full environmental assessment. This has undoubtedly been a keen interest of the governing Conservatives for some time, so to some this is not all that surprising. However, it is the fact that this aspect wasn't publicly released that is very bothering.

The second dent of the day came when the government announced that the possibility of entering into its extremely popular ecoENERGY home retrofit program was coming to a close. Most programs come to an end, but it was especially alarming that the deadline to enter the program was midnight of the same day the deadline was announced, leaving people to scramble to have assessments done that day. The date was arbitrary and largely unforeseen. For service providers, this means a lot of their clients -- many of which had scheduled months before for a home visit -- will be left without a home visit.

This is also mischievous because the program itself does not end until March of 2011, so the government will still brag about the program. It is true that the program can take over a year to complete in its entirety, but a little more notice would have been nice. Cancelling the program, which has been extremely popular since its creation under the previous Liberal government, has always been controversial (and delayed) because of its popularity. Cancelling it in concert with its very popular Home Renovation tax credit is sure to piss some people off, especially in this time of 'economic stimulus'.

It is not a secret that this government does not consider the environment a priority, but they should at least be upfront about it, rather than pulling sneaky tactics like this.