Leona Aglukkaq lauds support from renewable fuels lobbyists

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• published: 08 Oct 2014
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It’s a good day for any lobbyist whose opinion is immortalized in Hansard. Today, the lucky people at the Canadian Renewable Fuels Association, the voice of the ethanol and biodiesel industry, get to pat themselves on the back after no less than a cabinet minister gave their president a shout-out in the House of Commons. Megan Leslie, the NDP’s deputy leader, made it all possible by asking when the Conservative government would regulate emissions for oil and gas producers. Her question’s preamble recalled the fall report of Julie Gelfand, Canada’s Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development. Gelfand concluded in her report, released yesterday, that the government wouldn’t meet its emissions reductions targets. Aglukkaq didn’t have much to say about emissions regulations. She rarely does. The minister’s months-old claims about government action on climate change stand debunked. Her claims on emissions reductions are dead wrong. Instead of repeating those claims, again, Aglukkaq criticized Gelfand’s report. To that end, she appealed to CRFA President Scott Thurlow. “He was very disappointed with the commissioner’s report because it omitted major information,” the minister told the Commons. Aglukkaq then read Thurlow’s opinion into the record: “The renewable fuels regulations introduced by this Conservative government have removed the equivalent of a million cars and trucks from our roads. They did so while promoting $3.5 billion of economic growth.” End response. For lobbyists, that right there is mission accomplished. The problem is that a renewable fuels industry group can find its talking points in Hansard after an opposition politician asks the government why it won’t regulate a carbon-belching industry. Something seems inherently missing when question period is reduced to whatever clever lobbyists, no matter their perspective, want to hear. Maybe it’s inevitable in Ottawa’s halls of power. But it takes a special kind of lazy minister to borrow someone else’s canned lines because her own no longer fool anybody.