Canada and Australia - Comparing Environmental Policies in 16 Countries - page 132

it got 4.3% of the vote. Four years earlier it got less than 1%. Parliament
took a turn to the right in 2006 when the Conservative Party won 124 seats
in Commons, giving it more than the Liberals with 103. This gave it
control of the government with a new prime minister, Stephen Harper.
Unfortunately for the Conservatives, however, they did not have an abso-
lute majority, and hence had to try to govern with a minority. Neither of
the two small parties, the Bloc Québécois or the New Democrats, were
willing to enter a coalition for two reasons. Coalitions are rare in Canada,
and in any case, the two small parties are ideologically at the opposite pole
from the Conservatives. Harper called another election in 2008, hoping
to get an absolute majority. This time he won more seats, 143, but still did
not get the majority.
The 2011 election was very favorable for the Conservatives, giving it an
absolute majority of 166 seats out of 308. The once dominant Liberals won
only 34 seats, and the New Democratic Party became the official opposi-
tion with 103 seats. The Bloc Québécois nearly disappeared with only four
seats. One Green Party member won election. Stephen Harper was at last
clearly in charge.
The Conservative Party Platform contains a number of planks favor-
ing the environment. It brags of having created eight new protected areas,
expanded Nahanni Park to six times its previous size, and cleaned up rivers
and lakes. It describes its climate policy as supporting the Copenhagen
Accords of 2009, but many consider this voluntary agreement a step back-
ward. The party promotes the oil sands, which require much energy to
mine and refine, adding excessive greenhouse gas. It has acquired the
nickname of “the world's dirtiest fuel.” Harper has sought to export crude
from the sands to the United States and to China. That will go via the
new Keystone XL Pipeline crossing the border in Montana, then over the
Ogalala Aquifer south to refineries in Texas. Crude bound for China will
flow to a new port in Kitimat in northern British Columbia, a site many
consider environmentally fragile.
Harper represents a riding (district) in Calgary, Alberta, the center
of the oil industry. His father had been employed by the Imperial Oil
Company, and he began his own career in the mail room of the company's
office in Edmonton. Later he worked on computers and took a degree in
economics from the University of Calgary. He began his political career
in high school with the Liberal Party, but left it because he disagreed with
its National Energy Program. He then joined the Reform Party, winning
a seat in Parliament in 1993. Harper found differences with his new party,