Environment Canada has not explained why they won't support the bans but it's possibly related to pique at the proposed ban on commercial trade in polar bear parts put forward at CITES by the US and backed by Russia, which banned polar bear hunting in 1956. The other polar bear regions - Alaska, Greenland, and Norway - have all banned it aside from the traditional practice by indigenous peoples.
According to the United States Geological Survey in 2007, the decline in sea ice is expected to lead to the extirpation of approximately two-thirds of the world's polar bear populations within the next 50 years.
Environment Canada reported 75% of Canada's commercially traded polar bear skins or bodies were exported to China in 2011.
Insert mental pic of polar bear balancing on tiny ice floe floating out to sea here.
As MacKinnon so aptly illustrates, the only species Steve has shown any real interest in protecting so far is the tar sands ...
"The federal government failed to spend a total of $321-million Parliament approved for “environmentally responsible” programs last year—nearly one-third of the money that was available for that purpose—while spending more than the $438-million that had been set aside to fund programs that primarily supported the oil and gas sector through scientific research, market development and government advertising."Liberal MP John McKay :
“We’re not nearly dead last in climate change progress for nothing, we worked at it, and we worked at it by emphasizing the oil sands in preference to everything else. So when we have this impending oil deflation, the price of oil deflation, all of our eggs are in that basket and because all of our eggs are in that one basket, we’re just watching that basket sail down the river, and there is no plan B."Insert mental pic of Canada balancing on tiny oil derrick floating down the river here.
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